HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: lfiddick@nyx.cs.du.edu (larry fiddick)
Subject: Re: role of instinct in human intelligence
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 02:14:59 GMT


leda cosmides is my grad advisor so if you want more info you can get it
through me as neither she nor john read netnews so far as i know. anyways,
as for your inquiry. the results have been replicated on german subjects
and i believe one of john's students is currently in peru running studies
on amazonian natives. though i'm not certain, i believe the cheater
detection tests will be tried on them as well.

what sort of social learning did you have in mind? the thing is if it is
adaptive to detect cheaters, social learning is not a contradictory
thesis, but a complimentary one. while it is true that given a culturally
novel scenario subjects are just as effective at detecting cheaters so it
isn't that familiarity produces competence, but i don't think that was the
suggestion made by the remark on social learning. the question i believe
was, 'are children taught to detect cheaters in some way?' perhaps, but
does not deny that might also have evolved mental adaptations designed to
detect cheaters.

Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: William Irwin Thompson
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:35:35 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <-1364441997snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov10.110606.27573@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu writes:
>
> > THE WAR IN THE GULF - William Irwin Thompson - March 7, 1991
> > [reproduced without permission from "Reimagination of the World"]

>All this I find a fascination exposition of the classic male cultural
>pathology which gave rise to Western hegemony. It sings of what we are
>calling here, The Male Duet, where at the bounds of their respective
>territories two males reading no more than their own body language
>reflecting from the other, square off in a posturing dance before
>lashing out at one another with their fists.
>
>According to this model the Bush<>Hussein duet is no different from
>the Bouncer<>Drunk scene in a nightclub, exhibiting exactly the same
>behavioural profile only differing in the time frame against which
>it is plotted.
>
>We are finding an extremely effective way to interfere with this male
>mirror reflex is through the direct intervention of women.

    This is an interesting thesis but it begs some important
    questions.    

    Mainly it seems to make the assumption that our behavior
    in the larger world is determined by some intrinsic prop-
    erties of "maleness" and "femaleness".   Bush and Saddam
    are not merely being leaders of powerful nations with 
    differing national goals, priorities, interest, spheres
    of influence, etc, but are in fact just being males for
    whom these other things are merely incidental?    How far
    do we take this premise?   Is my posting, or Gil's, or
    our respective choice of careers, or <whatever> just a
    a reflection of testosterone and Y-chromosomes?   

    (At this point I have to backtrack quickly since only
    yesterday I suggested in sci.econ that the current trade
    dispute between the US and France was merely an attempt
    to demonstrate which nation had the larger national phallus.
    But I was being humorous.   I hope.)

    Likewise the role of woman in all this:  Is her effect
    on the situation the result of biology, secondary sex
    characteristics, etc?    If the roles are just cultural
    then as women achieve positions of political power and
    influence we might expect them to behave the same way 
    the men do in those roles.   And in fact, based on the
    admittedly small sample-size this appears correct.   
    Nations with female leaders seem no less likely to go
    to war or play power games than ones with male leaders.

    

---peter
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: William Irwin Thompson
Distribution: world
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 02:48:19 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov10.110606.27573@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu writes:

 > THE WAR IN THE GULF - William Irwin Thompson - March 7, 1991
 > [reproduced without permission from "Reimagination of the World"]

 >   Politics has been called the art of the possible. War is the politics of

        [ . . . ]

All this I find a fascination exposition of the classic male cultural
pathology which gave rise to Western hegemony. It sings of what we are
calling here, The Male Duet, where at the bounds of their respective
territories two males reading no more than their own body language
reflecting from the other, square off in a posturing dance before
lashing out at one another with their fists.

According to this model the Bush<>Hussein duet is no different from
the Bouncer<>Drunk scene in a nightclub, exhibiting exactly the same
behavioural profile only differing in the time frame against which
it is plotted.

We are finding an extremely effective way to interfere with this male
mirror reflex is through the direct intervention of women. I do not
mean here to refer to *girls* as the men's sex partners whose presence
may simply inflame the situation, but to *women* as the men's mother
figures treating them as just another pair of stupid boys with not
a brain to share, convincing them how silly they look long before they
actually resort to blows.

That may sound humorous, but some of us are beginning to take the
phenomenon very seriously indeed as an extremely effective strategy
for peace and political stability. Women's discourse, BTW, is also
proving to be far more effective in renegotiating cultural boundaries
and expectations over the long term, without relying on such enormous
resource allocation the men need, and without the bloodshed.

That is real power, by my observations . . .

