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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (52585)	7/7/2002 5:30:16 PM
From: J. C. Dithers	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 82486

Those abstracts and articles, along with the lengthy piece that Solon posted, made for interesting Sunday reading. Not light reading, but interesting reading. I love to read about animal behavior. Kindness and concern can certainly be observed in their realm, as with our own Golden Retriever sisters when they nurse each others infections or sores. The story of the gorilla that "saved" the little girl in the zoo made for a touching story. I do believe that packs and prides and the like organize themselves into cooperative societies, including protection for the weak or injured. There are often instances of true animal heroism, such as a dog jumping into a raging river to save a child. I believe that one of the dog food companies gives something akin to the Carnegie medals for such documented cases. That said, there appear to be clear limits to animal altruism ... which fall short of any instance where an animal makes a conscious, deliberate choice to sacrifice its life to save another animal or human. Such ultimate deeds done with full realization of the consequences surely distinguish our own species from all others. While animal exploits are heartening to me ... I find scientific discourses such as the one Solon posted to be disheartening. To explain religious faith, or the quality of altruism, as the natural outcome of genetics and the process of natural selection ... is dehumanizing to me. Such theories are consistent with what seems to be the trajectory of science today ...to minimize the human spirit down to neurons, electrons, and genes ... reductionism, as it were. Perhaps it is the Luddite in me that resists the notion that the biologists and chemists can explain the entire nature of my existence, and account for all my thoughts, my beliefs, and my behaviors. No, I say! There is more to me, and to you, and to life ... than that. When I think of someone like Todd Beamer, the hero of the flight that went down before it reached the White House ... I don't want to hear that he was merely acting out his genetic programming. I don't want to hear it, because I will never believe that the majesty and the glory of the human spirit can ever be so encapsulated. (End of sermon!)