--Jacob, on 20 Apr 1999 you said at 'Cafe Utne,' "Still, in general, think which human groups are more prone to die of hunger and disease, and to live in dire poverty, if not those who have not evolved in the direction of better 'inborn wiring' for the capacity to compete in a rapidly industrialized and technologically advanced and advancing 'global village'?"

Do I understand that you are saying we have evolved "inborn wiring" to compete in a technological world?...

Patrick, nothing evolves by itself for a 'purpose.' Evolution does not follow a plan, and organisms evolve in a given way because that way happened to be viable. Teleology exists only since man UNDERSTOOD. (Other animals can learn but they cannot understand.) At that moment, TELEOLOGY was created BY MAN. 'Evolving for being able to compete in a technological word' is a nonalethic proposition: The selfsame technological world could have been evolved only by evolved beings. 'Inborn wiring' refers to the abilities present at birth, which vary among individuals and groups. The better wired are found amongst those who develop the technological word.

... If so, there is no evidence of that. There is evidence to the contrary though. Recently Stone Age cultures like New Guinea have been able to make the transition from Stone Age to technological in a generation or two. --

What I said needs no evidence because it is evident in the whole world. You have not presented evidence about the New Guineans' jump. You mean that now they employ Carterpillar tractors, listen to Phillips radios, travel in Boeings, use French-made fertilizers, and even join Swiss watch components?

--Disadvantaged peoples remaining in poverty has everything to do with geopolitics, and nothing with wiring.--

Please substantiate.

--A great book addressing these points is Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.--

This is just your personal opinion. How can I dialogue on that point? (I expect your undersanding for my good-intentioned comments.)

--Jacob, your list of things New Guineans can do is at the least patronizing.--

D-SP does not engage in moralistic dialogues. Please read the essay on value judgments (AXIOLOGY) at oocities.com/~ghitis/

--Diamond has spent many years among them and finds them, if anything, to be more intelligent than westerners (but not for racial reasons).--

Intelligence has many aspects. My post doesn't suggest that a person, or a group, or a race, is not intelligent. It clearly states that some are not well wired (that is, not neuronally developed) for the requirements of a tremendously developed high tech of today and tomorrow. The Spaniards and the Ottomans were were well wired for wars with swords and cannon, but obviously not for high-tech wars. Am I suggesting that they are not INTELLIGENT? Racists declare that certain race is not deserving to live because it is deleterious for the 'reigning' race. Have I expressed contempt for any given group or nation? Patronizing means defending a weak person while at the same time not feeling that the person is an equal. I'm not defending anyone. I'm just exposing thoughts that I consider as part of D-SP.

--I am aware that "evolution doesn't follow a plan," although what is being debated now is whether it follows self-organizing principles, as postulated by biologist Stuart Kaufmann (Santa Fe Institute). And I am not arguing Teleology--and don't know what makes you suggest I am.--

Then you are against the notion that evolution follows a plan. As for self-organization, that's one principle that explains the spontaneous change from chaos to order. It is basic for understanding complexity. I have written on the subject. I suggest reading at least my posts in LIBRARY III.

--Natural selection does not work over a generation or two. Technologically adept people (those whose brains are wired to do science among other things) are as apt to be found in Rwandan, New Guinean or Californian populations.--

Of course! It is a question of percentages. A certain percentage of people from India are in the vanguard of physics research. What about high-tech?

--Your observation that fewer are found among New Guineans and therefore they are not "wired" to the same extent we are, is based on false causality.--

Notice that you write, "to the same extent we are..." is by itself revealing of the distance you place yourself, in the category of WE. I'm not dialoguing for argumentation sake. I am doing it because I find your retorts intelligent and stimulating.

--Jacob, you wrote, "The selfsame technological world could be evolved only by evolved beings. 'Inborn wiring' refers to the abilities present at birth, which vary among individuals and groups. The better wired are found amongst those who develop the technological word."

That's backwards Jacob. The technological world was developed by people who 'happened' to inhabit a cultural, social and economic environment in which it was possible to "stand on others" shoulders to take the next step.--

It is not backwards, but an axiomatic proposition, therefore sounding like a circular argument, like saying, "A straight line is the shortest distance beetween two points.... because it is an axiom." You actually mean to say that given the right societal conditions, any group can compete equally. I believe that such societal conditions have existed for quite a while, and it has been learned that not all groups develop equally, high-tech --the area I chose to deal with-- being one the testing grounds. Does this finding imply that the least capable should be despised or patronized?

--Do you think Newton would have formulated his principles if he'd been taken in from infancy by a New Guinean family in New Guinea?--

Do you think that any New Guinean, or Newton's neighbor, would have done equally, given equal educational and ambiental conditions? Analogies should be exploited most gingerly with the purpose of supporting argument, as I have explained in THE GAME OF ANALOGIES.

--The reasons white Europeans prevailed over other peoples in the world and thus were in a position to advance technologically, had to do with a much earlier development of agriculture, which depended on climate, geography and the ease of propagation of such, not on being "wired" for it.--

You are liberal in the use of climate, geography, agricultural development, for your argumentation purposes, but are very conservative in the conditions that affect the brain's development. Agriculture was well developed in Mesopotamia and in Egypt when the Europeans had not yet made their mark.

--With agriculture came greater population densities, specialization, and with a ton more details, the rest, as they say, is history.--

Too vague.

--By the way, New Guineans do more than ride in Boeings, they fly them.--

One doesn't have to adept in high-tech to fly a Boeing.

--While I'm not sure I agree with him, Jared Diamond says his years in New Guinea have shown him a people generally more intelligent than westerners because they have a more challenging life.--

What a sweeping statement! Intelligent people make their lives more challenging..., says Jacob Ghitis.

--Jacob, you could dialogue on Guns, Germs and Steel if you read it. It is a good antidote to what I read as your racially based/biased ideas.--

Thank you for reading my challenging ideas.

--I looked up "alethic" and "nonalethic" in several dictionaries but couldn't find it. Would you care to define it?--

I suggest you look it up in a fat dictionary. It is not present even in the Internet EB or dictionaries. I suggest reading in LIBRARY III the Interdialog THE TRUE VS TRUTHS. I copy-pasted from it the following paragraph:

*Jacob, "Alethic" is not in the dictionary, and I have no idea what this paragraph means. It would seem to me that whether the assertion "John is a rascal" is true depends ENTIRELY on whether John really is a rascal! "Nobody is happy anytime" ALSO depends upon some state of existence. I agree that the latter is an untrue assertion, but not knowing John, how can we judge the first?*

** Bo, Alethia is the Greek personification of truth. Alethiology: the branch of Logics dealing with truth. Alethiologist: a logician of truth. Alethic (from 'alethe'): related to truth.
"John is a rascal" is an alethic proposition, which doesn't have to be stating a true fact. "Nobody is happy anytime" is not alethic, because there are many people who are happy sometime. Is is not a question of 'assertions' but of logical propositions. **

--While this may sound a bit abrasive, let me mention that I came here to discuss, not to be lectured.--

I enjoy dialoguing on Dynamic-Scientific Philosophy (D-SP), which has its own forum in 'Delphi,'too. I just intend to recruit people for that forum, as stated in my first post here. I have been a lecturer in Spanish for several decades, and also in English, ocasionally in Hebrew (see GOD'S UNFINISHED TASK), but not on D-SP, which is of recent origin. People were never forced to listen to my lectures, and not all agreed with the ideas expressed.