Freethought & Rationalism Archive

whichphilosophy · 09-13-2004, 05:42 PM

Originally Posted by ticcan
Sometimes being the key word. The same ppl who are outraged when 100 children are killed by terrorists (at least the terrorists were doing it for what they believe) seem not to give a rats arse about the millions that die each year from preventable diseases or malnutrition, who are killed as most of the west is either ignorant or apathetic

Quote:
Originally Posted by Joseph Stalin
A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.

I think Ghandi summed this up even better, when he said,

Poverty is the worst form of violence.

Another thing, especially in the West we take our good fortune for granted.

Bill Mutz · 09-13-2004, 06:52 PM

Children are certainly less able to defend themselves, thus we consider it rather cowardly for adults to harm them. Also, children are valuable in that they are more shapeable than adults. All of this aside, our instincts are not refined enough to make a strong distinction between our own children and someone else's children, thus when we see images or hear stories of murdered children, sometimes even small animals, our first primal thought is something along the lines of "my children! My children! They're hurting my children!" That's my reaction, anyway.

Ms. Siv · 09-13-2004, 11:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyTheKat

Clever rebuttal–in order to refute your claim I'd have to accept its premise, which, ummm I don't.

BillyTheKat, please do not post a part of my posts out of context and respond. It can be very convenient but its never accurate !

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BTK : I wasn't aware of this (thanks for the info) but I wasn't questioning this anyway; I was querying the claim that similarities between human childcare practices and the practices of other mammals is the result of shared genetic material, rather than, a a more general similarity between animals with a high degree of social organisation, no shared genetic material necessary.

Siv : Because there are non-mammals with a high degree of social organization as well, but without the same similarity in child-care practices and without as much shared genetic material.

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BTK : I have to say, so what? I get kind of resistant and irritated by genetic explanations of behaviour, particularly when these are evidence on similarities with other species despite the genetic variance, but cant account for differences in behaviour in the same species with no genetic variance.

Siv : Ok then, cite me an example of 1-2 species which shows lots of similarities with human child care behaviour but are not mammals and dont have the limbic system.

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Siv : You see ... the instinct for rearing children originally evolved only for children within your own group. Since we evolved as nomadic hunter gatheres living in groups of mostly genetically related individuals, this did more often than not translate into better gene propogation.
But that does not mean that some of these cues dont backfire ... or result in "unintended" genotypic/phenotypic effects.

BTK : For instance?

Fetishes, some paedophilia, lesbianism (male homosexuality has more or less been explained biologically) etc.
I would also include behaviours like contraception, adoption etc. These were not "intended" by our genes.

Quote:

Physical abuse of infants is common among animals and infanticide is widely practised as a "rational" strategy - for example, when male lions take over a pride, they kill cubs fathered by their predecessor.
Male chimpanzees are also a serious threat to infants but the reasons are less obvious; female chimps are so promiscuous that any male in the group might be the father. And this is thought to counter any murderous tendencies among the dominant males because the offspring could be their's too.

In a similar vein, human children are much more at risk of abuse from stepfathers than natural fathers, indicating that some physical abuse of children may have its origins in such instincts.

The lion and chimp behaviours were the ones I was thinking of when I was reading your initial response to me, but I'd be hesitant about correlating those with abusive behaviours in humans without a serious amount of dot-joining. For instance, what are the figures for abuse rates between natural fathers and step-fathers? Why would natural fathers abuse their children anyway, and what about maternal rates of abuse?

Look up these statistics ...

< http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyvi...fs/fvsubab.pdf >
< http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/ >
< http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm >
< http://www.menweb.org/throop/abuse/s.../child-ma.html >

Evolutionary psychology can explain only the general trend .... not the few exceptions.
And as to why biological fathers sometimes do abuse their children too, there is evidence to suggest that men who have the chance to be closely involved in caring for a baby early in its life are less likely to harm it later on. Biological recognition needs to happen, and probably does not happen in a few cases.

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Siv : The incidence of paedophilic feelings in men is unclear but tentative estimates (based on polls) indicate that they may be more than 1% of the population. The actual figure may be much higher but many people subject to such feelings may succeed in controlling their actual behaviour and prostitutes are often asked to dress in schoolgirl uniforms. In keeping with the way sexual deviation is most common among males, incidence seems lower in women and about 90% of child sexual abuse is committed by men and only about 10% by women.

