Subject: Blish's "Conscience" vs. Wolfe's "Fifth Head"

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 14:55:23 +0000

Contrasting the stories "A Case of Conscence" and "The Fifth Head of
Cerberus" on the topic of religious redemption and inherent mortal
flaws I am dismayed that Wolfe seems to want to hide a rather ignorant
religious opinion under layers of elaborate blather.

---

From: westprog <westprog at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:37:19 +0000

> religious opinion

An ignorant opinion?

> under layers of elaborate blather.

One person's elaborate blather is someone else's wonderful writing.

J/

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 18:36:58 +0000

> > flaws I am dismayed that Wolfe seems to want to hide a rather ignorant

Cloning and the genetic improvement of humankind is purely evil and
doomed to failure.

> One person's elaborate blather is someone else's wonderful writing.

Ok, it is wonderful writing but there is a dead skunk buried in the
middle of it.

---

From: Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 19:51:34 +0000

galt_57 at hotmail.com wrote:

> westprog wrote:
> > <galt_57 at hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > > Contrasting the stories "A Case of Conscence" and "The Fifth Head
> > > of Cerberus" on the topic of religious redemption and inherent
> > > mortal flaws I am dismayed that Wolfe seems to want to hide a
> > > rather ignorant religious opinion
> > 
> > An ignorant opinion?
> 

You've given no evidence that the opinion is ignorant.

I do hope you don't mean that 1) the opinion is _wrong_ and 2) anyone
who is not ignorant will realize that it's wrong.

-- 
Dan Goodman
Journal http://www.livejournal.com/users/dsgood/ 
Clutterers Anonymous unofficial community
http://www.livejournal.com/community/clutterers_anon/
Decluttering http://decluttering.blogspot.com
Predictions and Politics http://dsgood.blogspot.com
All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
John Arbuthnot (1667-1735), Scottish writer, physician.

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 20:42:57 +0000

> who is not ignorant will realize that it's wrong.

Oh no, I believe that very, very intelligent people can and are
hoodwinked by religion and accept its presumption of moral authority. I
also accept that being hoodwinked is not the same thing as being
ignorant.

---

From: Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 21:12:49 +0000

galt_57 at hotmail.com wrote:

> > > > > Contrasting the stories "A Case of Conscence" and "The Fifth
> > > > > Head of Cerberus" on the topic of religious redemption and
> > > > > inherent mortal flaws I am dismayed that Wolfe seems to want
> > > > > to hide a rather ignorant religious opinion
> > > > 
> > > > An ignorant opinion?
> > > 
> > > Cloning and the genetic improvement of humankind is purely evil
> > > and doomed to failure.
> > 
> > I do hope you don't mean that 1) the opinion is wrong and 2) anyone
> hoodwinked by religion and accept its presumption of moral authority.
> I also accept that being hoodwinked is not the same thing as being
> ignorant.

So, what leads you to the conclusion that Wolfe's opinion is an
ignorant one?

---

From: james.t.williams <james.t.williams at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 21:15:21 +0000

I have read "Fifth Head" several times, and I never saw it as
condemning cloning itself.

In the case of the story, an aberrant personality attempts to improve
himself through successive generations of clones. But improvement means
change, and I don't think he really wants to change himself. So he ends
up repeating the same mistakes, and never getting better.

Don't get me wrong- I am all for physical immortality. But I also don't
see the point of being physically immortal if you end up being
essentially the same person for all time.

---

From: Gary Thompson <quuxa23 at yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 22:01:41 +0000

> So, what leads you to the conclusion that Wolfe's opinion is an

Perhaps that it's not an objectivist one.

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 22:57:30 +0000

> So, what leads you to the conclusion that Wolfe's opinion is an

Because clones are evil, you see. They just are.

---

From: Dan Goodman <dsgood at iphouse.com>
Date: Wed, 28 Dec 2005 23:06:36 +0000

galt_57 at hotmail.com wrote:

> > > > > > > Contrasting the stories "A Case of Conscence" and "The
> > > > > > > Fifth Head of Cerberus" on the topic of religious
> > > > > > > redemption and inherent mortal flaws I am dismayed that
> > > > > > > Wolfe seems to want to hide a rather ignorant religious
> > > > > > > opinion
> > > > > > 
> > > > > > An ignorant opinion?
> > > > > 
> > > > > Cloning and the genetic improvement of humankind is purely
> > > > > evil and doomed to failure.
> > > > 
> > > > I do hope you don't mean that 1) the opinion is wrong and 2)
> > > > anyone who is not ignorant will realize that it's wrong.
> > > 
> > > hoodwinked by religion and accept its presumption of moral
> > > authority.  I also accept that being hoodwinked is not the same
> > > thing as being ignorant.
> > 

That makes sense if 1) Wolfe himself puts it that way, or 2) you have
inside knowledge that Wolfe is not basing that opinion on reasoning
and/or evidence which he has not shared.

