For the past few decades the African apes called bonobos have been the favorite animal of the social liberals. The reason is that bonobos are regarded as peace-loving, love-making animals. At the Bonobo Conservation Institute they describe bonobos as "hippie" chimps who "make love, not war." Supposedly bonobos are bisexual apes who engage in incessant and indiscriminate sexual activity as an alternative to power struggles and male wars of domination. I'm surprised the Democratic Party hasn't changed its symbol from the donkey to the bonobo.
Well, maybe the liberals should put their bonobsession on hold for a while...
The July 30 issue of the New Yorker has a fascinating article on the work of the German anthropologist Gottfried Hohmann, who is considered the world's leading authority on bonobos in the wild. The key term here is "in the wild." Most of the research on bonobos to date has been done by the Dutch anthropologist Frans de Waal. Studying bonobos in cages, de Waal discovered that bonobos seem to have sex a lot: oral sex, anal sex, all kinds of sex. In de Waal's famous portrait, the bonobo emerges as a creature much more interested in sex than in work or power or anything else. In other words, de Waal's bonobos bore a startling similarity to the Dutch.
Hohmann's work shows that de Waal got it mostly wrong. Yes, bonobos act a bit weird in captivity, but what would you do if you were stuck in a cage? What else is there to do except look for unoccupied orifices? Just as people in prisons engage in all kinds of strange behavior, so too bonobos that are locked up behave in unnatural ways. "Unnatural" here means anti-Darwinian. Hohman's suspicions about de Waal's work were aroused by his recognition that the peace-loving promiscuous bonobo would not make sense under Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin posits a struggle for existence and throughout nature this means a struggle for survival, reproduction and power. So how could bonobos be different?
Turns out they aren't. Observe bonobos in the wild for long periods of time, and they don't act much different from other kinds of apes. De Waal's famous contrast between the bonobo and the chimpanzee turns out to be largely illusory. Bonobos too have power struggles. There is patriarchy among bonobos, just as with other apes. "It was so easy for Frans to charm everyone," Hohmann says. "He had the big stories. We don't have the big stories." What Hohmann is leaving out here is the human tendency to distort evidence to suit our prejudices. Libertines and other social liberals loved Margaret Mead's now-discredited accounts of promiscuity in Samoa because they made the Samoans into libertines. Once the Samoans were shown not to conform to the liberal expectation, bonobos were fashioned into the new Samoans.
Now the liberals have to look for another mascot. Who will it be: the Andalusian ant? The New Zealand platypus? Perhaps these fellows should stick with the donkey.
Reader Comments ( Page 4 of 5)
46. D'Souza arguments are the typical strawman trash rightists use and distorting the facts, another rightwing tactic. He tries to impose a moral system (hypocritical Victorianism no doubt) on chimps by calling their behavoir promiscuous and the same goes for the Samoans. Meade never claims the Samoans were promiscuous, she just observed they like all the Polynesian cultures enjoyed a variety of sexual experimentation before settling into monogamous relationships (far more stable than any rightwing marriage), before the corruption by Christian missionaries. This is an offshoot of the minimal sexual shaming in their culture. Conservatism is wholly shame-based thus the greatest source of human suffering. The greatest crime to a conservative is thinking different from them, which is why they accept murder of others so readily.
All the apes and monkeys who live in groups have a peeking order as to mating with the dominate male either getting first shot as a female goes into heat (gorillas) or simply hording all the eligible females (many species).
He takes a swipe at the Dutch for legalized prostitution while ignoring the fact the clients of the Dutch prostitutes are mostly foreign businessmen, the same group who keep the trade in 12 y/o girls flourishing in SE asia (Neil Bush for one) and who fund the modern conservative movement AKA Nazis.
I have yet to hear or read a conservative argument was logical, factual, or wasn't a clear appeal to the irrational.