Billy : I'm reminded here of a story about the passage of legislation which criminalised homosexuality here in the UK. When the legislation was presented before Queen Victoria for her approval, she had the sections which referred to female homosexuality struck off, because women just don't do that kind of thing, do they? I wonder if women are really as sexually uncomplex as males as your point suggests, or is it the result of social attitudes to female sexuality, which inform (for example) the double standard towards promiscuity ?

Aw ... please

It is a fact that women are less aggressive than men are. And that obviously gets into the arena of sex as well.
Its about hormones, not social attitudes !

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However, sexual abuse is a matter of definition and often defined as sexual penetration, so women may be more abused than these figures imply. Estimates of the proportion of females subject to at least one act of abuse during childhood range from 10% to 25%, with males only about half of that.
Intercourse with a fifteen year old would be abuse in some societies but not in others and, in such cases, paedophilia begins to overlap with the normal male fondness for younger women.

I understood that one of the defining features of paedophilia is the preference for non-sexually differentiated children, which kind of differentiates it from underage sex.

See, thats exactly the problem. People ascribe all sorts of characteristics to paedophilia ! Early teenage is also assumed to be "childhood" by some studies !

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But as you noted, our ancestors worked, hunted and fought within a kin-related group; so I'm not too sure here how your point here can be generalised to the condition of child soldiers in contemporary conflicts in Sierra Leone, the Congo or Sri Lanka (for instance), in which kin affiliations are less obvious and often irrelevant to the manner in which children are "recruited" anyway. On the one hand,we're (apparently) predisposed to have protective feelings towards children, and because of social and technological change we can generalise these feelings to other children, yet at the same time we can subject children to the most hideous treatment imaginable; surely one would conflict with the other? Or maybe we need to throw something else into the mix to explain these differences, like, errm, environment, for instance?

Genes work only in environments and never in vaccums ... so thats a silly point to make.
And in any case, child care behaviour was always crucial only during the infant and toddler years ... it never extended to much more than that evolutionarily anyway. So there is no contradiction there.

BillyTheKat · 09-15-2004, 05:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

BillyTheKat, please do not post a part of my posts out of context and respond. It can be very convenient but its never accurate !

Okay, if you don't want me to respond to your questions as you raise them (which of courses, was the context), could you indicate this, maybe with an asterisk or something? That would be helpful. I have to note though that regardless of whether or not I should have included the particular exchange which led to my response in its entirety, this doesn't detract in anyway from my point, and as such still stands.

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Fetishes, some paedophilia, lesbianism (male homosexuality has more or less been explained biologically) etc.

Wow, I've got to see this stuff! Links please?

Quote:

Look up these statistics ...

< http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyvi...fs/fvsubab.pdf >
< http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/ >
< http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm >
< http://www.menweb.org/throop/abuse/s.../child-ma.html >

Will do–thank you!

Quote:

Evolutionary psychology can explain only the general trend .... not the few exceptions.

[My emphasis] I suspect this is where we start to part company... Evolutionary psychology makes me itchy, but I admit I get all behaviorist when it comes to issues like falsifiability.

Quote:

And as to why biological fathers sometimes do abuse their children too, there is evidence to suggest that men who have the chance to be closely involved in caring for a baby early in its life are less likely to harm it later on. Biological recognition needs to happen, and probably does not happen in a few cases.

Environment then. Anyway, this sounds like you're suggesting that without this recognition, men are disposed to abuse children? DO you wish to qualify this?

Quote:

Aw ... please
It is a fact that women are less aggressive than men are. And that obviously gets into the arena of sex as well.
Its about hormones, not social attitudes !

Except of course for that couple of days once a month when women turn into monsters

. Essentialist explanations make me suspicious. Evidence please; there's a whole bunch of DBSM stuff which makes me suspicious that something else is going here.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyTheKat

I understood that one of the defining features of paedophilia is the preference for non-sexually differentiated children, which kind of differentiates it from underage sex.

See, thats exactly the problem. People ascribe all sorts of characteristics to paedophilia ! Early teenage is also assumed to be "childhood" by some studies !

Just to clarify, do you agree or disagree that one of the defining features of paedophilia is the preference for non-sexually differentiated children? Btw, it's not incorrect to refer to early (or late, for that matter) teenage as childhood; it all depends on the terms of reference being used.

Quote:

Genes work only in environments and never in vaccums ... so thats a silly point to make.

