Re: Aberrant Anthropology
Braxton (bsheaff@epix.net)
Sun, 08 Jan 1995 09:09:00 -0500
In article
<Pine.SUN.3.90.950108031940.17873B-100000-100000@voyager.cris.com>,
TimAmmons <Ammons@cris.com> wrote:
> I havn't read his book, but one survival method early humanoids used
> to obtain food was to use rocks to break open bones to get at the
> marrow; breaking open animal skulls to get at the brain also would
> be understandable... cannibalistic brain-eating apes, that intelligence
literally can be
I can understand how he might have skewed the brain eating. In
Pychology experiments with planaria-flatworms-pretty dull creatures that
live in streams under rocks, you can teach one a maze-just a simple one
and then grind it up, and feed it to its friends and they know the maze.
Before you start considering the benefits of being Jeffrey Dalmer--it
doesn't work with humans. The digestion of the material is more complete
and the blood-brain barrier keeps out foreign proteins that could be
responsible for memory. Besides the flatworms friends aren't any more
intelligent after they have their buddy for lunch--they just know more.
The two ain't necessarily the same.
I don't know many of the theories you are looking for, but sociobiology is
really pretty far-fetched if you are just looking at a layman's/public
interest level for a magazine or newspaper article.
--
_________________________________________________________
| | | Bill Sheaffer <Braxton> | | |
| "Wasting time creatively is my life's ambition" |
| |
| Temple U. |
| Millersburg H.S. |
| Millersburg Ferryboat |
| Harrisburg Astronomical Soc. |
| ________________________ |
| | | |
| | [] [] [] [] | \ / |
| | |----+--- |
|---------|______________________|---/ \-----------------
|