[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
KombatAthlete wrote:
merv wrote:
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. One of those books that just shakes you to your very core.
That’s ironic, I just finished writing an essay that essentially refuted several of the assumptions that Daniel Quinn’s argument is founded upon. If anybody wants to see the paragraph where I really logically de-construct his assumptions I will post it.
Post it.[/quote]
Assumptions are certainly not in short supply in Ishmael. Much of Daniel Quinn?s philosophical assertions in the book are based on these assumptions, most of which are simply not true or not provable either way. There are several statements in Ishmael which may not be assumptions but manipulation of facts in order to prove a specific point.
However, as I myself shall assume Daniel Quinn to be a respectable scholarly man who would properly utilize all available knowledge, I myself will make an assumption that any fallacies are assumptions born out of ignorance. The entire book is based on the assumption that man is in violation of nature?s natural state of order and man?s negative effects on his environment have accumulated gradually but its repercussions will manifest themselves suddenly.
In addition, the known auto-regulating biological laws that govern food consumption and overpopulation, which Daniel Quinn cites humans as being in violation of, are self-correcting in a time frame not much longer than a decade (although it is possible that the length of time for self-correction increases with population). One passage that I believe illustrates the faulty logic upon which Daniel Quinn draws his conclusion is the following: ?Next, the Takers systemically destroy their competitors? food to make room for their own. Nothing like this occurs in the natural community.
The rule is: Take what you need, and leave the rest alone?. The paragraph mentioned is based on a number of incredible assumptions and implies some bizarre things. In addition, it makes me question Daniel Quinn?s understanding of competition in the natural world. I do not know if Mr. Quinn is aware of the two basic kinds of competition that occur in nature. Most often two competitors in the wild are usually two different species that are competing for the same food source.
Hence, how would it be possible to destroy your competitor?s food source without essentially killing yourself? If the lion and the cheetah were both competing for a gazelle, and the lion decided to eliminate the food source of its competitor, it would have really succeeded in depriving itself of a food source. The only other type of competition that occurs in the wild is over a niche (scientific name for a home).
Two species cannot share the same niche; it simply does not occur in the natural world. If such a conflict does occur, the competing species will clash and one will leave either by choice or by death; it is certainly not only humans that kill other species for land. In addition, Daniel Quinn also makes the absolutely incredulous implication that animals in the natural world are capable not only of entirely eliminating another species? food source, but also effective replacing their competitor?s food source with their own. To the best of my knowledge no animals besides the human are capable of systemically destroying a major food source and then systemically replacing it with a food source of their own.
Such a practice would constitute what one might call agriculture, and I don?t think there are too many reputable scholars at this point believing that any animal besides the homo sapien sapien is capable of such a practice. If animals are physically and mentally not capable of doing something even if they had the strongest desire to do so, there is little sense citing the lack of it as evidence of a natural law obeyed by animals. If no other animal is capable of manipulating his environment and conducting agriculture, does it make sense to cite the lack of agriculture in animals as evidence that there exists a law in the natural world forbidding agriculture?
Daniel Quinn uses this line of reasoning, which lacks logic as it is practically impossible to prove, extensively, also using it to argue that the natural world forbids animals to subjugate their environment to themselves, rather than living at the mercy of their environment. This is based on non-existent logic as it is not known and practically cannot be known if animals in nature are subjugating their environment as best as they can but have yet to evolve the means of doing capable of doing so or if they are somehow obeying a natural law that forbids manipulation of the environment.
In addition, as both science and practical experience tell us that the acquisition of food is amongst a wild animal?s greatest concerns, if an animal had the intelligence to realize the cause and effect relationship of systematically manipulating his environment to facilitate increased food production in addition to the ability of doing so, it would follow logically that they would in fact do so. There is absolutely no evidence in favor of Daniel Quinn?s ?limits of competition?. Daniel Quinn also makes more statements that are flat out not true or entirely unsubstantiated.
He chooses himself to incorrectly exempt homo sapien sapiens from the known laws of nature, putting a barrier between man and nature, and then proceeds to argue against this artificial barrier that he himself erected as a reason agriculture with bring out the demise of humanity. For example, he states that Natural Selection and evolution is no longer occurring in humans, which is simply not true. This is perhaps due to an incomplete or incorrect understanding of the process of Natural Selection, as many people seem to have.
In addition, evolution is nearly impossible to observe on very short time scales unless a drastic change in the environment occurs, since time is such an important variable in evolution. It is not quite as simple as not being tall enough to reach the fruit and starving to death, so the tall ones survive, hence the species evolves. Such drastic examples do exist, but they are very rare. Evolution typically involves very small numbers and very large time scales.
For example, suppose increased height gives a person a 5% better chance at surviving. Given a time span of thousands of years that difference will become very significant and evolution towards increased height will occur. However, Natural Selection is clearly occurring amongst humans. Suppose that a good looking, kind, and intelligent man is slightly more likely to meet a mate and have children with her. As it is the good looking, kind, and intelligent man who is most likely to meet a mate and pass on his genes with her, given time the population of humans will evolve towards having more people with those desirable characteristics.
Those who have characteristics not seen as desirable by other humans are less likely to attract a mate and thus pass on their genes, hence given enough time this difference will become significant and the human population will contain less of those characteristics than before. Clearly, Natural Selection is still at play amongst humans. Daniel Quinn also states that evolution is essentially synonymous with increasing intelligence and complexity.
If such a statement were true, then a number of organisms, such as the crocodile and the Great White shark, would surpass humans in intelligence, as they have existed much longer than humans and would thus have more time to evolve towards increasing intelligence. Obviously this is not true. Instead, organisms evolve towards whatever attribute will help them survive better. As intelligence allowed the homo sapien sapien to thrive against organisms much bigger, faster, and stronger than they themselves were, increased intelligence became an increasingly common characteristic in the human gene pool.
This is the same mechanism by which the cheetah developed incredible speed and the shark an incredible sense of smell and peripheral vision (they can see almost behind themselves and smell a single drop of blood from as far as a mile away). To say that all organisms evolve towards increasing intelligence has no factual basis, and to say that all creatures are on the verge of self-awareness and intelligence is unfounded. If we have begun to observe increased intelligence in several mammals, this is likely due to our increased observational abilities.
Another assumption that Daniel Quinn makes is that agriculture was spread by force, which is supported in the book by his interpretation of the Cain and Able story of the Bible as a battle of agriculture vs hunter-gatherer methods of food production. However, such an assumption does not have much true evidence, as the two native societies that Quinn cites as trying and abandoning agriculture are in fact the only two that ever have.
Every other society on the face of the Earth seems to find agriculture the superior method of food production. Daniel Quinn also states that crime, mental illness, drug use, etc. are only found in ?civilized? agricultural societies and blames this on agricultural food production. This statement is simply not true, as in fact the opposite is true in some cases. For example New Guinea Highlanders, who are still hunter-gatherers, have a notoriously high murder rate that far exceeds that any of Western country, and many drugs have origins in the stateless societies that Daniel Quinn seems to be so fond of.