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
From: stcmille@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Stephen C. Miller)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Cannibalism , structuralism.
Date: 12 Nov 92 17:29:54 GMT
Organization: Indiana University

In article <92316.175540G87CC@CUNYVM.BITNET> <G87CC@CUNYVM.BITNET> writes:
>
>      Does anyone know if there is a structuralist opinion on cannibalism?
>I know that Harris and a few symbolic thinkers have touched the subject.
>
>
Levi Strauss has talked about it.  As I recall it had some relation to
incest.  Check his cuisine materials, is my intuition, plus indexes in
the Structural Anthropology books.  Plus the recent big books on
cannibalism - which I don't have references for at my fingertips but
which are easily findable in subject indexes.

-- 
--------------------
=
(former grad star turned rock student)
Steve Miller	 		    stcmille@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: Prehistoric Matriarchies
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:00:26 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Nov3.195046.19954@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov (Loren I. Petrich) writes:
>
>	[Gil Hardwick: on the absence of matriarchies and how the two
>sexes had social parity in traditional Aboriginal society...]
>
>	I wonder if a lot of proposed matriarchies will turn out to be
>very similar, not matriarchal at all, but societies where the two
>sexes have social parity.
>
>	Such societies might certainly seem like matriarchies to those
>accustomed to male dominance (women are too assertive, get it?).
>
>	It is interesting that Eleanor Leacock proposes something
>similar for some Native American tribes; how is her work regarded?


   Which tribes does she reference in this?

   I always thought the standard line was that in most h-g societies
   women and men had much more equal status because:

   1.  Birthing was less frequent.  h-g societies require mobility
       and a woman can carry about one baby.  This means that the
       earlier baby had to be independently mobile by the time the 
       next one arrived.  I've seen figures of 1 baby evey 2.5-4
       years in h-g societies, versus, 1 baby every 1.5 years for
       settled agrarian societies.   Agrarian societies require
       a large pool of labor and the woman's role became much
       more based on her abilities as a baby-maker.   

   2.  h-g groups are small so decisionmaking tends to have more
       of a consensus-basis, whereas settled agrarian societies 
       tended to be larger and so relied more heavily on more
       authoritarian structures and this favored the males.

   3.  Agrarian societies have something to protect in the sense 
       of land/territory, etc.  Warfare and violent conflicts are
       more common among settled agrarian societies than h-g ones
       and this raises the status of males and male skills such
       as fighting/violence.


   I have no idea if any of this is still the party line (most of
   these ideas date back to college, 20 years ago for me).  But
   I'm curious if you can cite some well-studied matriarchal
   societies among settled-agrarian communities, as opposed 
   to nomads or h-g's.  


---peter
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Prehistoric Matriarchies
Distribution: world
Date: Fri, 06 Nov 92 01:35:34 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov3.195046.19954@s1.gov> lip@s1.gov writes:

 >         [Gil Hardwick: on the absence of matriarchies and how the two
 > sexes had social parity in traditional Aboriginal society...]
 >  
 >         I wonder if a lot of proposed matriarchies will turn out to be
 > very similar, not matriarchal at all, but societies where the two
 > sexes have social parity.
 >  
 >         Such societies might certainly seem like matriarchies to those
 > accustomed to male dominance (women are too assertive, get it?).

Yes, I get do it indeed, which is the reason for my caution in seeking
clarification of the intent of the original query. This is a field I have
been working in for quite some time, since basic research into the role
and status of women is very relevant to the development of strategies
for the rehabilitation of devastated communities, for the prevention
of juvenile crime, and for instituting general health care strategies
(cf the practice of medicine in curing illness as such).

 >         It is interesting that Eleanor Leacock proposes something
 > similar for some Native American tribes; how is her work regarded?

Yes, I am reasonably familiar with her work and have her "Politics
and History in Band Societies", co-edited with Richard Lee and itself
containing Australian material, on my own shelves.

Her particular relevance to my own work, however, arises from her
admonition to be thorough in carrying out research. As an undergrad
I was particularly impressed with her critique of Anthropology as being
merely incomplete. Beyond that, with one notable exception informed by
her own explicit political agenda, fieldwork women have been carrying
out here is of consistently high quality.

Whether anyone might regard substantial scientific endeavour as being
"too assertive" raises other questions I prefer not to pursue here,
although jibes at whether we have "yet earned a place in science" have
also already been posted to this group.

Humph!

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: gary@suite.sw.oz.au (Gary Corby)
Subject: Re: The Gnostic Gospels
Organization: Softway Pty Ltd
Date: 10 Nov 92 07:48:43 GMT

In <-1364521820snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:


>In article <gary.721274659@suite.sw.oz.au> gary@suite.sw.oz.au writes:
>
> > ...posted to sci.anthropology
> > about a book called The Gnostic Gospels

>Gary, this book is very well known...

