R. Curry wrote:
"You may not "like" the end results, nor the patterns that persist in the
animal world, but that doesn't make them go away."
My point exactly. The idea that the vast majority of inter- and
intra-species interactions in the world are NOT aggressive is not "liked" in
a culture for which high levels of aggression are the norm, and the idea is
hotly opposed.
I have a B.S. and M.S. in biology and have spent the last thirty years as a
biologist, research biologist, and teacher and have been working on these
issues for a long time. The actual consideration of facts in the native
world, as with the facts of anthropological studies, are often colored by the
reality that science for a long time has been developed within the culture of
men. There is a great deal of study on this, and on it's effect on the point
of view from which research has been designed and evaluated. These are not
intended as emotional statements, but rather as attempts to view the world as
clearly as possible...attempts to view the world outside of cultural
imperatives. Rather than stopping at some behavior that appears to be
aggressive and saying, "Aha! I knew it!" we must go on to the end of the
story. If you stay on and watch carefully, in many species aggressive
behavior is followed up by interactions that re-establish community bonds.
It is useful to examine studies and ask, "Does this behavior enhance or
diminish diversity?" If it diminishes it, then it is entirely rational and
logical to look for follow-up behavior that again supports the existance of a
large gene pool. Species with less diversity often cannot change with a
changing environment. We call this process extinction.
I would like to end with a comment out of "Why a woman's place is in the
Forest Service" that appeared in the Seattle-Post Intelligencer on Tuesday,
Nov 1990. The piece is an interview with Jack Ward Thomas of the Forest
Service. He notes that his job as a biologist was to produce big game and
trees for cutting. He had no idea about protecting other species, such as
the spotted owl, because "We didn't even hunt them." When, as years went by,
he realized something might be amiss with the management process, he said
nothing. "I didn't want to throw a crying fit. ..It wasn't macho. I didn't
want to be a weenie."
But the Forest service had to hire women (yes, afffirmative action!) and
women approached forest management from a different perspective. In the
article, Jack is quoted as saying he won't sit still now for any action that
would be harmful to the survival of wildlife. "Working with women has given
me the courage to do that."
My experience over all these years as a biologist is that,yes, the idea that
the world is "not a pretty place" is in part due to the culture from which
science derived and that the addition of new cultural views, in particular
those that do not have aggressive behavior as primary focus but include
mating, the rearing of young, the education of the young in survival
proceedures, pair and community bonding, and interactive cycles and
dependence, is allowing us to finally see the native world as it really
is...a pretty nice place, indeed.