As I've not claimed otherwise, that's a non-rebuttal. What I am noting here, though, is the significance of the environment; as a crude example, someone might be predisposed to growing tall (the genetic bit) but require adequate nutrition (the environment) to achieve that.

Quote:

And in any case, child care behaviour was always crucial only during the infant and toddler years ... it never extended to much more than that evolutionarily anyway. So there is no contradiction there.

This would further support, rather than rebutt my point; if we want to understand why some people are empathic to all children, regardless of age and relationship, and some others are hostile to children, yet all dispositions are genetic in origin and therefore more or less equally distributed in a population, we must look to the environment for the differences in behaviour, no?

Ms. Siv · 09-15-2004, 08:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyTheKat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv
BillyTheKat, please do not post a part of my posts out of context and respond. It can be very convenient but its never accurate !

Okay, if you don't want me to respond to your questions as you raise them (which of courses, was the context), could you indicate this, maybe with an asterisk or something? That would be helpful.

I said please dont post a part of my posts out of context ... not please do not respond to my questions !

Quote:

I have to note though that regardless of whether or not I should have included the particular exchange which led to my response in its entirety, this doesn't detract in anyway from my point, and as such still stands.

What is your point ?
Its a well known fact that only mammals have a limbic system which is the seat of all emotions.

Quote:

Fetishes, some paedophilia, lesbianism (male homosexuality has more or less been explained biologically) etc.

Wow, I've got to see this stuff! Links please?

Here's one
< http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...-29-2000a.html >

Quote:

Evolutionary psychology can explain only the general trend .... not the few exceptions.

I suspect this is where we start to part company... Evolutionary psychology makes me itchy, but I admit I get all behaviorist when it comes to issues like falsifiability.

What is not falsifiable in EP ?

There's plenty of objective evidence for it. Here are a few links ....
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...22352699v1.pdf >
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...0S.%20Sugiyama >
< http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at...pro_attra.html >
< http://www.iserv.net/~merriman/pairbon2.htm >

Quote:

And as to why biological fathers sometimes do abuse their children too, there is evidence to suggest that men who have the chance to be closely involved in caring for a baby early in its life are less likely to harm it later on. Biological recognition needs to happen, and probably does not happen in a few cases.

Environment then. Anyway, this sounds like you're suggesting that without this recognition, men are disposed to abuse children? DO you wish to qualify this?

Nope. Not just environment ... unless the pattern was innate, it couldn't happen. Its physiological.
And no again. I am only suggesting that, if there is no bonding, the probability of sexual and other abuse from natural fathers was higher than otherwise.

Quote:

It is a fact that women are less aggressive than men are. And that obviously gets into the arena of sex as well.
Its about hormones, not social attitudes !

Except of course for that couple of days once a month when women turn into monsters . Essentialist explanations make me suspicious. Evidence please; there's a whole bunch of DBSM stuff which makes me suspicious that something else is going here.

You want evidence for male and female hormones and their effects ?!!!!

Come on

Quote:

See, thats exactly the problem. People ascribe all sorts of characteristics to paedophilia ! Early teenage is also assumed to be "childhood" by some studies !

Just to clarify, do you agree or disagree that one of the defining features of paedophilia is the preference for non-sexually differentiated children? Btw, it's not incorrect to refer to early (or late, for that matter) teenage as childhood; it all depends on the terms of reference being used.

I disagree.
Early teenage was, evolutionarily the start of fertility ... and if we go back a few million years, there would have been nothing "wrong" in a 30 or 40 year old man having sex with a 14 or 15 year old.

Quote:

What I am noting here, though, is the significance of the environment; as a crude example, someone might be predisposed to growing tall (the genetic bit) but require adequate nutrition (the environment) to achieve that.

IMO thats innate because the predisposition is present. You could call it "nature via nurture" like Matt Ridley does :huh:

Quote:

And in any case, child care behaviour was always crucial only during the infant and toddler years ... it never extended to much more than that evolutionarily anyway. So there is no contradiction there.

This would further support, rather than rebutt my point; if we want to understand why some people are empathic to all children, regardless of age and relationship, and some others are hostile to children, yet all dispositions are genetic in origin and therefore more or less equally distributed in a population, we must look to the environment for the differences in behaviour, no?

No.
Because the degree of these predispositions do vary ... and these predispositions work through the environment anyway.

