Bryan Moss wrote:
>
> Spike Jones wrote:
>
> > So. Mooses. Males with antlers, females without. Now
> > think evolution, and Moose precursors where antlers were
> > just beginning to develop. The femooses are neutral to
> > them at first, but the antlers turn out to be good for
> > fighting and the moose with the bigger antlers wins.
> >
> > Nowthen, even if the femooses dont care, over time
> > the big antlered males win the fights. The fight winners
> > get a big shot of testosterone, where the losers get a
> > shot of anti-testosterone. {Guys, you know what Im
> > talking about here}. So even if the femooses are
> > indifferent to who won the fight, the winner wants
> > to mate, perhaps several times, whereas the loser
> > isnt really in the mood too much.
> >
> > Nowthen, the group of femooses still must *accept* the big
> > antlered fight winner, right? The femooses that prefer
> > the small antlered loser and go off with him will be less
> > likely to be mounted, since he isnt in the mood, whereas
> > those who prefer the big antlered winner will spend the
> > evening with a horny moose. Result: Mr. Big Antlers sires
> > more...meese.
> >
> > They take after their mother, and soon you have a
> > population of mooses that inherently prefer big antlers,
>
> This where I have a problem with "evolutionary psychology";
> "big antlers" is no simple thing, "big antlers" is about as
> abstract as concepts get. You have to ask yourself how the
> process of storing abstract concepts like "big antlers" in
> DNA came about, *especially* when it has to weave that into
> something as complex as the brain. Now, I'm not sure
> exactly how complex DNA is, but I'm doubtful that it encodes
> the brain to a degree that you could put "big antlers" in
> there. Personally I doubt that much (if any) sex selection
> is happening at that level.
>
Do you agree that many animals are born with instincts? Do you
agree that these instincts are built into their brains by DNA?
So why can't there also be instincts to want to have sex with
big antlers? I don't get your logic here- I "ask myself how the
process of storing abstract concepts .. in DNA came about", and
the answer is obvious- it came about through the evolutionary
process.
And perhaps this will give you some idea just how HARD it is going
to be to figure out what all those DNA sequences actually DO in
the human genome. There is a huge amount of stuff in there.
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