Schrodinger's cat

Fiction: Dune Lord of the Rings The Grapes of Wrath One Flew Over the Cookoo's Nest 1984 Lord of the Flies The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Slauterhouse Five Non-fiction: Man's Search For Meaning The Selfish Gene The Republic Gun's Germs and Steel The Ancestor's Tale

Some animals' behavior are mostly instinctual, like fish and reptiles. This includes sexual behavior. The human brain evolved to be extremely adaptive and to vary depending on environment. I think this also applies to human sexual behavior. Cultures that repress women s' sexual behavior but not men's probably have women with lower sex drive. If you took a group of very young children and raised them in an isolated environment, you could probably design a culture where the womens' sex drive surpassed the mens'.

Isn't the reason why a species requires diversity in its gene pool because of desease, resistance to pathogens, and the ability to adapt to future changes in environment? So I suppose whether a species could survive a reduction in variatibilty would depend on the previlance of inherited traits leading to serious desease amoung the serviving members, whether they face an outbreak of serious illness, and what kind of environmental changes they experience. If we can artificially prop-up the population, eventually variation would again occur, but this might not occur within a reasonably timespan(millions of years is a long time to keep a preservation policy going) How about splicing in some diversity from a related species? But how would you know what to change before it was too late? Unfortunately, it seems likely that some species taken from the brink of extinction to an acceptable population will some day face a sudden outbreak of illness and be wiped out. But how would we know for sure which ones would be worth saving? I imagine there are more factors involved than just population numbers.

It has been shown that the average amount of questions answered correctly on IQ tests have almost doubled since the time when these tests were first being administered. The reason is debatable, but it no doubt has something to due with environmental differences between the early 20th century and today. People who grow up in impoverished environments are less likely to succeed, and they are will have less ability to develop their intellectual abilities. Success and failure is contagious. If a person grows up around people who are poor and uneducated, they are likely to follow suit. If they see people similar to them on tv and in movies being portrayed as second class citizens, they are more likely to play those rolls in society. If people of other groups consistently see another group in inferior positions, they will think of that group and any individuals of that group that they encounter as inferior. The only way to elevate a group from this status quickly is to give them a leg-up--to give them some degree of preferred status until equality is established. Unfortunately, this means that sometimes people of other groups will in turn be put at a disadvantage. But this will soon be balanced out as equality is established and pressure starts to come in the other direction; to be more specific, when whites start to sue and win in court for discrimination, etc. As to the question of whether there are differences in the intellect between races. I would say that not enough research has been done to adequately answer this question. You would have to design a series of tests that measure multiple forms of intelligence and factor out cultural differences. I agree with the original poster that this kind of research would have to overcome a mountain of political obstacles. The researchers would no doubt be ostracized. And it would be of limited value. What would we do with the knowledge that Asians are 2% better that whites at mathematics?

It's true that the answer would largely depend upon how you define religion, but I don't think this would preclude coming up with a meaningful answer. You might say that religion is composed of not on just behavior, but also upon certain cognitive abilities, such as self-awareness--that you have to be aware of yourself as an individual in order to seek answers to existential questions. You could then design an experiment to test whether ants are self-aware. If the answer is no, then you might say that ants are not capable of true religion. You could then conclude that any behaviors that you observe that are similar to human religious practice is not indicative of ants practicing religion, though those behaviors would no doubt benefit the ant in some other way.