Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"

"John Wilkins" <j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1ijiv4m.1u5n7uhqwa6kzN%j.wilkins1@xxxxxxxxxxxx
alextangent <blog@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Jul 3, 9:18 am, j.wilki...@xxxxxxxxx (John Wilkins) wrote:
<richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 2, 12:39 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2 Lug, 09:24, richardalanforr...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Jul 1, 11:18 pm, Vend <ven...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 1 Lug, 21:09, Jason Spaceman
<notrea...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

And remember, if you disagree with Birdnow and reply to him,
it
means your obsessed with him. . .

From the article:
----------------------------------------------------------------
So, we are now just one ape among many. Does it surprise us
that
our young people act like animals, when we are telling them
that
they are just one of many beasts?

Non-human apes are less intraspecies aggressive than humans.

What nonsense! Humans are far less aggressive towards other
members of
their own species than any other ape. That's one of the reasons
why we
can live in enormous conurbations, and why it is possible for me
to
walk down a street in Beijing or New York without much risk of
being
attacked. The image we get from the popular media is very
distorted,
and most of us do not live our lives in constant risk of
violence.

Perhaps not most of us, but many do.

How many non-human apes live in a constant risk of lethal violence
by
members of their species?

I don't live in constant risk of lethal violence by members of my own
species. In fact, I've rarely encountered violence from other members
of my own species. I've walked down streets in strange cities all
over
the world and not encountered any violence.

The likelihood that someone will encounter violent behaviour in a
developed city now is lower than at any time in history. But we hear
about every single case, which makes us nervous.

True, but...




A chimp which moves into the territory of another group of chimps
runs
a very high risk of savage attack.

Like an human who moves into the private property of another human.

I don't run the risk of attack if I go to the next town. A chimp
which
did so would.

And a human that enters another's territory "in the wild" is met with
ritual threats, not actual ones. I recall seeing David Attenborough in
his first ever special in PNG back in the 50s. His local guides stopped
at the edge of their territory where a hundred fearsome warriors met
them out of the bush. They made the ritual threats and then
Attenborough
smiling broadly shook the head man's hand and all was well. Nobody was
trying to steal territory, so they could behave politely. Chimps do not
do that...

... The young men that roam in packs some of the poorest parts of
cities here in the UK will kill you simply because you have trespassed
from your postcode into theirs. Or looked at them oddly. Or any of a
number of reasons (or non-reasons), such as appearing gay, different
or simply weak. The ritual has been replaced by the actuality for many
of the more feral members of our society.

Again, how many deaths occur this way? Is it every male that moves into
their territory? Is it contributing to a major murder rate increase (the
UK is way less than, say, the US or the USSR)?

We aren't built to properly assess the risks on the basis of anecdotal
reports.


The current problem in the UK is "knife crime": assaults and murders by
stabbing. Nearly all victims and assailants are teenagers. The police
recently did a stop and search of 36,000 young men, and confiscated over
1,000 knives. They now prosecute those caught with knives even if there is
no evidence of a crime having been committed.

Still, in terms of violence a year in London is like a fortnight in Detroit,
I understand. There are guns (illegal) in the UK but not nearly as many
(legal and illegal) as in the US.

This morning's Times advises that police have brought combatting knife crime
up the priority list above terrorism.

Very few knifings here are committed in one-on-one fights--most are
gang-attacks.




Male orangs are fiercely
territorial, and if they encounter another male in their
territory
will quite literally fight to the death to defend it.

I don't know about orangs, but if I remember correctly, gorillas
and
chimps rarely kill individuals of their respective species.

Chimps do. Males kill each other over territorial disputes, which
given the far smaller social groups of chimps compared to humans
happens pretty regularly.

Chimps also make "war", raiding each other's territories and killing,
rather nastily (by, for example, ripping off testicles and facial parts
with their teeth) any individual they find from another troop.
...

Oh, I see something like that has been said upthread. But it bears
repeating.

Killing in the UK is by beating (usually by treating the victim's head
as a football), by knife or occasionally by gun. Kicking someone to
death is about as nasty as it gets. My nephew suffered such a attack /
while playing football (soccer) in a public park/, and was lucky to
escape with his life.

Life for some is cheap, short and brutal I'm afraid.

Yes. The key term here is "some". Humans are way less violent than their
nearest ape cousins, or most primates for that matter.

--
John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Philosophy
University of Queensland - Blog: scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
"He used... sarcasm. He knew all the tricks, dramatic irony, metaphor,
bathos, puns, parody, litotes and... satire. He was vicious."



--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove pants sp*mbl*ck to reply)

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"
    ... we are now just one ape among many. ... their own species than any other ape. ... and most of us do not live our lives in constant risk of violence. ... trying to steal territory, ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"
    ... we are now just one ape among many. ... their own species than any other ape. ... How many non-human apes live in a constant risk of lethal violence by ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"
    ... we are now just one ape among many. ... their own species than any other ape. ... and most of us do not live our lives in constant risk of violence. ... at the edge of their territory where a hundred fearsome warriors met ...
    (talk.origins)
  • biases (Re: MV is the most published author of SAP
    ... Homo is an ape species, and if somebody wants to understand anything on how ... brain, SC fat layer, olfactory reduction, masticatory reduction, climbing ... Territory is gained and lost in quantities. ...
    (sci.anthropology.paleo)
  • Re: Birdbrain: "Damned dirty apes"
    ... their own species than any other ape. ... I've rarely encountered violence from other members ... at the edge of their territory where a hundred fearsome warriors met ... chimps rarely kill individuals of their respective species. ...
    (talk.origins)