Larry at 8:38PM on Aug 6th 2007
47. The real reason why Bonobos may be promiscuous in captivity may have to do more with instinct than boredom. While humans might seek to use sex as a form of 'entertainment', primates' sex drives are based on the successful prorogation of the species.Consider that apes that engage in group sex (i.e., multiple males taking turns at intercourse with one female) are not participating in a drunken fraternity party
but, it turns out, have very low sperm counts necessitating that practice in order to maintain a viable population.
Obviously, these apes could not understand this intellectually but, nevertheless, the instinctive drive compensated for what by human standards would be thought of as a deficiency.
Likewise, the Bonobos would feel a certain stress in captivity brought about by being placed in a finite environment, with a limited number of their own kind. Were they to make this decision intellectually, they might come to the conclusion that their own individual survival would be best served by the conservation of resources (i.e., humans under stress have a harder time conceiving), but unable to process the problem intellectually, instinct tells them to behave in a way that has always guaranteed the survival of their species--increase their number.
Also, considering the stress of captivity, sex may be in part motivated by the 'reward' of endorphin release that accompanies orgasm. These endorphins create a sense of 'well-being' and thus a relief from the stress. Hence,like many humans, they become addicted to repeating the behavior.
Keith J. Mohrhoff at 8:11AM on Aug 7th 2007
48. When I first fell in love with bonobos in the early 1990’s, none of my acquaintances knew a bonobo from a bonsai tree. Now, these amazing apes, who swing with each other as well as from the trees, have become rather famous.
Of course, with fame comes defamation. So I wasn’t surprised to see Ian Parker gently but firmly attempting to deflate the bouyant, mystical aura of the bonobo in the esteemed pages of The New Yorker, subtly deriding the work of some of the bonobos’ best friends in the human world, and hinting ominously that his article would be debunking the central ideas of what I call “The Bonobo Way.” These include the notions that 1) bonobos engage in various, rather elaborate forms of pleasure sex, not just reproductive sex, 2) they do not seem to deliberately murder or make war on members of their own species like common chimps and humans do, and 3) females wield considerably more power than in other primate species.
Parker does provide a fascinating, sometimes breathtakingly descriptive look at the daily life of a bonobo researcher in the Congolese Rainforest, as well as a comprehensive overview of bonobo primatology politics. He is particularly telling when he writes “The challenges of bonobo research call for chimpanzee vigor, and this leads to animosities,” including, I would add, the strong, almost vicious desire to debunk one another.
But in the end, Parker’s article debunks nothing. He gives a few examples of bonobos committing acts of violence, but not murder, at least not with any real evidence. No one has ever said bonobos are angels, just that as primates, they are relatively peaceful. They have never been observed engaging in calculated murder or organized warfare such as has been observed in common chimps and, of course, humans. Parker’s piece doesn’t include anything even approaching a bonobo war party. Interestingly, almost all of the examples of violence mentioned in the article are perpetrated by females, buttressing the notion that females rule, at least in certain vital areas of life in Bonoboland.
Then there’s the sex. Most experts agree that bonobos tend to combine food-sharing and sex. This is one reason why Japanese Primatologist Takayoshi Kano got to observe so much sex and sensuality among bonobos in the wild: he fed them. Gottfried Hohmann, the primatologist “star” of Parker’s piece who takes him into the Heart of Darkness, doesn’t feed the bonobos. Both approaches seem to be legitimate ways to gather information, each having its pros and cons. When you feed or “provision” bonobos, they’re a lot more likely to hang around you, engaging in intimate activities. When you don’t feed them, you’re not influencing their behavior so much. But they’re also not so inclined to get near you, let alone have sex in front of you.
