By what criterion are you judging other explanations to be "better?" An evolutionary explanation would appear to be more parsimonious.
Faith Florer wrote: > I agree that we discount the role of biology far too often. > > However, I still don't accept the evolutionary perspective if it states > that genetic relatedness somehow leads to more altruism or less violence. > All of the genetic relatedness statements I've seen on this list could be > explained without the evolutionary perspective better. > > For example, the studies looking at wills don't split out biological from > adoptive parents. (Paperwork is changed when babies are adopted to make the > babies look biologically related.) The studies about boy babies don't seem > take into account the differences in fragility and difficulty of boys > versus girl babies. (I dimly remember that boy babies are more likely to > die in all households.) The stuff about maternal closeness doesn't take > into account the social closeness of mothers to children. (You'd likely > find the same closeness to maternal families when adoptions occur.) The > strongest arguments for evolutionary caring seem to come from data on step > parenting, which have a lot of problems. As Herb Coleman pointed out, it > would be extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to control for all > of the factors that lead to a step parent taking on the role of a parent. > > Finally, I would bet that social workers etc. would be more likely to look > for and call children 'abused' by nonbiological relatives. ***************************************************************** * Mike Scoles * [EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Department of Psychology * voice: (501) 450-5418 * * University of Central Arkansas * fax: (501) 450-5424 * * Conway, AR 72035-0001 * * ********* http://www.coe.uca.edu/psych/scoles/index.html ******** --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