Thanks.  I've had lots of email responses as well, all much
appreciated.  I now have ample info, so please don't 
bother responding if you're about to.

Gary
-- 
Gary Corby  (gary@softway.oz.au)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: claird@NeoSoft.com (Cameron Laird)
Subject: [SOC] Gender-specificity in successful co-operation (was: William Irwin Thompson)
Organization: NeoSoft Communications Services -- (713) 684-5900
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 14:11:43 GMT

In article <-1364441997snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
			.
			.
			.
>We are finding an extremely effective way to interfere with this male
>mirror reflex is through the direct intervention of women. I do not
>mean here to refer to *girls* as the men's sex partners whose presence
>may simply inflame the situation, but to *women* as the men's mother
>figures treating them as just another pair of stupid boys with not
>a brain to share, convincing them how silly they look long before they
>actually resort to blows.
>
>That may sound humorous, but some of us are beginning to take the
>phenomenon very seriously indeed as an extremely effective strategy
>for peace and political stability. Women's discourse, BTW, is also
>proving to be far more effective in renegotiating cultural boundaries
>and expectations over the long term, without relying on such enormous
>resource allocation the men need, and without the bloodshed.
			.
			.
			.
Where can we find out more about specific
instances of this effectiveness, and/or
quantitative evidence of its generaliza-
bility?

Perhaps related questions:  in USA anthro-
pology, "applied anthropology" remains a
marked category.  In Australia is there
relatively greater emphasis on the poli-
tical, as opposed to scientific, status of
anthropology?  I certainly have received
that impression from your postings.  What
is the role of academic review in your con-
sultancies?  Do you publish?  Can you
publish? Ought you publish?

Best wishes for your continuing explorations.
-- 

Cameron Laird
claird@Neosoft.com (claird%Neosoft.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713 267 7966
claird@litwin.com (claird%litwin.com@uunet.uu.net)  	+1 713 996 8546
From: mimir@stein.u.washington.edu (Al Billings)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Gil Hardwick should be kicked out
Date: 5 Nov 92 22:12:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov5.221248.10389
Organization: The Friends of Loki Society

In article <1992Nov5.052503.4636@honte.uleth.ca> std_leong@hg.uleth.ca writes:
>Some of us are freshmen with new accounts and would rather not be stereo-
>typed when attempting to read articles regarding anthropology.  
>Cheers, anyways.  Chris. :-(

 Sorry. I didn't mean to put you down by associating you with Gil. I'm
sure you are more mature than our distinguished anthropologist. Seriously.
He's just learning how to use the computer, I'm afraid and doesn't realize
how the networks work.

Wassail,
Al

=============================================================================
|     O     |  Hammar I COMPUTER, Helga Ve Theta Ok Hald Vordh!             |
|    /|\    |                                                               |
|   O-O-O   |  "Praise the day in the evening,      mimir@u.washington.edu  |
|   |\|/|   |   a torch when it is burned,          Anthropology Undergrad  |
|   | O |   |   a sword when it is tried,           Admin for Troth-L       |
|   |/|\|   |   a maid when married,                System operator of      |
|   O-O-O   |   ice when crossed,                     The Sacred Grove BBS  |
|    \|/    |   ale when drunk."                      (206)634-1980 V.32    |
|     O     |                  - Havamal, verse 81                          |
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
From: nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson)
Subject: Re: role of instinct in human intelligence
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:00:05 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Corporation, Chelmsford, MA

In article <1992Nov6.192152.15355@netcom.com> vanzandt@netcom.com (John Van Zandt) writes:
>Last nite my wife and I attended a fascinating lecture by UCSB professors
>Leda Cosmides and John Tooby which discussed the role of instinct in
>human behaviour and thought. One of their hypotheses is that humans have
>a logic which is not mathematical logic, but is designed to be evolutionarily
>successful. The example they gave was an old psychology experiment which
>tests people on whether they can easily solve a simple logic puzzle.

  Cosmides and Tooby have a fascinating thesis which suggests that 
  we reason much better in terms of hierarchical or social relation-
  ships than by the sort of logical formalism that most of us here
  associate with rationalism.                 


>The puzzle is where a stmt of the form 'if P then Q' is given, and then
>the person is supposed to use this rule to find the solution. The literature
>shows that people have a hard time with this, even if the scenario is
>placed in a familiar context.
>
>(i.e. giving up the watch without recieving the $10). What my wife and I were
>wondering (of course, on the way home), was whether this experiment
>took into account cultural learning (was the experiment valid for
>all of the different world cultures). 

   Yes, there was an article in The Economist (July 4th, I think)
   called _A Critique of Pure Reason_ which indicated that indeed 
   this still works even if using culturally unfamiliar referents.