They’re also more likely to catch and kill their own food. After all, they’re hungry! Wild bonobos must be especially famished since their rainforest home has been decimated by constant human warfare, bushmeat poaching and the logging industry. The stress of all this ecological devastation and the reduction of their normal food supply, as well as constantly seeing their family members and friends being violently slaughtered by hunters, must have a traumatizing effect on the bonobos still left in the jungle, just as polar bears have lately been turning to cannibalism because longer seasons without ice keep them from getting to their natural food. It will be illuminating to hear from Hohman when he finally publishes papers on his recent discoveries in the wilds of war-riddled, ecologically damaged Lui Kotal. But the observations he has made thus far do not negate the earlier, pre-war findings of Kano and others.
By the way, I had never heard from any of the experts that bonobos were vegetarians. Kano had reported that bonobos occasionally eat meat of other species, like we do (actually, a lot less than we do).
Hohmann’s oddest observation is about female bonobo “g-g rubbing,” genito-genital rubbing, “hoka-hoka,” or what Parker refers to as “frottage,” when one female rubs her swollen vulva against the vulva of another. Hohman and his team have observed this numerous times, as have many other primatologists. “But does it have anything to do with sex?” Hohman asks and then answers himself, “Probably not.”
Since when is rubbing engorged genitalia against your partner’s engorged genitalia, often while embracing, French-kissing and/or having what looks like an orgasm, not “sex”? Is Hohmann limiting his definition of “sex” only to intercourse? That is hardly appropriate for a creature that is known for engaging in sex for pleasure (including what we might call “bisexuality”) more than reproduction.
Hohman goes on to wonder why “the males, the physically superior animals, do not dominate the females, the inferior animals?...It is not only different from chimpanzees but it violates the rules of social ecology.”
Well, it doesn’t violate The Bonobo Way. As Kano, Franz de Waal, Amy Parish and other primatologists have observed: bonobo males appear to be more docile than chimp males (or even than bonobo females), in part because they remain under the calming influence of their mothers until they die. And then there’s the fact that bonobo males get a lot of sex from those so-called “inferior” but sexually aggressive females. That's right: Peace through pleasure. Good sex diffuses tension. And you can’t very well fight a war while you’re having an orgasm.
Hohmann appears to be a meticulous scientist. But no matter how “objective” you try to be, the human personality still shines through the researcher’s conclusions. While Kano’s image is one of gentle collaboration, Hohmann’s is one of “chilliness,” being “very difficult to work with.” Parker writes about an incident where Hohman “loomed over” a local villager “wagging his finger. ‘It’s good to remind him now and then how short he is,’ Hohmann later said, smiling.” Folks who like to throw their physical weight around in the course of a verbal debate tend to find parallels for their own bullying tendencies in nature.
Well, primatologists aren’t angels either.
Parker’s report on Hohmann’s work is important, especially since Hohmann hasn’t published much himself lately. But the article’s implication that anyone who is inspired by the “Make Love Not War” chimps (both to save them from extinction, as Sally Coxe’s Bonobo Conservation Initiative is working hard to accomplish, and to understand and improve our own lives, as some of us try to do by following The Bonobo Way) is deluded is irresponsible and wrong. In classic New Yorker style, Parker’s critiques are measured and nuanced, even polite. His derision sneaks up on you like a quiet “chimp-bothering” primatologist. In the end, he brings no myth-shattering news that hasn't already been published. Though their lives in the wild are, of course, more violent than in captivity (and with the destruction being wreaked upon their environment, it would be hard to blame them for turning intoa new species of primate-psychopaths), the bonobos still seem to live, relative to other wild primates, by The Bonobo Way of Peace through Pleasure.
Nevertheless, many right-leaning bloggers, including the Wall Street Journal’s gleeful headline ”Bonobo Apes Might Not Be Politically Correct, After All” and Jack Rich’s “Shades of Margaret Mead,” are already picking up this highbrow critique of the “left-bank chimps” and running with it, referring to it as an official indictment of sexual freedom, women’s rights, environmentalism, communitarianism, ethical hedonism, the peace movement and liberal thinking in general, not to mention the bonobos themselves.
