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Good points, Ray,
Keith may not have thought
this through. Perhaps he should ask the parents of children with Down's
syndrome
whether they would rather not have
experienced the love and joy of having had their kids, however short
and challenging those relationships can be. This is a choice out
of love for life that people make, and as a result society does benefit in ways
many people have not bothered to educate themselves. On your death bed,
you will not be saying, gee, I wish I'd spent more time at the office;
you'll be regretting not having spent more time with loved ones.
Relationships are the most important thing, and forgiveness of the world
you think you see is the key to happiness. Children with such limitations
harbour no ill to anyone, are open and kind and loving to us all. I'd far sooner
have those prevailing attributes in humans than what most dish
out.
As to the other
comment made by Keith, " I don't believe that all humans should have equal
rights", ..."but for some basic respects", and "no unintelligent person on
complex matters such as nuclear power were there to be a one-issue vote",
sits uncomfortably with me. Though I can relate to the extent that such
buffoons as Bush should not be making decisions on nuclear power issues--I quite
agree. Yet we have so-called qualified professionals making the wrong decisions
in their own fields all the time. Many people resent the fact that we are using
nuclear power at all, and for good reasons. Yet the people in the field will be
pushing for issues that involves expansion of its use often at the expense of so
many and so much. Take China and the displacement of possibly two million
people, though officials said it was only about one million, to create new power
facilities. The "common person" could tell you this was really wrong, and
professionals would attest to the benefits alone.
We have professionals from
chemical factories advising farmers to use their life-wasting, cancer causing
products, and pharmaceutical research teams advising doctors to use improperly
tested medicines, and doctors in turn advising patients irresponsibly. Up to one
third of medication is dispensed to the detriment of the patient, and just about
as many victims fill hospital beds. All this at the expense of human
life and our pocket books. Mustard gas was used in chemo-therapy. That was voted
on by professional researchers, right? Or, was it some greedy company forcing
the issue, while the researchers, as is unfortunately often the case in applied
research, trembled over losing their jobs if they didn't back it?
Oh, I forgot to mention
professionals who work on devising weaponry, bombs and bio and chemical tools
that kill and maim for tens of thousands of generations. Now these pro's really
are qualified to vote on their own livelihood, let alone the well-being and
future quality of life of all living creatures and their only
environment.
Really, it does take
all minds to contribute to life issues. Popularity or
credentials do not necessarily, if indeed often enough, manifest in
wisdom.
Natalia
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 4:13
AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] We are young
chimps (was: Friendliness is genetic.)
Keith you said:
I believe that all humans should have equal rights in some basic
respects, but I don't believe that, for example, an unintelligent person
should have an equal vote as me on complex matters such as nuclear power, were
there to be a one-issue election,
REH comment:
Keith, this seems so totally at odds with your
opinions about art. Should we ask for one's resume when
deciding whether an artist will live or die based upon the quality of their
art? Especially given the miserable record of accomplishment over
the years by the intellectual crowd in picking masterpieces and seminal
art? Here in the US homo-economicus even insists upon an
enforced ignorance on the part of Presidents by insisting that they only serve
long enough to learn the job and then leave "for the greater
good." People who know nothing about the value or meaning of
my work make decisions about how well I will live or if I will make a living
at all in my work all the time. Perhaps it is in your work where
you see how miserable composers have been treated by the ignorant that you are
beginning to make that cross reference and realize the flaw that could make
you as miserable as Duparc or Beethoven in his later years while he was
writing the Ninth Symphony. Often the greatest minds are at
the end of a line and so their children won't even benefit from their parents
having triumphed over societal abuse by those who were ignorant.
Well, it is just an interesting principle that you espoused.
I'm surprised to hear you say it given your opinions about contemporary music
and art.
REH
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, May 28, 2003 2:16
AM
Subject: [Futurework] We are young
chimps (was: Friendliness is genetic.)
At 21:25 27/05/2003 -0400, Brad McCormick
wrote:
Ray Evans Harrell wrote:
Maybe there is a problem with
homo economicus? [snip]
Perhaps some will be interested
to hear that, on a
different list, I have been following a thread
which
argues that we and chimpanzees are essentially equivalent
(our
genes are 99.44% the same -- good enough for
Ivory
soap...).
It's a matter of judgement as to what are the
crucial genes and what are not (when making comparisons between the species)
but it's certainly true that all geneticists believe that the chimps and our
genes are anything between 98% and 99.5% identical. Given that we have about
35,000 genes, then the number of unique genes that we possess is about 300
plus or minus about 100. That's more than enough to make us very different
from chimpanzees in many ways.
So, if you do not know already,
be hereby apprised that
there are PhDs out there who are asserting
that
"chimps R us", and that chimps should have equal rights
to
humans, etc./et al.
I don't even believe that all humans
should have equal rights. Do you? I believe that all humans should have
equal rights in some basic respects, but I don't believe that, for example,
an unintelligent person should have an equal vote as me on complex matters
such as nuclear power, were there to be a one-issue election, for example. I
even read a letter in the Independent some days ago apparently from a
Down's Syndrome girl who said that because she gave her mother so much
pleasure then Down's Syndrome foetuses should be allowed to live and not be
aborted.
Economists have paltry
imaginations: they are only able
to reduce homo sapiens to homo
economicus. "Real scientists"
are able to reduce homo sapiens to
homo chimpiens!
Why are you so upset about this? Besides the
fact that our genes (and brains) are almost identical to chimps' it is
obvious that, in appearance and in practice, we are very different. I
notice that from elsewhere you don't like Medieval notions. But, in trying
to maintain that man is a unique species -- in the sense that we are quite
separate from all others in some sort of fundamental way -- is very much an
anthropocentric, Medieval notion. Why aren't you consistent? We are
certainly different from other species in many ways but we are still the
product of evolution as all other species are.
As John F Kennedy did not say
in Berlin when he made the
mikstake of confusing Berliners with
"Berliners" (pastries):
Ich nich bin ein
chimp!
Here are two facts for you to consider:
1. We
are born 17 months' premature. If we were born so that we were as physically
capable as chimps at birth then our brains would be too large to emerge
through the pelvic girdle of the mother. So we're born prematurely while our
brains are small enough to get through safely. Our brains develop hugely in
the months immediately after birth before slowing down relative to the rest
of our bodies.
2. The profile of a baby chimps' face is almost the
same as the profile of an adult human.
To biologists this phenomenon
is unusual but far from unknown in several cases. It is called Neotony. It
occurs when one species gives rise to a juvenile version of itself. We
appear to be a neotonous version, not of chimps, but of the species that was
the predecessor of both chimps and ourselves. (Therefore, don't take the
Subject title of this message too seriously.)
Keith Hudson
Keith Hudson, 6 Upper Camden Place, Bath, England
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