-----
/ o o \
====OO=====OO===
http://pnews.org/
Progressive News & Views (since 1982)
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
From: "James a. Mulick, PhD" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Thanks for the clarification, Hank. But why did you edit my post to delete
the material about Panksepp's work? The parts you deleted showed that he did
not suddenly become an antivivisectionist, despite training in ethology (and
neither did I despite my training and study of ethology). In fact, I
concluded, with most other students of behavior in the U. S., that European
Ethology was a dead end, emphasizing instincts as it does and not the
intricate epigenetic process that life actually entails for individual
organisms during their life spans. It was much more popular in Europe, where
sophisticated intellectuals needed an excuse for their lack of effective
resistance to fascism when it was just getting started. You see, ethology
teaches that emotions like aggression are the inevitable gift of evolution
in many species including our own, and so these nasty emotions must be
displaced into substitute activities like football and other organized and
non-lethal competition - an experimentally disproven theory referred to by
American and most British psychologists as the flush toilet theory of
motivation (you know, if it can't flush, its gonna spill all over the place
and get really yucky) . Perhaps Americans will now find ethology appealing
with the current turn towards fascism, but they have not in past decades. I
realize this level of detail is likely to break on the rocks of your and
Balcombe's ideology, but you invited him to enter the discussion to refute
an irrelevant point of mine. Speaking of ideology and ethology, the founder
of the field, Konrad Lorenz, earned his first job in Hitler's Germany for
writing pro-eugenic papers (you know, the theory that supported the position
that some people were "worthless to live" - the mentally retarded, the
gypsies, and the Jews -- in that order).. You can read all about Lorenz and
his history by getting a copy of the following paper in SCIENCE magazine:
<Eisenberg, L. (1972). The human nature of human nature. Science, 176,
123-128.>. When Lorenz got his Nobel Prize (from the tall, blond Swedes who
resisted Hitler the way a feather resists the wind), he wrote a swan song of
a little book entitled CIVILIZED MAN'S EIGHT DEADLY SINS, in which he
virtually reiterated his old "some of us are biologically better that
others, and so should be allowed to do what we instinctively know is best"
message in order to avoid the increasing "domestication" of the human
species (by which it seems he was referring to miscegenation). So Balcombe
is not the first ethologist to misinterpret what he observed, and what I
said about ethnology is almost as true about ethology (which emphasizes
non-experimental field methods much more than does Comparative Behavior
Development - my first specialty during the 1970s).
I'll stop, if you stop Hank...or maybe I'll give up on this issue in favor
of what we are all really interested in reading about on your list. Besides,
Mike Malloy is subbing for Randy Rhodes and I'd rather listen more closely
to him while I work on my email. You should let my earlier full message be
posted, though.
********************************************
An article of possible relevance to this thread:
Boston.com
Jury convicts animal welfare activists
By Jeffrey Gold, Associated Press Writer | March 3, 2006
TRENTON, N.J. --Six animal-rights supporters face up to seven years in
prison after being convicted of using a Web site to incite threats,
harassment and vandalism against a company that tests drugs and household
products on animals.
A jury returned its verdict against Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty and six
of its members on Thursday after three days of deliberations.
Federal Judge Anne E. Thompson ordered five of them held without bail until
a sentencing hearing on June 7. The defendants, all in their late 20s or
early 30s, face three to seven years in prison and fines up to $250,000.
The government charged that SHAC waged a five-year campaign against
Huntingdon Life Sciences, posting on its Web site information about the
lab's employees and those who do business with Huntingdon. The information
included their home phone numbers, addresses and where their children
attended school.
Many of those people saw their homes vandalized, and they and their families
received threatening e-mails, faxes and phone calls.
SHAC, based in Philadelphia, maintained its actions were protected under the
First Amendment.
The defendants were not accused of directly making threats or carrying out
vandalism. Instead, they were charged with animal enterprise terrorism,
stalking and other offenses.
Mike Caulfield, Huntingdon's general manager, said the verdict was "a
victory for democracy, research and patients."
"The government and this jury have sent a strong message to those who would
ignore the democratic process and resort to criminal activity to advance
their political views," Caulfield said in a statement.
SHAC President Pamelyn Ferdin said the jury was fooled by the government's
case and the judge's order to remove victims' names and home addresses from
its Web site reeked of fascism.
"This is a scary path for all Americans," said Ferdin, a former child star
who was the voice of Lucy in the "Peanuts" movies and played Felix Unger's
daughter Edna on TV's "The Odd Couple."
"Here is a government, a feckless federal government, who spent millions of
taxpayer dollars to wage an assault on all our constitutional rights," she
said.
Ferdin became leader of the group in 2004 after its former president, Kevin
Kjonaas, and the others were indicted. She was not charged.
Many of the targets of the harassment testified that they started looking
over their shoulders when walking or driving, changed their phone numbers or
even moved. Some kept their children from playing outdoors, and several
bought guns.
Sally Dillenback broke into tears as she recounted an anonymous e-mail that
threatened to cut open her son and fill him with poison "the way Huntingdon
does with the animals."
Marian Harlos testified she got late-night calls in which someone asked:
"Are you scared? Do you think the puppies should be scared?"
She said masked protesters parked down the street from her house,
videotaping her comings and goings. They barged into her office, screaming
and tossing leaflets, and others ruined the rear door with glue and animal
stickers, she said
James A. Mulick, Ph.D.
Professor, Pediatrics & Psychology
The Ohio State University
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
M A I L I N G L I S T S
(1) pnews-news - NEWS mailing list - (text only)
Send "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subject
----> pnews-news-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(2) pnews-views - VIEWS mailing list- (text only)
OPEN discussion - "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" as subj
Send to ------> pnews-views-request(at)inyourface.info
=======================================================
(3) fightback - articles and pointers distribution list
(html/text) - expert informed opin., credentialed authors
----> http://pnews.org/dada/
========================================================
(4) ATTN: WEBMASTERS - Link Exchange/improve site rank
----> links_only-subscribe(at)googlegroups.com - or, go to:
-----> http://groups.google.com/group/Links_Only
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