I appreciate Parker’s in-depth reporting on the primatology spats and evocative writing about the Congo. I know he worked hard on this piece; he spent an hour talking to me for the sake of just one sentence. I am also grateful for the excruciating fieldwork in which Hohmann is engaged. All research on bonobos - whether Kano studying them as they frolicked in his sugarcane field, De Waal reporting upon bonobo behavior in captivity, Richard Wrangham comparing bonobos with other great apes, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh communicating via computer with her primate “genius” Kanzi, Hohman running after the bonobos as they run away from him in the thick of the jungle, or Martin Surbeck catching tree-dwelling apes’ golden showers in a lacrosse stick-like container – are worthwhile. One observer’s findings have not discounted the others, at least for now.
Bonobos are no angels. But as far as we know, they still deserve the distinguished title of the Make Love Not War Chimpanzees. Hoka-Hoka! Bonobos Forever...
http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog
Dr. Susan Block at 7:58PM on Aug 7th 2007
49.
A Response to the New Yorker article by
primatologist Frans de Waal:
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-08-08.html
Edward T. Babinski at 10:35AM on Aug 8th 2007
50. DINESH: "Now the liberals have to look for another mascot... Perhaps these fellows should stick with the donkey."
Dear Dinesh, Trying to be cute about symbols works a lot of different ways. Since you're a Christian have you ever read Chesterton's poem, "The Donkey?" It's online.
And oh, the many ways one could be cute about the Christian symbol, "the cross."
A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back, he’s gonna wanna see a cross? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t shown up yet.
“They’re still wearing crosses? When they start wearing fishes I’ll go back, this is ridiculous. They’ve entirely missed the meaning of this thing.”
It’s like going up to one of the Kennedy clan with a rifle pendant on. “Just thinking of your tragically assassinated relative, president John F. Kennedy, I really loved him.”
Bill Hicks (comedian), Rant in E-minor, CD
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We Christians neither want nor worship crosses as the pagans do.
Minucius Felix (Christian author, circa 200 A.D.)
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It was only in the third century (after 400 A.D.) that Christian communities increasingly used “covert” crosses, which have survived in the murals of the catacombs and on tombstones. They might be an anchor with a crosspiece, a ship with a mast and yard, a human figure with outstretched arms, or a juxtaposition of the initials of the name Jesus or Christ (in Greek or Latin) to produce a cross-like shape. It was in the fourth century that the cross became an openly Christian symbol. By that time crucifixion as a method of state execution had been abolished and the cross ceased to have its former cruel and negative associations. Several hundred years later it was deemed a terrific symbol to use to ward off vampires, demons, etc.
E.T.B.
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If Christ was executed today I bet Christians would wear little electric chairs round their necks.
Dick Gregory
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After the missionary explained the Bible’s superior civilized plan of salvation to several natives, one of them replied, “Like you, we love our gods and seek to love one another. What we do not understand is why your god tried to pin down sin by using His son as a voodoo doll.”
E.T.B.
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Christianity is merely paganism with a more successful advertising campaign.
E.T.B.
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To paraphrase John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he temporarily died to save it from himself. But none of that really matters because most people will be tortured for eternity anyways.”
Matt Miller
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Christianity teaches that Jesus had to die, or God couldn’t forgive the world.
So why isn’t Judas a “Saint?”
E.T.B.
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Whenever I forgive someone I’m relatively straightforward and direct about it. But for God it takes a bloody miracle.
E.T.B.
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Though I admire Jesus for deploring the temptations of wealth, organized religion and its powerful sway, as well as hypocrisy, I no longer find the doctrines of either “original sin,” or “imputed righteousness” believable. I don’t think the cosmos is the way it is simply because one human couple failed a test with some fruit, nor do I believe that a man being executed 2000 years ago “paid the price” for the “world’s sins,” and we ought to “eat his flesh and drink his blood” for the forgiveness of sins, not even metaphorically. Sounds rather paganish, echoing both vampirism and cannibalism.
