Klarinet Archive - Posting 000555.txt from 2004/03

From: Bill Hausmann <bhausmann1@------.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] "Biologically Correct" ?? (With relevance to
Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 18:59:35 -0500

At 06:37 PM 3/9/2004 +0100, Joseph Wakeling wrote:
>Bill Hausmann wrote,
>
><<
>I'm afraid I must disagree. It is also biologically correct to chew food
>with your teeth, and biologically INcorrect to open your beer bottle with
>them. You CAN do it, of course, whether as a response to urging from your
>drunken buddies or some other outside influence, but don't expect me to
>declare it proper behavior just because you and a few others do it. ...
>
>As I see it, the parts were made to work a particular way, and that's the
>way the system was designed. Yes, you can do what you want with them, and I
>will not object, but I will also not accept the behavior as equivalent to
>and equal in social status to the correct use.
> >>
>
>Mm. Note that according to this view of things it's also biologically
>incorrect to stick a wooden tube in your mouth and wave your fingers around
>it. I think something should be done about this wilful incorrectness, don't
>you? ;-)

It is admittedly a bit odd, and done only by a relatively tiny fraction of
the human race, but, done properly, causes very little harm. And
potentially brings pleasure to MORE THAN just the perpetrator, which is
probably what makes the difference! ;-)

>But actually what you say just shows you don't understand how biological
>systems work. It is common, indeed universal, that things "designed" for
>one thing end up being used (and useful) for something else. For example,
>your visual system wasn't "designed" in order to enable you to process
>symbolic information (i.e., read). But it's turned out to be very useful
>for that and now the use of the visual system to read far outstrips the use
>of the visual system to hunt, or to escape predators.

The visual system was designed to SEE -- ANYTHING in the field of view, be
it predators, prey, tools, spouse, children, sunset, etc. Written language
was designed to be SEEN. Everything is just fine here.

>"Biologically correct" is meaningless because "correct" is only possible
>relative to some problem to be solved, and the problems we have to solve are
>shifting continually. The things you refer to as "biologically correct"
>have nothing to do with biology but are just your own personal preferences
>for how people should behave. You insist on using this term, but I think
>you would gain a lot more insight into people's behaviour if you would stop
>fussing about what is biologically "correct" and start considering what is
>biologically *convenient* or, better still, biologically *possible*. The
>things which you dislike personally may be, from a biological standpoint,
>convenient or useful to the people doing them. Whether they're convenient
>to *you* is, as I said before, your own problem.

What is purely biologically correct is the use of sexual reproductive
organs to engage in behavior which leads to sexual reproduction. Yes,
there are additional, but ancillary, uses, most of which relate to the
cause of providing a stable environment to the offspring. But as far as
biology goes, it is like a lock and a key which fit together. Sure, you
can use a key to clean the wax out of your ear, or the lock as a
paperweight, and they may work just fine for those purposes, but they are
not those intended by the locksmith.

>For example, you took the data that homosexual behaviour increases when
>population density increases, and jumped to the conclusion that it was
>because of "stress". In other words, you take the data and use it as a
>retrospective justification for what you already believe---that
>homosexuality is "incorrect". This is, from a scientific viewpoint, one of
>the most dangerous things you can ever do.

It was not MY idea. Someone cited a study in which they put rats into
situations of deliberate unnatural overpopulation and/or imbalance between
sexes. What other possible purpose could that have had EXCEPT to study
their reaction under the artificially created population STRESS? That they
reacted with abnormal behavior is not unexpected, but that does not make it
natural or "correct."

>If you really want to prove
>something, you don't look for things to show you are right---you look for
>things to show you are *wrong*, you consider the alternative possibilities,
>and you eliminate them. Now, it might be that the correct interpretation of
>the data in this case is that increased homosexual activity is a way of
>lowering the birthrate while enabling the population to continue engaging in
>sexual activity (and thus avoiding the stresses associated with celibacy).
>This would make it, from a biological point of view, very sensible and
>"correct" behaviour---and certainly convenient for the rats concerned.
>Based on the data presented there is just as much justification for this
>point of view as for the one you put forward.

In fact, I believe I have already suggested the same thing in a previous
post (possibly off list, I don't recall now). It is still merely an
adaptation to stress, even if a highly effective one. When the outside
stress is removed, the rats will return to NORMAL behavior. While there
ARE some areas of the world where overpopulation might indeed be great
enough to produce the sort of situation where humans might behave in a
similar fashion, I sincerely doubt that San Francisco is one of those places.

>Think about it like this: is there such a thing as "musically correct"?
>Only within particular performance contexts. "Correct" clarinet embouchure,
>tone and articulation are relative to the music being played. The clarinet
>wasn't "designed" to play microtonal music, or multiphonics, but it is used
>very effectively like this in a great deal of works. You don't have to like
>these things, but it is ridiculous to say that they are musically
>"incorrect".

OF COURSE there are things which are musically "incorrect." And, while it
DOES bring the list topic into the picture, this argument is otherwise
completely irrelevant. It is intellectual, not biological. I suppose we
COULD build an experiment to see how rats react to the stress of having to
listen to microtonal and/or multiphonic music. Traditionalist that I am, I
hypothesize that they would chew off their own ears! :-)

Bill Hausmann

If you have to mic a saxophone, the rest of the band is TOO LOUD!