Actually, I’m just glad you have the capability to process things and make intelligent comparisons based on the relevant facts. I may disagree with your use of this site to espouse your political views, but I appreciate your style just the same, Chach. Thanks for communicating. See you around the campus.

Reading Darwin is like a prison sentence, actually. It was a different era, and he was British, so the language is completely different than anything I’m used to, and a very difficult read. For example:

“Now, let some alteration of physical conditions occur in the district– a long period of drought, a destruction of vegetation by locusts, the irruption of some new carnivorous animal seeking “pastures new”– any change in fact tending to render existence more difficult to the species in question, and tasking its utmost powers to avoid complete extermination; it is evident that, of all the individuals composing the species, those forming the least numerous and most feebly organized variety would suffer first and, were the pressure severe, must soon become extinct.”

That’s just one sentence from Darwin and Wallace’s chapter “On the tendency of species to form varieties.” There’s page after page of that, and if read slowly, it makes perfect sense. But it’s mind-numbing to try and get through it in a short time, like on a Sunday afternoon when there’s a paper due tomorrow at 8am. It’s a nightmare. I got an A in the course, though.

His contemporaries Herbert Spencer, Sir Edward Burnett Tylor, and Lewis Henry Morgan also presented initial theoretical facets to the concept of evolution that we still see vestiges of in the present day, but for the most part they were typical “armchair theoreticians,” not quite the fieldwork scientist Darwin was. This was where some seeds of the now-debunked “cultural evolution” model were planted, and your idea about “Anglos, Aleuts, and Asians” representing different species like “gorillas, chimps, baboons, gibbons, etc” follows this very extinct line of “reasoning.”

Specifically, it allows for the Western European (read: English gentleman) to view the world as if his culture alone is at the pinnacle of evolutionary perfection, which by default places all other cultures down there somewhere in the “less human” category. Without this critical bit of pretzel logic, the idea of state-sponsored subjugation by force of entire cultures for the profit and betterment of the colonizing power would amount to nothing less than sinful behavior, like the slavery it truly was. But since “God” empowered the Western Europeans (by virtue of their assumed “great evolutionary superiority”) to sieze the lands, resources, and workforces of “less highly evolved” peoples all over the world and dictate how they will live their lives, what religion they’ll follow, and to whom they’ll pay taxes, etc. like the “gorillas, chimps, baboons, gibbons, etc.” which have pretty much been either hunted to near-extinction to put trophy heads on the wall of English manor houses or had their habitats stolen and cleared for farming, etc. This sets the stage for people like Hitler to rise to power. First he “proved” (at least to his own satisfaction) that Jews, Gypsies, and the physically and mentally disabled were less “human” than the “good Germans” and “true Aryans” whose help he needed to do the job. As soon as that misinformation was fixed securely in the eyes of his public, they could then be rounded up because their rights were suddenly and very clearly less important than those of his constituents, etc. due to their lesser standing in the eyes of his regime. You see, if we don’t de-humanize a population, it’s a lot harder to justify taking what’s theirs and having them systematically killed. Ask any Australian about the native population there and whether the Brits were nice and respectful of their culture. Same deal. As to your statement:

“If you are unable to deduce from the “information” that I gave out that while apes, chimps, etc. are all simians – they evolved to their own branches, with their own characteristics, within the species.”

Huh? Within what species? “Simian?” Again, a book might help.

It’s obvious that you don’t know THESE ARE ALL DIFFERENT SPECIES. They can’t interbreed. There is no “within the species” here. Your’e talking about different animals, apples and oranges. Humans are all one species. Gorillas, chimps, orangutans and gibbons are not. So get as mad as you want about my refusal to accept the Eurocentrist view of some perceived difference between “anglos, asians, aleuts, etc.” There is none. The recurring theme in the definition of information is KNOWLEDGE, not assumption or wild conjecture based on supremacist folktales.

Sorry if I get a bit strident. I see you as an intelligent person, and aside from your occasional off-subject political commentary, I generally enjoy your posts. Otherwise why would I waste my time? You seem to occupy a position of respect and authority here on HFW, and it’s disturbing to read things that are so grossly inaccurate represented as if “common knowledge.” In this regard, you have a bit of responsibility to uphold, wouldn’t you agree? Me? I’m just some idiot guitar player from Ohio. So what if I have an Anthropology degree with double honors? What the hell do I know?

Thanks for responding.

What part of Darwin’s book are you using to support your earlier assertion that

“There are gorillas, chimps, baboons, gibbons, etc. just as there are anglos, asians, aleuts, etc.”

Do you really see other nationalities as other species? I am truly sorry.

Nice copy-&-paste, btw