Kirt:
>> There is some talk that the
>> repressive mechanism evolved in, say, hunting cats

Martha:
>What is meant by "repressive mechanism"?

Kirt:

I'm talking out of school on the whole issue a bit, but...
To take a big view, hunting mammals evolved from non-hunting (but perhaps
scavanging) mammals. Somehwere along the line the violent chase/attack/kill
behavior had to evolve in the nervous system of, say, a lion. It was new
behavior and, in one way or another, had to turn off (repress, which I
admit is probably a poor choice of words here) any possible interference of
the more anciently evolved maternal instinct which includes gentle
playfullness and protective behaivor towards young mammals, especially of
their own species, and more especially of there own families. In other
words, the behavior needed to be situation specific: chasing down, killing,
and eating your own young would be pretty hard on the species success, as
would playing with and protecting the young of another species instead of
killing and eating it (and sharing it amongst the blood kin).

>> How a lion can take down a young wounded antelope and then play with
>>the kittens at home is an interesting phenomena, and perhaps evolved as
>> a "niche mental subroutine".The idea  that, in humans, males
>>specialize in this "subroutine" is not preposterous to me.

>But also, if I'm not mistaken, human males are also far more likely to
>be more vicious toward children, even their own.  So the evolution is
>imperfect to date.

There is much discussion of this in the book I mentioned (Stone Age
Present) but most of it boils down to this: Males have the most investment
in their own blood/genetic offspring and don't often harm them (indeed, the
opposite, they share food and protect them). They have less investment in
non-genetic children in their own social group, and even less in children
outside their social group but still the same species. The young of other
species are simply food. The rates at which primates and pre-agricultural
males harm children are correlated to the level of investment the male has
in the child.

It seems that for gorillas (which are so often held up as fine examples of
peaceful vegans), when a new male acheives dominance in a "harem" of
females and children, he will kill as many as 50% of the infants in the
harem (they are not his genetic offspring, and they prevent his
impregnating the nursing mothers to begin producing his own offspring).
Apparently, among today's human the male-child violence is 1000 times more
likely against step-children than genetic-kin chilren.

As for "evolution being imperfect": yes, Yes, YES! Exactly: Evolution is
never perfect, it just works! The conflicts inherent in the many
co-existing variables is very easy to see in the above example. Does the
gorilla spend energy and resources to raise another gorilla's offspring?
Does he protect his own social group? Does he protect his species
regardless? All of those are benefitial to his species, but so isn't he
trying to get copies of his own DNA out there, so it is a balancing (or
juggling) act of factors which is continually comprimised by the
environment, biology, non-physical culture,etc. Natural selection doesn't
operate on one factor in isolation, but on multitudes of compromises among
multitudes of variables.  (Ward was posting on this towards the end of his
tenure.) Whatever works survives, not what is perfect. Perfect is an
abstraction.

Further, many modern behaviors may result, not from the imperfection of
evolution, but because of the mismatch of our cultural practices and our
evolved biology. Denatured foods and non-mammalian child-rearing techniques
are only two of our human specialties in this regards, but they are perhaps
the most incidious because they are so endemic and "normal" in our
culture...

Cheers,
Kirt