BillyTheKat · 09-15-2004, 08:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyTheKat

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

In a similar vein, human children are much more at risk of abuse from stepfathers than natural fathers, indicating that some physical abuse of children may have its origins in such instincts.

The lion and chimp behaviours were the ones I was thinking of when I was reading your initial response to me, but I'd be hesitant about correlating those with abusive behaviours in humans without a serious amount of dot-joining. For instance, what are the figures for abuse rates between natural fathers and step-fathers? Why would natural fathers abuse their children anyway, and what about maternal rates of abuse?

Look up these statistics ...

< http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/hppb/familyvi...fs/fvsubab.pdf >
< http://www.jimhopper.com/abstats/ >
< http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/stats.htm >
< http://www.menweb.org/throop/abuse/s.../child-ma.html >

I've read, and I hate to seem ungrateful, but although there's some interesting stuff on the links—for instance, rates of abuse amongst white children is not only twice as high as the next race in the list, but is also higher than all other races combined, which is a handy factoid to keep in mind for th next supremacist to grace these shores—but as far as I can see none of the links offer anything on the stuff I asked; only the second even enters the ball park by mentioning step-parents, but only to note that, "Effects [of abuse] are generally worse when it was a parent, step-parent or trusted adult than a stranger". :huh:

BillyTheKat · 09-15-2004, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

I said please dont post a part of my posts out of context ... not please do not respond to my questions !

I replied to it in the order it appeared in your post, and quoted it in its entirety; how is that out of context?

Quote:

What is your point ?
Its a well known fact that only mammals have a limbic system which is the seat of all emotions.

Oddly enough, I've never claimed it wasn't. My point was that to refute your request, "Ok then, cite me an example of 1-2 species which shows lots of similarities with human child care behaviour but are not mammals and dont have the limbic system" I'd have to accept the premise it descended from–that thing about similarities in childcare behaviour across species being the result of shared genetic material;?–which, as I'm questioning it, I kind of don't. By the way, you're aware of the difference between causation and correlation?

Quote:

[i]Here's one
< http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/r...-29-2000a.html >

Form the link:

Quote:

"There is no gene that forces a person to be straight or gay," said Breedlove, who studies the biology of sexual orientation. "I believe there are many social and psychological, as well as biological, factors that make up sexual preference.

"Having said that, these data do suggest that there are some people in the world who are gay because of fetal androgen levels."

Wow, that really rests the case for the genetic cause of fetishism, lesbianism and that "male homosexuality has more or less been explained biologically".

Quote:

What is not falsifiable in EP ?

Claims about the lifestyles of our prehistoric forebears as an explanation of our behaviour would be the biggy.

Quote:

There's plenty of objective evidence for it. Here are a few links ....
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...22352699v1.pdf >
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...0S.%20Sugiyama >
< http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at...pro_attra.html >
< http://www.iserv.net/~merriman/pairbon2.htm >

I'll examine these later.

Quote:

Nope. Not just environment ... unless the pattern was innate, it couldn't happen. Its physiological.

*Sighs* another non-response; never claimed it was just the environment; however, the "biological recognitiion" requires an environmental cue (ie. exposure to the baby) to trigger it, then environment is going to be the significant bit here.

Quote:

And no again. I am only suggesting that, if there is no bonding, the probability of sexual and other abuse from natural fathers was higher than otherwise.

I'm begining to find this one rather contrived and weak as an explanation of abuse... and probably unfalsifiable; I mean, how would you quantify and measure this "biological recognition" anyway? The Jim Hopper article you linked to previously expounds on the problem with this kind of research (see his comments on researching alcoholism).

Quote:

You want evidence for male and female hormones and their effects ?!!!! Come on

Evasion noted; I hope this is unintentional, and not an indication of a trend. No, I want evidence for your claim that, "It is a fact that women are less aggressive than men are." and "Its about hormones, not social attitudes !"

Quote:

I disagree.
Early teenage was, evolutionarily the start of fertility ... and if we go back a few million years, there would have been nothing "wrong" in a 30 or 40 year old man having sex with a 14 or 15 year old.

In many countries, and I believe, in some states in the US, there's nothing wrong with an older man having sex with a 14 or 15 year old woman (by the way, how do you know that early teenage was evolutionarily the start of fertility). But this doesn't address or counter my point that paedophilia, being characterised by an attraction to non-sexually differentiated children, is significantly different to unlawful sex.

