You've reached the City Center of Music and Drama, Inc.--
located in the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center.
For information on events related to the New York City Ballet or
the New York City Opera, please visit their Websites at:
www.nycballet.com
www.nycopera.com
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: chimpanzeehood
Author: [EMAIL PROTECTED] at INTERNET-MAIL
Date: 8/3/98 6:32 PM
From: Ed Weick <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>We are not computers, we are animals. The genetic distance that
separates
>>us from pygmy or common chimps is only 1.6% (the two chimps are separated
>>by 0.7%). In fact, we are the chimp's closest relative with the gorilla
>>differing by 2.3%.
>
>So? Can chimps build computers? Can they program them? That 1.6% makes
a
>hellova difference.
It does make a big difference. But an observer from outer space would
classify humans as the Third Chimpanzee (see Diamond's book of the same
name). The most important difference between us and chimps is our innate
technology: big brains, thumbs, and voice.
The ONLY scientific explanation for human behavior comes from the
evolutionary psychologists. Evolutionary psychologists are
reverse-engineers -- they observe behavior and then try to understand how
that behavior led to survival.
If we reject their findings because we believe that humans transcend nature,
then we are left with "unexplainable behavior". If we continue to deny our
animal nature -- if we embrace superstition and ignorance -- then we condemn
our grandchildren to certain death.
Deja Vu:
------------------------------
Uncritical offhand condemnations of Copernicus and his followers were not
restricted to conservative and unoriginal popularizers. Jean Bodin, famous
as one of the most advanced and creative political philosophers of the
sixteenth century, discards Copernicus' innovation in almost identical
terms:
"No one in his senses, or imbued with the slightest knowledge of physics,
will ever think that the earth, heavy and unwieldy from its own weight and
mass, staggers up and down around its own center and that of the sun; for at
the slightest jar of the earth, we would see cities and fortresses, towns
and mountains thrown down. A certain courtier Aulicus, when some astrologer
in court was upholding Copernicus' idea before Duke Albert of Prussia,
turning to the servant who was pouring the Falernian, said: 'Take care that
the flagon is not spilled.' For if the earth were to be moved, neither an
arrow shot straight up, nor a stone dropped from the top of a tower would
fall perpendicularly, but either ahead or behind .... Lastly, all things on
finding places suitable to their natures, remain there, as Aristotle writes.
Since therefore the earth has been allotted a place fitting its nature, it
cannot be whirled around by other motion than its own."
In this passage Bodin looks a traditionalist, but he was not. Because of its
generally radical and atheistic tone, the book from which the quotation is
taken was in 1628 placed upon the Index of books that Catholics are
forbidden to read.
[p. 190, THE COPERNICAN REVOLUTION, Kuhn]
