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Hom
o sapiens, Neanderthal is an obsolete scrap on the garbage pile of
history.
In human terms, that means suffering and mass death. Each
individual product of the mini-factory system is built with a vast array
of sensory devices designed to protect it from damage. It's regrettable
that those sensory mechanisms happen to be quick and efficient,
because they produce what we humans call pain. But, then, no
product is perfect. The Neanderthal woman who lost her children and
mate probably went into unconscionable agony.46 She may well have
lost her family to rampaging Homo sapiens tribes, glorying in their
victories, gloating over their superiority, and reveling in their
conquests.47
The ability to give speeches on glory, conquest, superiority and
nobility may well have been one of the features built into the latest
model--our "heroic" ancestor Homo sapient man. The new Homo
sapiens concepts of nobility and heroism would have been great leaps
forward. Why? They suited the hunger of genes.
Dawkins' The Selfish Gene rearranged the way many of those who
deal with animal and human behavior see the world around them.
One reason: Dawkins said that we tend to see ourselves and the
creatures around us as the masters of our genetic endowment. But in
reality, said Dawkins, we are merely servants. We are not using genes
to achieve our own ends. Our genes are using us.
The idea had been anticipated by the English poet and satirist
Samuel Butler in the 17th century. Butler had quipped that, "A hen is
just an egg's way of making more eggs."
If Dawkins is right, humans and their social groups originated as
mere puppets, complex tools of tiny molecules. You and I were
fashioned as if we were cranes, dump trucks and tanks, designed to be
driven by a set of replicators. We are gatherers of raw materials
operating at the behest of microscopic mini-factories seated at the
center of our cells. For genes are infected with an overweening
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Hom
o sapiens, Neanderthal is an obsolete scrap on the garbage pile of
history.
In human terms, that means suffering and mass death. Each
individual product of the mini-factory system is built with a vast array
of sensory devices designed to protect it from damage. It's regrettable
that those sensory mechanisms happen to be quick and efficient,
because they produce what we humans call pain. But, then, no
product is perfect. The Neanderthal woman who lost her children and
mate probably went into unconscionable agony.46 She may well have
lost her family to rampaging Homo sapiens tribes, glorying in their
victories, gloating over their superiority, and reveling in their
conquests.47
The ability to give speeches on glory, conquest, superiority and
nobility may well have been one of the features built into the latest
model--our "heroic" ancestor Homo sapient man. The new Homo
sapiens concepts of nobility and heroism would have been great leaps
forward. Why? They suited the hunger of genes.
Dawkins' The Selfish Gene rearranged the way many of those who
deal with animal and human behavior see the world around them.
One reason: Dawkins said that we tend to see ourselves and the
creatures around us as the masters of our genetic endowment. But in
reality, said Dawkins, we are merely servants. We are not using genes
to achieve our own ends. Our genes are using us.
The idea had been anticipated by the English poet and satirist
Samuel Butler in the 17th century. Butler had quipped that, "A hen is
just an egg's way of making more eggs."
If Dawkins is right, humans and their social groups originated as
mere puppets, complex tools of tiny molecules. You and I were
fashioned as if we were cranes, dump trucks and tanks, designed to be
driven by a set of replicators. We are gatherers of raw materials
operating at the behest of microscopic mini-factories seated at the
center of our cells. For genes are infected with an overweening
<< < GO > >>