E.T.B.
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CONVERSATION, A.D. 33
A: Have you heard the latest?
B: No, what’s happened?
A: The world has been redeemed!
B: You don’t say!
A: Yes, the Dear Lord took on human form and had himself executed in Jerusalem; and with that the world has been redeemed and the devil hoodwinked.
B: Gosh, that’s simply lovely.
Arthur Shopenhauer
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CHIPMUNK CRUCIFIXION
No chipmunk had to be crucified
on a tiny cross of twigs
To save all the other chippies,
Had to have nails pounded
through his little paws,
Had to take upon himself
all the sins of all the chippies
that ever were or would be
and die in agony
So that after they died
all the chippies
could live again forever,
But only if they believed
in all the sayings and doings
of the chipmunk crucified
on the tiny cross of twigs.
Antler, Last Words
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Christians believe that God has established a bizarre system through which our sins are forgiven by the commission of the greatest sin of all [i.e., if murder is the greatest sin, then murdering God’s own son must be the “greatest sin of all.”--E.T.B.] This is a deicide to haunt the mind. That such a thing could arise from an eternal, all-loving, omnipotent God is beyond belief.
What are we to make of the juxtaposition of God’s requirement of this barbarous act with his directive that we should “love one another?”
The saving death of Jesus represents a primitive concept, the principle of blood sacrifice both of animals and of humans that was regarded by ancient and prehistoric man as the fundamental way to placate and intercede with the gods. It was part of the natural order. In fact it was so taken for granted that no one anywhere in the Bible, Old or New Testaments, offers a justification for it, or an explanation of how it works. Christians today are just as much in the dark about why the death of Jesus should have atoning power with God. Ironically, those same modern Christians would universally regard the ritual killing of humans or animals as outdated and repugnant in any other area of society’s life. And yet they continue to endorse it by their adherence to the idea of Jesus as a blood sacrifice on their behalf.
Earl Doherty, a review of “Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ” [The Jesus Puzzle webpage]
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A Rochester filmgoer (after seeing the bloody religious epic, The Passion) was quoted as saying, “It was heartbreaking to know that I had put Jesus there on the cross, it wasn’t the Jews and it wasn’t the Romans, it was me and what I did…It was all of us, and that is why he had to die; for us.”
It is distressing to consider that there are lots of people who think their misbehavior drove the nails into the Savior’s wrists, that their sins punctured his side, just as surely as when they were fifteen their marijuana habit meant stealing twenties from their long-suffering father’s wallet and finally caused his coronary. And these people can vote.
R. Joseph Hoffman (for The Institute for Humanist Studies), “A review of The Passion of the Christ--A Mel Gibson Film,” first published February 2004
www.humaniststudies.org
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It seems to me that the most spurious of all the great religions is Christianity. Its Biblical miracles are childish, pre-scientific myths. Its theology has been taken right out of the caldrons of blood sacrifice and appeasement. For God so loved the world that he allowed the crucifixion of his only son to appease his own wrath, and then he denied eternal life to billions of human souls who refused to accept the gory myth.
Paul Blanshard (former minister), Personal and Confidential
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Let me see if I have this straight…God sent His boy to His people, so that His people could kill His boy to save them from God?
NoGodHere (in “God is a Myth” AOL chatroom)
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I am impaled on a big giant stick with Christ: nevertheless I somehow magically live; yet not I, but Christ magically lives in me through the Power of the Holy Spook who is also somehow magically Him: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by thinking magically about the Son of God, who loves me from the Sky Kingdom, and magically gave himself for me to appease the murderous anger of the pissed off version of Himself in the Sky Kingdom.