   Quite an interesting article and I'm glad to see *someone* else 
   on the Net who has heard of this research!   When I first mentioned
   it last summer no one on Usenet seemed to have a clue what I was
   talking about.   



---peter
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: William Irwin Thompson
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 08:52:28 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Nov11.024550.5168@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu writes:

 > I think I agree with all of these comments. In fact, one reason I hoped to
 > find discussion of Thompson on the net was that I was looking for 'peer
 > review', so to speak, of his ideas. Ironically, he states in the same book:

                [ . . . ]

 > PS: re the essay I posted and your three categories of proposition, I might

                [ . . . ]

 > ideas elsewhere.) Does anyone care to comment?

I trust you do not feel I am simply trying to take the mickey out of
your enquiry, Mitchell; I simply find such an exchange posted here to
sci.anthropology quite fascinating, as an anthropologist. Perhaps you
simply missed the point I first made.

There is an ethnographic film by Frederick Wiseman, an ethnographer of
American Institutions, entitled "Primate" (early 1970s?). This film is
a study of the Yerkes Primate Research Centre in Atlanta, and while it
was very heavily criticised for not depicting its research programs as
whole scenes (so distorting the view of science), it did nevertheless
succeed in drawing out an extremely compelling irony in the backdrop
to the tension among the scientists working there, of primates kept in
cages.

Here on the Internet I find such clipped scenes being presented again
but apparently by scientists themselves, also having the effect of
heavily distorting the view of science, of a restricted, disjointed
and tense discourse lacking any context except that provided by a
backdrop of chatter.

I am quite worried about it, myself, when the dominant image being
presented to the Internet is not of scientists engaged in scholarly
pursuit, but of a duet of male peers posturing in readiness for an
exchange of blows.

It is interesting indeed that Professor John McCarthy responded as he
did, inviting challenge . . .

Why not the both of you just take this guy Thompson outside so you
can punch his head in?

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: The Gnostic Gospels
Distribution: world
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 04:37:56 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <gary.721274659@suite.sw.oz.au> gary@suite.sw.oz.au writes:

 > Early in October s1006420@titan.ucc.umass.edu
 > (Vera B.)  posted to sci.anthropology
 > about a book called The Gnostic Gospels, by 
 > Elaine Pagels, a professor of religious studies
 > at Princeton.
 >  
 > My wife is trying to find a copy but having some
 > difficulty.  Could anyone tell me the name of the 
 > publisher and any other details that might be 
 > useful?  It looks like we'll have to get a copy
 > sent to us from the States.

Gary, this book is very well known and the Penguin edition might still
be readily available here. My copy came straight off the shelf, three
full years after its reprint date.

Any of the campus bookshops should be able to get a copy in for you if
they no longer have it in stock, or perhaps just browsing around the
bookshops will locate one.

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *
Xref: sparky sci.anthropology:1331 soc.culture.british:15350
From: mimir@stein.u.washington.edu (Al Billings)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Re: Gil Hardwick should be kicked out
Date: 9 Nov 92 17:56:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: u.1992Nov9.175627.27015
Organization: The Friends of Loki Society

In article <-1364608372snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au> gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>Al, this cyberspace created by the Internet cannot be anarchic in any
>sense of the term, since it demonstrably transcends world-views. Rather,
>I am regarding the phenomenon as *liminal*. That I bring you existential
>discomfort merely by sitting here, right on the other side of the world
>from where you are, typing character codes into a dumb machine provides
>ample evidence that this is in fact the case, if you would like to do
>some more home work on the nature of ritual discourse.

 I think disgust would be a better word than discomfort, Gil. You are an
annoyance and an amusing break in my daily schedule of term papers, books,
and mid-terms.

>If I have become your prop that is fine with me. The idea makes me feel
>quite privileged, in fact; being a prop to a son of a witch . . .

 Not just a son of a Witch, Gil. I'm a Witch myself. Different Tradition
than my mother though. She's a Dianic and I'm a Gardnerian.

Wassail,
Al

=============================================================================
|     O     |  Hammar I COMPUTER, Helga Ve Theta Ok Hald Vordh!             |
|    /|\    |                                                               |
|   O-O-O   |  "Praise the day in the evening,      mimir@u.washington.edu  |
|   |\|/|   |   a torch when it is burned,          Anthropology Undergrad  |
|   | O |   |   a sword when it is tried,           Admin for Troth-L       |
|   |/|\|   |   a maid when married,                System operator of      |
|   O-O-O   |   ice when crossed,                     The Sacred Grove BBS  |
|    \|/    |   ale when drunk."                      (206)634-1980 V.32    |
|     O     |                  - Havamal, verse 81                          |
=============================================================================
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology