X-Message-Number: 7270
From:  (Thomas Donaldson)
Subject: Re: Ettinger's comments
Date: Fri, 6 Dec 1996 15:47:04 -0800 (PST)

Hi!

I may have other things to say about this Cryonet, but on reading Ettinger's
comments I must add a correction. Sociobiology has nothing to do with the
"good of society". Sociobiology is the theory/discipline/set of ideas by which
we try to explain human (and animal) behavior in biological terms. Since
it has been very hard for theorists of evolution to produce any situation
at all in which animals can be validly said to be acting "for the good of
their society" sociobiology amounts to just the opposite! (To add to the 
complexity of life, yes, there are a few very restricted and special situations
in which that might "social good" might make sense).

Bob, you might read up on this subject by reading some of the books by 
Edward O Wilson. His most beautiful book, still, I think, is THE INSECT
SOCIETIES, but he's gone on to look at social behavior among other animals 
too. And even with social insects, what has really happened is that the 
ants (or bees or termites) are so close genetically that workers benefit by
helping the queen lay more eggs --- benefit here consisting of propagation of
their genes. And, of course, these ideas have offended LOTS of people. 

And if we want to look at how and why human beings came to have to societies
they do, we simply cannot ignore our biological nature. (I would say, myself,
that there is no real distinction between our intelligence and our biology,
they are one and the same. And yes, that intelligence does affect our behavior:
why shouldn't it?). Nor are we any more separated from our biology now than
we ever were; we may be evolving toward something different from CroMagnon
man, but that in no way makes us more separate. Nor does our technology do
that, including any possible nanotechnology. But regardless of the future,
we remain human animals.

And of course any notion of morality which does not take our animal nature
into account fails at once. It suffers from the same kind of problem as a 
physical theory which does not conform to experiment. Won't work. Falls to
pieces. Or for that matter, a theory about how we should act which depends
on the assumption that we feel most comfortable when walking on all four
legs. Nonsense. Doesn't fit.

So it looks to me as if you misunderstood my own comments completely. As
for reading, I really would suggest that you try THE INSECT SOCIETIES,
just as a start. And yes, Wilson has gone off on political tangents with
which I strongly disagree, but that isn't my point. The science he has
done changed my perspective on much of the moral philosophizing that
has gone on through all of Western history; someone who now in 1996 wants
to discuss ethics and morality becomes irrelevant unless they pay attention
to human biology also.

To Peter Merel:

So you believe that only the nanotechnology pushed by Drexler et all can
"save us"? Why don't you find a good book on biochemistry and another on
biotechnology and curl up with them for a good read before you make such
a decision.

Yes, we will need more food and thus more productive farms. Guess what is
going on there right now? Gene modification and insertion of genes to make
plants resistant to pests of all kinds. We will need all kinds of things,
and various scientists are busily getting them. As for population, the
last figures I read (from SCIENCE, in fact) suggest that the growth rate
is now falling, EVEN in countries which are very poor whose people lack
much education (the desire not to see one's children die is not one held
only by the rich, or those who live in developed countries ... and means 
of preventing excess births have existed for millenia ... not gentle means,
such as those we have now, but means, infanticide among them).

It's not that I believe that some kind of Millenium will come. Partly I
credit people with more sense that many commentators seem to do. (It's
particularly interesting that all the war games people played in the 
60's and 70's, games in which groups played at being nations and found
that the game almost always ended in widespread nuclear war, somehow seem
not to have turned out to be mirrors of reality). And as we acquire more
technology our problems change, they don't disappear (we use that new 
technology simply because we prefer the new problems to the old ones, not
because it ever satisfies us completely). 

The future will bring both good and bad, and no doubt our meed of "total
catastrophes". That those catastrophes might seem to someone of BC 1000 to
be paradise itself needs to be realized, too. And yes, with present 
technology, we can feed, clothe, and house the expected future population
of the Earth. The arguments really aren't over that, but over just what we
might have to give up to do so. I doubt very much, however, that we will
give up technological progress entirely, and eventually the choices will
become better.

A nice book on biochemistry, though it doesn't explicitly discuss any
technology, is Lehninger BIOCHEMISTRY, latest edition. As for the limits of
biotechnology, read every line of Lehninger as if he is discussing devices
which have been designed rather than evolved. 

			Long long life to all,

				Thomas Donaldson


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