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-   -   Is BO Evil? (https://www.behavioronline.net/evolutionary-psychology/2285-bo-evil/)

James Brody March 26th, 2010 05:56 PM

Is BO Evil?
 
Michael Medved asserted today (March 26th, 2010) that BO is incompetent (and a list of other negatives) but is not “evil.”

I disagree.

The prominent biologist Edward Wilson remarked that the ability to modify environments is perhaps life’s highest adaptation. Unfortunately, he said nothing more about it. Karl Popper put us straight.

Every living creature attempts to arrange and build its environment. This effect of genes on environment is often called “nonshared” or “unique” environment. Coral makes reefs that direct ocean currents, worms dig tunnels that function as an extended kidney, crickets make small amphitheaters that amplify their mating calls, termites make palaces with air conditioning and breeding chambers. And every human who passes his or her eighth birthday arranges memories, books, tapes, friends, and websites to meet his needs rather than the demands of parents. Such things start at conception and continue through a life. Heritability – the differences in outcomes attributable to differences in genes – actually increases as each of us becomes not only older but more unique. And such is true regardless of the uniformity in our nursing homes.

Any fences around nonshared environments are prisons. And a government that promises equal outcomes for all its citizens must be viewed as the most tyrannical.

Impeach and remove….

References:
Hayek Friedrich A (1944/1994) The Road to Serfdom. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press.
Plomin, R. (1994) Genetics and Experience: The Interplay between Nature and Nurture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Popper, K. (1984/1992) In Search of a Better World. Lectures & Essays from Thirty Years. London: Routledge.
Turner, J. Scott (2000) The Extended Organism: The Physiology of Animal-Built Structures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wilson, E. O. (1975/2000) Sociobiology: The New Synthesis. Cambridge, MA: Belknap, Harvard University Press.


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