Is There Really Such Thing As a Missing Link?

[Stephen Palmer]

I see your point, but doesn't it perhaps ignore one massive difference between peacocks and people? People live in societies and have strongly altruistic feelings for one another. Camper A and Camper B might be a loving couple. What then...?

 

[Ursa major]

I think you may be overlooking -- in the case of evolution, not campers in jungles (safe from the lions living on the plains) -- humans' amazing ability to separate themselves into Us and Them (even when there is no discernable** difference between those defined as being Us, and those defined as being Them).


** - Or -- as we too often see -- where those being defined as Us and Them have more in common with each other than they do with those encouraging/cheerleading that particular Us and Them narrative.

 

[Vertigo]

In all fairness any social predatory animal has strong "Us and Them" feelings. Look at any group of monkeys or apes, packs of wolves, prides of lions etc. None of them take kindly to others of the same kind especially if they threaten to enter their territory.

I think those feelings are no more than the naturally evolved response to protecting 'your' resources against others.

Unfortunately in the massively and unnaturally overcrowded societies humans have created those instincts are very dangerous indeed.

 

[Ursa major]

I know of no other species whose members can hate -- can be induced to hate -- other members of its own species whom they have not met and will probably** never meet (sometimes because they live thousands of miles away), and can do this whether living in the most crowded slum or a sparsely populated rural idyll. I can think of no other species whose members can sponsor murderous proxy wars in distant countries that, in other circumstances, neither sponsor couldn't find on a map (and had otherwise not the slightest interest in).

What drives these things -- particularly the first -- is not simply the usual animal instincts you mention. The ability to induce hate against (and/or fear of) unseen others is an entirely human trait. While I think at least some other animals can be susceptible to such inducement, without a human to train them it's rather beside the point.


** - Unless one or both of them are moved closer together for the purposes of fighting each other.

 

[Vertigo]

Oh yes I agree completely that hate, and in particular hate created by propaganda is a distinctly human trait. And a truly horrible one it is too. I was just referring to the us and them and the how prepared such species are to fight 'them' when they are perceived to be a threat.

In the early days of the internet I had high hopes that the ability for people to interact across the globe so easily would undermine the effectiveness of such propaganda but it's not proving to be a great success in that regard. In fact instead it is providing a powerful propaganda machine for groups that in the past would have struggled to gain such large audiences (underground printing presses etc.).

 

[Cathbad]

Oh yes I agree completely that hate, and in particular hate created by propaganda is a distinctly human trait.

I have evidence to the contrary (that hate is a purely human trait - I agree with your second part). One of the horses I owned in Florida was named Rusty. On the ranch, we had other horses, cows, peacocks, chickens, rabbits, cats, ducks and dogs. Rusty virtually ignored all of these animals, save one. We rode among the cattle, stopped to admire the peacocks, waited for the ducks to pass. Through it all, Rusty was well behaved. He was a well-trained horse. I should know; I trained him!

But the dogs - we had three wonderful, well-behaved ones - learned quickly to stay out of Rusty's pasture. Despite his training, if a dog entered the pasture while I was riding him, he'd veer to a bee-line for it! Yeah, I could get him back to the right path, but he would be distracted, always trying to look for the dog, and snorting in an angry manner.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind that he hated dogs!

Just mine 'n Rusty's two cents.

 

[Stephen Palmer]

I think you may be overlooking -- in the case of evolution, not campers in jungles (safe from the lions living on the plains) -- humans' amazing ability to separate themselves into Us and Them (even when there is no discernable** difference between those defined as being Us, and those defined as being Them).


** - Or -- as we too often see -- where those being defined as Us and Them have more in common with each other than they do with those encouraging/cheerleading that particular Us and Them narrative.

But that's my point. There is an Us.