Galatians 2:20 (Jeff Reid Version, composed by “Brother Jeff” or “Jeffrey L. Reid” jlr1701@acsalaska.net Website: religionisbullshit.net/ribs)
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Don’t Christians ever wonder why killing God’s son was not the greatest sin of all? Or wonder how we could be forgiven for that sin, except by killing another savior whose blood must be shed to “atone” for the sin of killing the first one? And so forth and so on? At some point direct forgiveness, not based on a bloody sacrifice, has to intervene to break the endless loop. Maybe that’s why Jesus himself did not believe that God’s forgiveness depended on a bloody sacrifice, but instead taught everyone to pray “in this way…Our Father…Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” Direct forgiveness.
E.T.B.
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Let’s not forget that Jesus (after a few hours of pain) rose from the dead and ascended to a throne in heaven. So in essence, nobody really “killed” Jesus; it was more like a fraternity hazing, or an early version of the TV show, “Fear Factor,” where you endure all kinds of shit to win a valuable prize.
T-Shirt Hell Newsletter, 2/25/04
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Jesus Christ--who, as it turns out, was born of a virgin, cheated death and rose bodily into the heavens--can now be eaten in the form of a cracker. A few Latin words spoken over your favorite Burgundy, and you can drink his blood as well.
Sam Harris, The End of Faith
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The Old Testament taught, “The life is in the blood.” But science teaches today that if the “life” of an intelligent organism can be said to reside in a particular organ, that organ is the brain and nervous system, not the blood. The blood merely carries oxygen and nutrients to the brain. The brain guides the body, and is far more intimately connected to each person’s “life or soul” than the “blood” is.
Even people with less than a high school education today recognize the priority of the brain over the blood, so much so in fact, that in the movie, Hannibal (about a cannibalistic serial killer), the thought of slicing out tiny parts of a person’s brain, cooking them in a pan, and serving the pieces to that person to eat has become in the public’s mind a more disturbing image than, say, serving a person a glass of their own blood to drink, which appears relatively tame in comparison. Because we know that a person’s brain doesn’t grow back like their blood, and we know that each person’s “life/consciousness,” resides in the most valuable organ of all, the brain. Some people even opt to freeze their heads in liquid nitrogen after they die in hopes of one day being revived (with the help of nano-bots).
There also seems to have been a reduction in the number of sermons that focus on being “covered by the blood,” or “saved by the blood.” Today the phrase, “saved by blood” means receiving a blood transfusion, which does not change a person’s brain/soul. Even the phrase, “Jesus shed his blood for you,” simply brings to mind the image of someone’s blood dripping onto the ground, not doing much for anyone at all.
I prefer a more “brain intensive” religion today, not one soaked in bloody metaphors mixed with magic.
E.T.B.
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Conservative religious broadcasters tickle me whenever they exclaim, “Christianity is under attack! The Christian religion deserves to be respected, not attacked!”
Let me see if I have this straight. Here is a religion that teaches that anyone who doesn’t accept it will fry forever in hell--what am I supposed to respect about that? Hasn’t such a religion “raised the ante” of disrespect to infinite levels before anyone else has even drawn their cards (let alone their swords)?
Anonymous at ex-Christian.net [edited by E.T.B.]
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“Civilization will fail without Christianity,” at least that’s what Christians have emailed me on their computers that were designed ironically by atheists, agnostics and Buddhists (in America & Japan). Chinese Communists have also begun producing computers and will soon have hundreds of millions of them.
“Civilizations fail even with Christianity” would be more to the point, as the decline of the Christianized Roman Empire illustrates. Also, the Southern U.S. fell to the troops of the North during the Civil War, even though the South believed it was God’s new chosen nation and had added an invocation to “God” in their Southern Constitution. Today, America is the most church-filled nation on earth and also spends more money on weapons of mass destruction than perhaps all other nations combined. America also has more obesity and more of its citizens in prison than any other nation on earth. Neither do Americans live the longest (even Canadians live longer than your average American), nor do we have the highest average school test scores, nor do we have the lowest rates of teen pregnancy--not when compared with nations with far fewer churches.
E.T.B.
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Jesus didn’t die on the cross for your sins, he died on the cross because he was a crazy ass cult leader, and the Romans knew it.
