At 10:02 AM 1/14/99 -0500, Mike S. Lorrey wrote:
>> IAN: An interesting theory and a lot of valid
>> insight seems to be in there. A counter that
>> comes to mind is: Why would mice become prone
>> to violence in close-in high-population living?
>> OK, that could be because they Hunt insects. So
>> we need to see what happens to rabbits or some
>> group of animals that is hard-core vegi, and
>> if it did not display an increase in violence
>> in crowded habitation, your theory could be
>> correct. But I suspect that even rabbits will
>> get more aggitated and cantankerous if crowded.
>
>Well, look at cows. As for mice, they are rodents. Most rodents, including
mice,
>are not only scavengers, but opportunistic predators, and sometimes full time
>carnivores. Most rodents have no problem whatsoever with cannibalism.
>We can look at human societies which have had little access to game and
sparse
>access to meat of any kind, with rigid social structures for long periods.
We can
>look at countries like Japan and China which have systematically culled their
>population of misfits for thousands of years. This sort of evolved social
>engineering certainly has had an effect, I think, upon the weight of the old
>instincts in the minds of people in those societies. However, I think that
nobody
>today would be willing to go down such a path now.
IAN: If mice are in low-crowed environments but get violent in high crowding, but each condition is under laboratory conditions where the mice are not hunting for food in either scenario, they are deprived of hunting situations equally in both low and high crowing scenarios. This would tend to suggest that hunting depravation is Not the cause of increasing violence upon crowding, since the crowding is not associated with any increase in non-hunting activities, but is assocaited with increased aggression.
So hunting change is zero and yet aggression change is nonzero, which speaks against the theory you raise that country folk are less criminal because they kill more animals.
>> IAN: What's the deal? That's 100% consistent
>> with what I said and know.? We've probably
>> also seen the same nature shows.
>
>Chimps and baboons are also members of the 'great apes' (the baboons may
just be
>considered a monkey, I can't remember) and are not strict vegetarians.
These are
>also only ape species that exist TODAY. Look at the fossil record....
IAN: OK, good point, my error. By
"great apes" I meant the gorillas,
which I understand are strict vegis.
I guess of all the primates, they
seem to be the greatest...