Ms. Siv

I'm not too sure about that. I am sure there are cultural differences, but nothing very fundamental. Anyway, lets leave it at that for now.

No. Here I have to disagree with you.
Studies of chimpanzees and bonobos, as well as dolphins and a few other mammals, show a lot of similarities between their child care practices and ours.
These include care of offspring beyond the "infant" and "toddler" stages, involvement of the father, as well as other relatives in child care, teaching etc.

BillyTheKat

If you wish, but this does seem most pertinent to the topic at hand, and I'm particularly comfortable with the way you dismiss cultural factors as "nothing very fundamental"; are you suggesting there are other factors which supercede and exist externally to cultural factors?

I have to note the naturalistic fallacy being committed here; a perfect example of Hume's "is/ought" caution. Does the mirroring of human childcare practices (question begging, I know) in the wild have any more significance than co-incidence? If so, how do we know? And are the incidences of these practices sufficient for us to conclude that these are the rule, rather than the exception, as I suggested in my previous post?

Ms. Siv

Coincidence ?? I think not.

It only indicates the genetic similarities.

BillyTheKat

Between humans and dolphins? You've lost me here; you're not suggesting that human childcare practices, in all their variation, are the same in origin and effect as similar non-human practices? If so, I think you need to rein in those anthropomorphic tendencies.

BillyTheKat

If I know you half as well as I think I do, then I believe you actually meant to say, "I'm not particularly comfortable..." didn't you?

Hyndis

No; those principles of childcare go back even further, even before mammals were around.

It makes sense to protect one's offspring, as without protection they're quite helpless. And its in one's interest to maximize the number of surviving offspring, since that means that the individual's genes will be more common in the genepool of the species. Basic evolution.

And since only those parents that took care of their young had their genes passed on to future generations, this became something of an instinct, and is seen in a great number of species.

BillyTheKat

Are there any instances in the animal kingdom of animals becoming outraged by the suffering and/or killing of the offspring of other, completely unrelated animals? How much of the instinctiveness you describe here informs human behavior with regard to human childrearing practices, and particularly the variation in those practices, for instance, if that rearing takes place within a nuclear family, extended family, or by unrelated carers? How do these genetic explanations account for infanticide, abuse, paedophilia, child soldiers, child workers &c &c? Are genetic explanations sufficient to account for the question posed by the OP, or other phenomena such as the recent moral panics in the UK about paedophiles?

If it helps, my answer is that genetic explanations are not enough, anymore than the design of a car tells us how people use cars or why we have them in the first place.

ticcan

If we are genetically programmed to protect children to protect our gene pool then if there was a child born that was handicapped or in another way did not meet our approval wouldnt we then be programmed to kill it to protect our gene pool?

I am never sure how much of our behaviour and thoughts are as a result of independant thinking or genetic programming, and if any is as a result of the latter can it be overcome by the former?

BillyTheKat

On the other hand, if this is the result of programming, we'd protect the child regardless of its condition. We'd have no choice; we probably wouldn't even be aware of it.

Certainly genetics plays a part; though I've been able to teach my cat to make sounds which mimic certain human words, her physiology makes it impossible for her to repeat these words accurately or even understand them in a human-like way, and judging by the way she gets distracted by fast moving things I doubt if we'll ever have a decent conversation.

I'm unaware of any instinctual (poss. made-up word) or exclusively genetically-based human behaviour.

Naked Ape

Well, we can see that the god of the exodus knew that killing kids was a excellent way to get the attention of the political powers that be.

Exodus 11:5 Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the slave girl, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well.

Killing kids is more effective terrorism than killing real grown up enemies and has been for over 2800 years.

Why is this the case? I'm not sure but I think it has a lot to do with our perception of the "innocence and purity of children", and less to do with the accuracy of those perceptions.

Cheers,

Naked Ape