HoleyHands
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Christians are generally creepy people as a direct result of the dysfunctional dynamic of worshipping a dead naked hippie.
Die Warzau, Engine Tour Shirt, 1995
Edward T. Babinski at 1:56PM on Aug 8th 2007
51. Love/Peace/Left
War/Hate/Right
Go Chimps!
michael white at 11:11AM on Aug 8th 2007
52. The ignorance of you folks is striking. "Who has ever heard of these apes?" one of you asks; well, all educated people have for many years now. Their supposedly libertine state has been used as animal-kingdom exhibit A in the effort to destroy traditional morality for quite some time. Also, the hypocrisy here could be cut with a knife; how come you didn't complain about writers wasting ink on this story when the reports seemed to buttress libertine values, hmm? I bet that, upon first learning of this claim, most of you pinheads (that is, those of you who read enough to have heard about this major story) were the first ones to say, "Hey, you see, this proves that our society is far too repressed sexually!" So, when a story buttresses the left's agenda, it's newworthy, but when it's shown to be false and refuted, it's much ado about nothing. You people really are a waste of oxygen.
Lew at 12:33AM on Aug 13th 2007
53. Get more than one source.
http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-08-08.html#feature
Dr. S at 11:16AM on Aug 9th 2007
54. Wow. Just go ahead and insult the Dutch, the Liberals, and the Monkeys. I have all kinds of respect for you now.
For the record, it's my personal opinion that promiscuity is just as bad for society as violence.
Can you say "forward-thinking"? Actually, probably not.
Anonymous at 11:27PM on Aug 10th 2007
55. Disturbing D'SOUZA you must be that guy at the end of the bar always
telling bisexual ape jokes...try talking about real issues like the
homeless, unemployed, disadvantaged, sexually abused, children living
in abuse day after day even the enviroment instead of the activity of
bisexual apes...just a thought...make a change...whats next elephants
using vibrators??
Butterfly Kiss at 2:12AM on Aug 16th 2007
56. [[I prefer a more “brain intensive” religion today, not one soaked in bloody metaphors mixed with magic.
]]
So what are you suggesting? A religious where you take communion by sharing a big pot of calf's brains? MMMMM good...
The plain fact is that if you bleed to death, you die. If ANY of your major organs fails, you die. So the life is in the kidneys, the liver, the ascending colon, etc.
OomYaaqub at 10:36PM on Aug 17th 2007
57. [[Disturbing D'SOUZA you must be that guy at the end of the bar always
telling bisexual ape jokes...try talking about real issues]]
In your ignorance you missed the point. Maybe I get it because I have a degree in biology. The bonobo story IS a big, big deal in certain circles, because it's a huge embarrassment when a scientist makes this big of a goof. The problem is that the popular press nearly always misinterprets anything a scientist tells them. A LOT of people chose to project their own fantasies onto these beautiful animals, and now that we know bonobos are nothing like the idiot journalists thought, what happens to the philosophy based on that error?
OomYaaqub at 10:40PM on Aug 17th 2007
58. [[The ignorance of you folks is striking. "Who has ever heard of these apes?" one of you asks; well, all educated people have for many years now.]]
Thank you.
OomYaaqub at 10:41PM on Aug 17th 2007
59. So bonobos aren't free lovers...there are still plenty of other animals who don't fit in the Darwinian framework...read 'Unnatural Selection: Questioning Science's Gender Bias' by Keely Savoie
Natasha at 7:13PM on Oct 2nd 2007
60. [[The ignorance of you folks is striking. "Who has ever heard of these apes?" one of you asks; well, all educated people have for many years now.]]
Speaking of ignorance:
"The New Zealand platypus?" - Dinesh D'Souza
The platypus is in fact unique to Australia.
Pays to do your homework before embarking on a public rant I reckon.
Ian at 6:32PM on Oct 17th 2007