At 06:08 1/05/97 -1000, you wrote:
>At 10:59 AM 5/1/97 EDT, brian j. callahan wrote:
>
>>At any rate, I think homo sapiens have an ability we call reason that frees
>>us to some degree from a pre-ordained pattern of society.  The change from
>>hunter gatherer to agricultural to industrial societies with large variations
>>in the social structure in each should show us that.  So let's use that
>>reason to create a society where we can satisfy our natural needs and
>>inclinations while allowing all the other homo sapiens to do the same.
>>Wouldn't that be neato?
>
>You are apparently basing your ideology the misconception that
>people are "rational"[1].
>
>Studies show that most people are not rational. For example,
>they routinely fail to make inferences according to Bayes'
>Theorem, which is a formula used to calculate the probability
>that a particular event will occur. People give recently
>presented information undue importance, thereby producing
>answers that are not rational [Hamm, Ornstein and Ehrlich].
>In other words, humans have not evolved to be successful
>democrats in a world that is now far over carrying capacity.
>
>[1]Here I define rational as: the ability to carefully weigh the
>  important-known variables and make that decision which is most
>  likely to achieve the desired end. See, for example, Ornstein:
>  "Since the mind evolved to select a few signals and then
>  dream up a semblance, whatever enters our consciousness is
>  overemphasized. It does not matter how the information enters,
>  whether via a television program, a newspaper story, a friend's
>  conversation, a strong emotional reaction, a memory -- all is
>  overemphasized. We ignore other, more compelling evidence,
>  overemphasizing and overgeneralizing from the information
>  close at hand to produce a rough-and-ready realty."
>
>So if the die is so cast, should we aspire to anything else? Can we indeed
be anything else?

- Michael Coghlan.
>