Quote:

IMO thats innate because the predisposition is present. [...]

But that's nonsensical, illogical and counter-intuitive to classify an entity like growing as innate if it depends on environmental factors to trigger it. Here's a thought experiment to illustrate what I mean; we have a pair of monozygotic twins who come from a long line of tall forebears; one gets a healthy diet and grows tall, and the other is fed on mud, twigs and leaves, and doesn't grow tall. Is the difference in height between them the result of innate factors, or environmental ones?

Quote:

No.
Because the degree of these predispositions do vary ... and these predispositions work through the environment anyway.

Wow, so that's going to be really useful in understanding behaviour. Variance in behaviour is evidence of variance in predispositional factors of behaviour, huh? So let's recap here; similarities in certain behaviours across species is the result of shared genetic material, but variance in behaviour within a species is the result of variance of distribution of predispositions to that behaviour, which are genetic in origin, right?

BillyTheKat · 09-15-2004, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ms. Siv

What is not falsifiable in EP ?

There's plenty of objective evidence for it. Here are a few links ....
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...22352699v1.pdf >
< http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/c...0S.%20Sugiyama >
< http://evolution.anthro.univie.ac.at...pro_attra.html >
< http://www.iserv.net/~merriman/pairbon2.htm >

The facial symmetry stuff is a scream. Anyway, asserting the above as evidence for EP is like me claiming that my watch, which stopped at 5.03pm a couple of years back, still works; it tells the time correctly at least twice a day, y'know?

Anyway, I'm going to have to duck out of this particular exchange, fun as it has been, because it's taking up more time than I have available to focus on one thread, and we've kind of got way off track of the OP anyway. So we'll have to agree to disagree. Or agree to consider the other person to be a full-on nutjob. Or whatever. Hope that's okay with you!

Ms. Siv · 09-16-2004, 03:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillyTheKat

The facial symmetry stuff is a scream. Anyway, asserting the above as evidence for EP is like me claiming that my watch, which stopped at 5.03pm a couple of years back, still works; it tells the time correctly at least twice a day, y'know?

No, I dont know. And I fail to see any relevence in the analogy.
The universal commonality in beauty and the biology of it is no joke. You might not personally like the idea, Billy ... but the evidence is there for all to see :huh:

There have been numerous studies done with infants, children and adults from different nationalities, races and cultures and all of them do prefer symmetry and call it "beautiful". Here are more links, if you want.
< https://www3.bps.org.uk/publications...ist/little.pdf >
< http://www.princeton.edu/~amoroz/200...of-beauty.html >
< http://www.umkc.edu/sites/hsw/other/evolution.html >

Quote:

I've read, and I hate to seem ungrateful, but although there's some interesting stuff on the links—for instance, rates of abuse amongst white children is not only twice as high as the next race in the list, but is also higher than all other races combined, which is a handy factoid to keep in mind for th next supremacist to grace these shores—but as far as I can see none of the links offer anything on the stuff I asked; only the second even enters the ball park by mentioning step-parents, but only to note that, "Effects [of abuse] are generally worse when it was a parent, step-parent or trusted adult than a stranger".

I'll admit I did not check those links more thoroughly, sorry. What is the stuff you are looking for ?

To be more specific, if its about studies re: step-parent abuse being more than biological parent abuse ... here are some links which you might find useful.

From < http://www.palmettofamily.org/Report...t/father02.htm >

Quote:

" Using Data from 1000 students tracked from seventh or eighth grade in 1988 through high school in 1992, researchers determined that only 3.2 percent of the boys and girls who were raised in both biological parents had a history of maltreatment. However, a full 18.6 percent of those in other family situations had been maltreated. "

" A Canadian investigation found that preschoolers in Hamilton, Ontario, living with one biological parent and one stepparent in 1983 were 40 times more likely to be a victim of child abuse as like-aged children living with two biological parents. "

" ... preschool children who live with one biological parent and one stepparent were 40 times more likely to become an abuse case than children living in an intact home."

