Re: Evolution, "adaptation", and what's currently adaptive
Bryant (mycol1@unm.edu)
4 Sep 1996 17:24:33 -0600
In article <lpiotrow.405.322DD744@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu>,
Len Piotrowski <lpiotrow@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
>>>It's a central problem to your thesis of a functional adaptationist
>>>explanation for a human behavior. Do babies in your family display
>>>jealousy?
>
>>What's your point, Lenny? They're not sex-seeking either.
>Didn't contemplate your "jealousy" urges on the same plane as "sex urges." So
>why don't you lay out for us your entire theory about "jealousy" so that we
>may evaluate it without any hidden caveats.
I was trying to get at your hidden assumptions, Lenny. Were you arguing
or implying that innate tendencies should be evident in infants? That's
what I understood you to be arguing.
>Let me put it to you this way, Bryant. I doubt the efficacy of your "jealousy
>trait." If a sib is jealous of their mom paying inordinate attention to her
>newborn, is that affected by your "not sex-seeking" argument?
My "non-sex seeking" "argument," insomuch as that question was an
argument, was simply asked to make the point that not everything designed
by selection is manifest in juvenile organisms.
You have yet to offer a sound rationale for rejecting emotions (or, more
precisely, the behaviors they motivate) as being subject to natural
selection.
Bryant
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