>OK, this is getting off topic, but for an alternative view of animal
>"virtues" consider:
>
>"Unless forcibly reminded of nature's cruelty, people tend to romanticize
>wildlife, seeing benevolence, and overlooking viciousness.  ... Crimes at
>least equivalent in their effects (if not their motives) to murder, rape,
>cannibalism, infanticide, deception, theft, torture, and genocie are not
>just committed by animals, but are almost ways of life.  Ground squirrels
>routinely eat baby ground squirrels, mallard drakes routinely drown ducks
>suring gang rape; parasitic wasps routinely eat their victims alive the
>inside; chimpanzees -- our nearest relatives 00 routinely pursue gang
>warfare.  Yet, as supposedly objective television programmes about nature
>demonstrate, human beings just do not want to know these facts."  (p. 215,
>"Ecology as Religion" in _The Origins of Virtue"  Human Insticts and the
>Evolution of Cooperation_ by Matt Ridley)
>

I can add soemthing to the cannibalism:
I once watch a nature show in which male lions would kill cubs.  The
narrator said this was because the females would not go into heat, and
therefore not mate, if they had cubs.  I find this odd, since aside from
cruely, it does not seem to benefit the species.

-Rob


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