Re: INCEST TABOOS
Gil Hardwick (gil@landmark.iinet.net.au)
Thu, 25 May 1995 02:54:07 GMT
In article <wilkins-2205951004080001@mac213.wehi.edu.au>, John Wilkins (wilkins@wehi.edu.au) writes:
>I'm not entirely sure about the "recession" theory of incest, but a
>plausible scenario is that irrespective of whatever underlying knowledge
>or mythology a society may have, the *results* of close inbreeding will
>tend to select culturally against the practice, so that the practice of
>prohibiting inbreeding and encouraging outbreeding will be passed on to
>future generations. However, this is a pretty weak selection pressure, so
>I'm not sure [cf, Egyptian Pharonic sibling marriage to avoid pollution of
>the royal blood]. I rather think that agricultural societies could *learn*
>from observation that animals and people closely bred had unacceptable
>frequencies of undesirable traits, and that this was rationalised in any
>number of ways.
Look, John, get a life eh? Instead of these pathetic syllogisms of
your own imagining you people keep throwing back at us, which arise
ONLY from your propensity to favour certain theoretical constructs,
how about some of you people actually go out there into the field and
do some basic research.
How about doing some science for a change, instead of sitting there
with your nose in philosophy and media studies? How about GOING OUT
THERE and gathering some data FIRST, and then see what it might tell
us about the actuality of the human condition.
You are doing is no favours here. It is all you people who are the
obfuscationists and obscurantists, not us, and coming from OUTSIDE of
our profession one is obliged to wonder what it is motivating you.
I mean, your silly institutionalised career paths and public funding
priorities cannot possibly be so important that you seek to confuse
and destroy well over 100 years of scientific research data with your
constant rehashing of the same old tired ideas, can they?
No matter, as usual we out here simply return to our rural retreats
to live quietly away from all the intrigue as we watch the rot set in
all over again. It is not me who fails to understand Darwin; surely
he was subjected to the same threats and abuse as I have been over so
many years, for daring to point out the actual real world facts which
make such a mockery of the prevailing dogmas dominating intellectual
circles from time to time.
What will it be in the next few generations, I wonder? The way it is
going it doesn't surprise me one little bit that we might well see
the real world out there being repudiated entirely, while all these
CyberAnthropologists and Internet Philosophers just go on and on
thrusting and stabbing at one another to be first yet again with their
snouts in the trough.
Otherwise, what point are you making Wilkins? What are you trying to
say to us about the human condition?
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