From: francis@dogwood.atl.ga.us (John Stracke)
Subject: Re: Are the Moties us?
Organization: National Science Center Foundation
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 16:57:57 GMT
	<1992Aug20.000415.17392@oracle.us.oracle.com>
	<1992Aug20.112541.20278@cs.ruu.nl>
	<1992Aug24.235820.16903@oracle.us.oracle.com>
	<1992Aug26.120429.23652@cs.ruu.nl>

In article <1992Aug26.120429.23652@cs.ruu.nl> rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg) writes:

>In <1992Aug24.235820.16903@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Aug20.112541.20278@cs.ruu.nl> rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg) writes:
>>>In <1992Aug20.000415.17392@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>>>>In article <1992Aug18.113218.8610@cs.ruu.nl> rkunenbo@cs.ruu.nl (Ronald Kunenborg) writes:
>>>>>In <1992Aug15.223224.9342@oracle.us.oracle.com> mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes:
>>>>>>In article <Bt01vz.L46@watdragon.uwaterloo.ca> jwtlai@jeeves.uwaterloo.ca (Jim W Lai) writes:
>>>>>>>Genes don't tell us that though.  They just tell us to have sex,
>>>>>>>tricking us 
>>>>>>>into reproducing.  So we'll end up with a planet full of sex maniacs.  :)

What, you mean we don't? ;-)

>>>>Well, first  off, twins was just a simple example.  Are you really
>>>>claiming that a geneticly based desire to have many kids is
>>>>impossible?
>>>I am. Or rather, it is extremely unlikely that such a complex desire
>>>is a) genetically codable and b) so strong that cultural influences and
>>>conscious decisions have no effect whatsoever.
>>
>>Well, a, what about a fear of heights?  
>
>That's a phobia. And according to the student psychology sitting over here,
>phobias aren't considered inheritable/genetically codable.

Claustrophobia at least appears to runs in my family.  It makes sense;
consider: some fears we all share, to some degree or another.  Why
couldn't there be a difference of degree to make them full-blown
phobias?

>For evolutionary pressure to have any effect at all, the results of
>this pressure must be codable - or all the pressure in the world
>will be of no avail. So let's say there is such evolutionary pressure
>towards WMK (which I deny as well). If you can't code it, it still 
>won't have a noticeable effect on our population growth.

OK, why do you think WMK is too complex to code? There's a *lot* of
data in the genes, and we know it codes a good deal of really
complicated stuff.  For example, there have been twin studies showing
separated identicals winding up with extremely similar handwriting.
This sounds totally ludicrous, but there it is.

--
/===========================================================================\
|John (Francis) Stracke         |My opinions are my own.                    |
|Natl. Science Center Foundation|===========================================|
|Augusta, GA                    | Help stamp out vi in our lifetime!        |
|francis@galois.nscf.org        |                                           |
\===========================================================================/
(Formerly francis@dogwood.atl.ga.us,francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu)
-- 
/===========================================================================\
|John (Francis) Stracke         |My opinions are my own.                    |
|Natl. Science Center Foundation|===========================================|
|Augusta, GA                    | Help stamp out vi in our lifetime!        |
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,rec.arts.sf.science