Monday, July 28, 2008
"us and them " by David Berreby
"Scientists , when they turn their attention to people, usually talk about the entire human race or about the individual human being.
Truth about all is truth about each ; a theory about the mind or morality applies to everyone who ever lived, as well as to YOU in particular.
Either perspective yields big explanations, which make many predictions to test and suggest many experiments. It's where researchers like to be ;working on "the" genome, or "the" brain, or "the" self.
Human kinds, whose memberships fall between ALL and ONE, map a much more variegated world than that one-size-fits-all label " Homosapiens".
Why is all this variety possible ? That's not a question that can be answered by looking at the political, economic, or cultural aspects of human kinds,as important as those aspects are. The issue is not what human kinds are in the world, but what they are in the mind - no how we tell Tamils and Seventh-Day Adventists and fans of Manchester United from their fellowhuman beings, but why we want to !
After all, other creatures get along fine without dividing themselves into such tribes. Many people today find themselves struggling, again and again, with a difficult question,
" Who is on our side ? "
Today, it is clear as never before that, human kinds don't depend on what people are, but on what people BELIEVE !
" US AND THEM " by David Berreby
Truth about all is truth about each ; a theory about the mind or morality applies to everyone who ever lived, as well as to YOU in particular.
Either perspective yields big explanations, which make many predictions to test and suggest many experiments. It's where researchers like to be ;working on "the" genome, or "the" brain, or "the" self.
Human kinds, whose memberships fall between ALL and ONE, map a much more variegated world than that one-size-fits-all label " Homosapiens".
Why is all this variety possible ? That's not a question that can be answered by looking at the political, economic, or cultural aspects of human kinds,as important as those aspects are. The issue is not what human kinds are in the world, but what they are in the mind - no how we tell Tamils and Seventh-Day Adventists and fans of Manchester United from their fellowhuman beings, but why we want to !
After all, other creatures get along fine without dividing themselves into such tribes. Many people today find themselves struggling, again and again, with a difficult question,
" Who is on our side ? "
Today, it is clear as never before that, human kinds don't depend on what people are, but on what people BELIEVE !
" US AND THEM " by David Berreby
