Lesigner Girl
Minerva
Worldly Traveler (premium)
Head of Runboard staff
Registered: 11-2005
Province: YouTube/LesignerGirl
Posts: 6857
Karma: 101 (+115/-14)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
 Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
Why wouldn't it be an evolutionary advantage for mothers to eat their young?
|
|
6/4/2009, 6:27 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Lesigner Girl
Read Blog
|
Morwen Oronor
Citizen
Worldly Traveler
Registered: 01-2008
Posts: 1912
Karma: 18 (+19/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
It goes beyond stupidity. It's so stupid it's not worth taking the trouble to answer it.
---
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.William Spencer Churchill
|
|
6/4/2009, 9:33 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Morwen Oronor
Read Blog
|
Lesigner Girl
Minerva
Worldly Traveler (premium)
Head of Runboard staff
Registered: 11-2005
Province: YouTube/LesignerGirl
Posts: 6857
Karma: 101 (+115/-14)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
I think the person who posted that might have gotten it from someone else who had a point, but didn't have the slightest clue of what that point was when they tried to parrot it.
I think the originator's point might have been to ask where the nurturing instinct came from, not why is it beneficial. Of course, the answer to where it came from is simple: A mutation caused it, and natural selection kept it going because that mutation kept the mutant's offspring alive, the offspring carried the mutant's genes and passed them to their offspring, etc (I say this for lurkers who might not already understand how natural selection works, as I'm sure most people who post here already know this).
But this also brings me to the question of how, exactly, did our ancestors survive before the nurturing instinct came about?
|
|
6/4/2009, 11:41 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Lesigner Girl
Read Blog
|
Morwen Oronor
Citizen
Worldly Traveler
Registered: 01-2008
Posts: 1912
Karma: 18 (+19/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
I don't think it's a nurturing instinct as much as a survival one. I also think that we are aware of death long before we're even aware that we're alive.
The fight or flight drive causes us to avoid death and I think that it's more to do with keeping the species alive rather than protecting of one's offspring.
Some offspring don't deserve to be nurtured and I imagine even their parents recognise that. LOL
Joking aside, though I don't think that we learned to take care of our young for any other reason than to keep the species going, in the same way that turtles lay eggs, make sure they are safe and then abandon them.
Lesa, there are people who are determined to not learn anything. They'll take a perfectly logical scientific fact and turn it into something that sounds ridiculous, just to avoid actually learning the science behind it. It's just a lot easier to believe that some self-creating being created everything in 7 days than to try to fathom the idea of 400 billion years of continued evolution.
---
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.William Spencer Churchill
|
|
6/5/2009, 12:43 am
|
Link to this post
PM Morwen Oronor
Read Blog
|
toxiczen
Citizen
Worldly Traveler
Registered: 10-2006
Province: everywhere and nowhere...
Posts: 935
Karma: 33 (+33/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
many of the comments following the post are funny to read. "the stupidity! it burns!"
many suggest it was just a joke, i'd like to think it was... :P
ultimately caring for ones young is in the animals best interest whether it "realizes" it or not, as it allows it to spread its genes and perpetuate itself... this is likely instinctual at some level.
---
"Love is the strongest force the world possesses, yet! it is the humblest imaginable."
~Gandhi
"it is easier to tell the truth: you don't have to remember anything"
~Mark Twain
|
|
6/5/2009, 7:02 am
|
Link to this post
PM toxiczen
|
Lesigner Girl
Minerva
Worldly Traveler (premium)
Head of Runboard staff
Registered: 11-2005
Province: YouTube/LesignerGirl
Posts: 6857
Karma: 101 (+115/-14)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
I highly doubt the first RNA strand had survival or nurturing instincts. They had to have starting points.
But when you think about it, the first RNA strand didn't have competition. Once it reproduced, there was still no competition because they survived the same way the first one did. As the population grew and diverged, only then was it necessary to develop survival and nurturing instincts, and I'm guessing those instincts developed early on, perhaps in the proterozoic era.
|
|
6/5/2009, 6:12 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Lesigner Girl
Read Blog
|
Onyx2201
Citizen
Worldly Traveler
Registered: 07-2006
Province: An alternate state of attitude
Posts: 91
Karma: 2 (+2/-0)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
Strangely, a woman at church shared that she now understood why some creatures eat their young.
It had been a bad week
The last week of school (I teach junior high)I wish the parents would eat their young, or at least teach them manners, wait eating them would be simpler.
---
Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.
-Auntie Mame
|
|
6/9/2009, 9:03 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Onyx2201
|
Lesigner Girl
Minerva
Worldly Traveler (premium)
Head of Runboard staff
Registered: 11-2005
Province: YouTube/LesignerGirl
Posts: 6857
Karma: 101 (+115/-14)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
It sounds like a rough week indeed!
|
|
6/10/2009, 6:08 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Lesigner Girl
Read Blog
|
Morwen Oronor
Citizen
Worldly Traveler
Registered: 01-2008
Posts: 1912
Karma: 18 (+19/-1)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
I saw a program on TV over the weekend about a dinosaur they found on Madagascar that had eaten its baby as well as another dinosaur of the same species.
Sometimes when I see the kids down here during the summer months when they come for their annual vacation, I wonder that some of them are more suited to be food than future adult. There are some really awful kids around these days, but then their parents are awful parents as well.
---
The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.William Spencer Churchill
|
|
6/10/2009, 10:26 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Morwen Oronor
Read Blog
|
Lesigner Girl
Minerva
Worldly Traveler (premium)
Head of Runboard staff
Registered: 11-2005
Province: YouTube/LesignerGirl
Posts: 6857
Karma: 101 (+115/-14)
|
|
Reply | Quote
|
|
Re: Is this the most illogical question you've ever heard?
Maybe the parents should be eaten, and the children relocated to better homes. 
|
|
6/11/2009, 10:09 pm
|
Link to this post
PM Lesigner Girl
Read Blog
|
