ticcan

Yes but the programming is that we want to protect our gene pool, otherwise why would we by insticnt want to protect them? So if that instinct does exist then you would imagine it would also tell us that these 'defective' children would be of no use to them. Unless we overcame that instinct, but as yet have not managed to overcome the first one to protect them

His Noodly Appendage

Hm. I think this must be another emotional flat side on me.

I don't have any particular extra emotional reaction when I learn that the victims of violence were children. I'm not saying that it's less of a crime, I'm not saying that exploiting defenselessness isn't terrible... I just don't feel the gut-level outrage at the fact that they're *children* that others seem to. I just think "bastards, they killed people - that's terrrible!" - whether the victims be young or old.

Maybe it's related to growing up without ever being around people younger than me;, maybe I'm just weird. I don't know.

jbc

Ms. Siv

I'm surprised that you're not aware of this.

A comparison of dolphin and human chromosomes reveals that the genetic make-up of dolphins is amazingly similar to humans.
In fact, I think 13 of the 22 dolphin chromosomes were exactly the same as human chromosomes.

Yes, thats what I am suggesting.
Nothing to do with anthropomorphic tendencies ... its about evolution.
A lot of our emotional and child care behaviour is found in other mammals too.

Ms. Siv

Yes.

The reason this behaviour is so pronounced in mammals is because the number of offspring produced by mammals is lesser compared to those produced by insects or reptiles.
Whereas a female insect or reptile may lay hundreds of eggs, thereby trying to ensure that at least some of them make it to reproductive adulthood, most female mammals release just one egg every 2-4 weeks or so. So lots more evolutionary investment in the form of nurture goes into mammalian offspring.

As Naked Ape has pointed out, this is something common to early human societies also :huh:

The basic instinct of caring remains the same. Its just that now, thanks to the TV, newspapers, internet etc, our reference frame is much wider. Earlier it was just our tribe or our village ... now it extends globally. So we sometimes empathise with people/children everywhere.

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

BillyTheKat

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.

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 carnt account for differences in behaviour in the same species with no genetic variance.

Being new here, I'm really trying to resist my usual sarcastic impulses until I'm a little better known, because I'm struggling to see the relevance of this point to my post. Sorry!
So what's the genetic basis for this occasional empathy, and how do genetic explanations account for the behaviours I note in the post that you replied to here? The basic instinct of caring remains the same... except where it doesn't, possibly?

Ms. 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.

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. :Cheeky:

Well, I did think that your post was a bit curt but thought better than to make an issue out of it. I realize that things probably sound a lot more curt online than in person.
The relevance was in pointing out that there are similarities in both the good and the bad behaviour.

Ok, lets see what behaviours you referred to ....
Yes, these are present in other mammals too.
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.
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 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.

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.

And as for child workers and child soldiers ... the concept of formal education is a modern one.
For a majority of our evolutionary history, learning was on the job ... and when you were physically able to (starting from early teenage) you were part of the group for hunting and fighting.

BillyTheKat

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

For instance?
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?

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?

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.

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?

MajorAtheist

I don't consider the killing of children by terrorists to be any worse than the killing of adults.

In the media, I think this falls under the category of cheap emotional appeal. The media use children to sway the weak, or the emotionally driven - e.g., car accidents, natural disasters, terrorism.

Whether one is religious or not is irrelevant. Pain is pain.

Hyndis