On Saturday, January 22, 2000 7:21 PM Damien Broderick
d.broderick@english.unimelb.edu.au wrote:
> Well, yes, but out of millions of animal species, humans are the only one
> who have any problem with kids copying
> each other's term papers, or driving fast through red lights in busy
> traffic, or new husbands killing the former husband's babies - is this
> entirely the consequence of *warped* social norms?
Ha ha ha! I seem to recall adult male lions and adult male house cats both
killing the offspring of others infants of their species. If my memory's
correct, male adult house cats will even kill their own offspring, which is
the supposed reason stray female cats tend to band together -- to
collectively watch their children.
A lot of other nasty things _some_ humans do are not the monopoly of humans.
I once saw (on a TV documentary) a male lion kill a hyena seemingly just for
the hell of it. He ran up to it, grabbed it and threw it down, breaking the
hyena's back. He left it for dead. If this wasn't an expression of
murderous rage -- since the lion didn't eat the creature -- I don't what
would qualify as one.
As for cheating, do we really need to go over all examples of animals
mimicking other animal's behavior deceptively? (Which is what cheating is,
no?)
Finally, I'm glad no one brought up wars, because we know, at least, chimps
have them -- albeit, they are more like the raiding party stuff of Vikings
and Ancient Greeks than, say, bombing Serbia into submission.
Anyho, this "let's bash the human race" meme must be a leftover from the
Middle Ages.
An old meme is hard to kill!:)
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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