" The journal Child Abuse and Neglect published research conducted at the University of Iowa that concludes, although boyfriends only provide about 2 percent of all nonparental child care, 64 percent of all cases of nonparental child abuse are committed by boyfriends, with 84 percent of all cases of nonparental child abuse occurring in single-parent households. Based on this evidence, Leslie Margolin concludes, "A young child left with a mother’s boyfriend experiences substantially elevated risk of abuse." "

From < http://psychology.unn.ac.uk/nick/EPlec09.htm >

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" One key aspect of aggression is the fact that males are much more likely than females to act as aggressors, for example in Chicago between 1965-1980, 86% of murders were committed by men, with 80% of the victims being other males (Daly & Wilson, 1988). While percentages differ between cultures and over time in all known cultures males commit more murders and are more likely to be the victim of assault than are females. If extreme violence is ignored, males still show the following:

· They take more risks than females, and are more likely to seek out dangerous situations.

· They are more likely to choose immediate rewards over larger but later rewards.

· Males show aggressive behaviours from the age of 2 onwards.

· Males are much more likely to escalate an altercation to a dangerous level.

· On different forms of aggression large sex differences favouring males are seen for aggressive fantasies, physical aggression, imitative aggression, and willingness to shock others (Hyde, 1986).

· Same-sex bullying which involved direct physical aggression is more common in males (Ahmad & Smith, 1994).

That should answer your males being more aggressive skepticism as well.

From < http://www.crnjapan.com/articles/vis...n/carnage.html >

Quote:

" It is a sad fact that children of step-parent families are disproportionately represented in injury/murder statistics (Daly & Wilson, 1988). For example, in an anthropological study of a sample of Ache Indians of Paraguay, Hill & Kaplan (1988) reported that out of 67 children raised by mother and stepfather, 43% had died before age 15 compared with 19% of children raised by the genetic parents. The same pattern emerges in industrial societies with one survey in the USA in 1976 revealing that a step-child was 100 times more likely to be fatally abused than a same-age child living with genetic parents. The children most at risk are those aged 0-5. "

" Children of homes involving a step-parent (particularly a step-father) are 40 times more likely to be figure in local authority abuse statistics, to become runaways or juvenile offenders (Daly & Wilson, 1985) and while low income compounds the figures they are irrespective of socioeconomic status. However, Temrin et al., (2000) analysed data from children aged 0-15 killed in Sweden between 1975-1995 (a total of 175). They found that the key factor was a child living with a single parent (death rate of 12.6 per million as opposed to 3.1 per million in children living with 2 parents. The presence of a step-parent did not increase the risk. "

" Despite the fact that immediate family members have the most access to children, less than half of the sexual abuse perpetrators are actually family members and close relatives.
Strangers make up 10 to 30 percent of the cases.
The remainder are acquaintances including mother's boyfriends, neighbors, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, and peers.
Among sexual abusers who are "blood relatives", only a small fraction are Fathers. The great majority are uncles, grandfathers, brothers and stepbrothers, and male cousins.
Chances of a "daughter" being abused by her stepfather are at least seven times higher than by her Biological Father.
Forty-seven percent of cases of sex abuse by stepfathers were classified as "very serious", vs only 26 percent of cases by the Biological Fathers.
Compared to abusing stepfathers, abusing Biological Fathers are more likely to live in circumstances of great personal and social disorganization; are more likely to have very bad marriages; to be suffering from alcohol and drug dependencies; and to be of extremely low income. "In other words, they have been pushed over the edge."
There is evidence that the less confident the Father is that a daughter is really his offspring, the more likely he is to have an incestuous relationship with her.

Phew ... thats a long post. Let me end now.

09-13-2004, 05:42 PM	#31
whichphilosophy Contributor Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Abu Dhabi Europe and Philippines Posts: 11,254	Poverty is the Worst form of violence Originally Posted by ticcan Sometimes being the key word. The same ppl who are outraged when 100 children are killed by terrorists (at least the terrorists were doing it for what they believe) seem not to give a rats arse about the millions that die each year from preventable diseases or malnutrition, who are killed as most of the west is either ignorant or apathetic Quote: Originally Posted by Joseph Stalin A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic. I think Ghandi summed this up even better, when he said, Poverty is the worst form of violence. Another thing, especially in the West we take our good fortune for granted.

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09-13-2004, 06:52 PM	#32
Bill Mutz Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: North Carolina Posts: 657	Children are certainly less able to defend themselves, thus we consider it rather cowardly for adults to harm them. Also, children are valuable in that they are more shapeable than adults. All of this aside, our instincts are not refined enough to make a strong distinction between our own children and someone else's children, thus when we see images or hear stories of murdered children, sometimes even small animals, our first primal thought is something along the lines of "my children! My children! They're hurting my children!" That's my reaction, anyway.

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