Keith Henson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: <snippage> > http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html > > "The goal of research in evolutionary > psychology is to discover and > understand the design of the human mind.... > "In this view, the mind is a set of > information-processing machines > that were designed by natural selection to solve > adaptive problems faced by > our hunter-gatherer ancestors. This way of thinking > about the brain, mind, > and behavior is changing how scientists approach old > topics, and opening up new ones...."
> > > Incidentally, war may be highly non-adaptive for > technologies > > > higher than hunter gatherer. For example, > warfare in the > > > American Southwest starting about 1250 CE and > the response > > > the tribes made (moving into forts) was > incompatible with > > > their corn farming technology. This > incompatibility caused > > > continuing privation driven war. The result was > that most of > > > the population died out in a generation. It is > quite a > > > story. http://www.athenapub.com/8prewar.htm I think an argument can be made that - in terms of expansion of genes and memes - war _is_ adaptive when one culture is technologically more advanced than the other; the above is rather like the MAD scenario carried out with spears and clubs instead of nukes. By our standards today, genocidal warfare is utterly reprehensible, but it _is_ effective, if all you care about is spreading your descendants and culture. :P Tangentially related are some of the premises of _Guns, Germs and Steel_ by Jared Diamond, which I recently finished reading (maybe there was already a discussion of this on the List, before my time?): that because of the paucity of suitable domesticable animals and plants (related to the extinction/extermination of many large mammals in the Americas, co-incident with the arrival of humans), there was a Spanish invasion of the Incan and Aztec empires, rather than a Mesoamerind invasion of Europe. In a nutshell, reliable food production and the exchange of plants/animals/techniques/ideas was more easily accomplished in Eurasia - as were diseases derived from domesticated animals - and much earlier, because of both the presence of suitable plants and animals in the ancient Fertile Crescent -> ability to support the rise of non-food-producing individuals/classes of people; the east-west axis orintation of the Eurasian continent (versus the geographical difficulties encountered in going frex from eastern North America to the Peruvian Andes) furthered this exchange. Later, memes of the fractionated and competing states (Europe) versus unified and monolithic one(s) (China) were permitted more expansion and diversity; frex Columbus was able to ask for backing from several states, whereas the order of one court stopped China's sea exploration. But I don't think that geography per se really explains the difference between mindsets, although I can see how it contributes. Culture, and all that it entails, seems too complex to me to be reduced to a matter of place and time. Still, I enjoyed reading the book very much - I found the chapters on the Austronesian Expansion, Africa, and Polynesian cultures especially interesting. Here is one book review: http://dannyreviews.com/h/Guns_Germs_Steel.html Debbi No Blank Slates Maru __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