And, of course, it's also possible that you're misunderstanding what he
wrote as thoroughly as the people who believe(d) that _Animal Farm_ was
a defense of capitalism.

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:12:14 +0000

> essentially the same person for all time.

Well, I see it as basically a statement that mankind can't be improved.
You see we were made the way we are by our "creator" and this is the
only way we can be (ie Biblical viewpoint). Any attempt at improvement
is "evil" and goes against the will of our "creator." Clones are
unnatural and evil. Blah, blah, blah. But this is all so stupid and
lame that I'll hide these ignorant sentiments as the unstated
underlying basis of a story.

---

From: Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:38:46 +0000

>Cloning and the genetic improvement of humankind is purely evil and

Why is it purely evil?

Why is it doomed to failure?   If it was impurely evil, would it be
doomed to failure?

---

From: Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:44:04 +0000

>Because clones are evil, you see. They just are.

Especially natural ones.

---

From: Wayne Throop <throopw at sheol.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:48:17 +0000

: Especially natural ones. 

Xref "Split Heirs".

Wayne Throop   throopw at sheol.org   http://sheol.org/throopw

---

From: james.t.williams <james.t.williams at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:17:48 +0000

There is no indication in the story that cloning/clones are evil.
Certainly the uses to which cloning is put by the protagonist are a
little creepy, but I don't see how that could condemn the technology
itself.

A major point of the story is that the protagonist is not improving-
but that seems to be due to an error in his particular methodology (and
that he seems to have started out extremely flawed to begin with),
rather than from the fact that mankind cannot be improved at all.

---

From: Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 01:24:52 +0000

>only way we can be (ie Biblical viewpoint).

No, that isn't a Biblical viewpoint.    Lots of fundamentalists have
strong beliefs in things that they figure the Scriptures *should* say.

All physicians "play God", making decisions on how long we should live
and what conditions our bodies should be.

---

From: Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe at sff.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 05:58:03 +0000

On Thu, 29 Dec 2005 00:48:17 GMT, throopw at sheol.org (Wayne Throop)
wrote:

>:: Because clones are evil, you see.  They just are. 
>

Well, we don't know for sure whether anyone there's actually clones --
certainly Arbol isn't.

The real rule that applies _there_ (and which we were going to base
the sequel on) is that all uncles of young rulers are evil.

-- 
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com

---

From: Wayne Throop <throopw at sheol.org>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 06:23:01 +0000

::: Especially natural ones. 

:: Xref "Split Heirs". 

: Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe at sff.net>
: Well, we don't know for sure whether anyone there's actually clones --
: certainly Arbol isn't. 

True; I was unclear.  I mean, that if there were natural clones
in that setting, they would be considered "evil" in some sense.
Or at least a Bad Thing To Have Happened.  Didn't mean to imply 
the siblings were genetically identical.

No other setting came to mind in which twins/triplets/etc
are considered a Bad Thing.  Well... there was a Dilvish where
if twin's are sorcerers, they are each only half-strength, leading
to some... er... sibling rivalry.

: The real rule that applies _there_ (and which we were going to base
: the sequel on) is that all uncles of young rulers are evil. 

Also a good rule of thumb.

---

From: westprog <westprog at hotmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:20:05 +0000

....
> underlying basis of a story.

He hid them pretty well. He'd have gotten away with it...

J/

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 14:55:03 +0000

> Well, I see it as basically a statement that mankind can't be improved.

Sounds like a lot to read into a story involving clones that don't 
improve. 

The second part features humans who disimprove (in most ways anyway, 
though they develop psychic powers), and aliens who do improve (at 
least if emulating man is considered better than emulating rocks and 
trees).  So maybe you are on to something with the 'improvement' theme.  
But you read too much of your own obsessions into it.

> is "evil" and goes against the will of our "creator." 

One attempt at improvement that fails hardly says that all attempts are 
evil.  Nor, if it is evil, does it indicate *why* it is evil.  Nor, if 
man cannot be improved, *why* man cannot be improved.

In the novel, cloning is banned on Earth, hence the experiments can 
only be conducted on a frontier planet.  Presumably cloning tends to 
cause problems.  That is hardly an exceptional premise for a SF novel.  
Nor is it especially religious, or even technologically or socially 
unlikely. 

> ones are

I think you are the one with strange issues.  I suspect you would 
dislike most of Wolfe's work even more, though, since he does value the 
religious impulse - something that appears to enrage you.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: DougL <lampert.doug at gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 17:00:47 +0000

> the sequel on) is that all uncles of young rulers are evil.

Sequel?

In any case it was obvious that the Uncle was going to be evil and try
to take over himself.

DougL

---

From: Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe at sff.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 17:21:41 +0000

>> the sequel on) is that all uncles of young rulers are evil.

_Putting On Heirs_.  Never written because Tor handed down an edict
from on high, "funny fantasy doesn't sell anymore so we aren't
publishing any more."

No exceptions.  Pointing to sales figures for _Split Heirs_ (which
were excellent) didn't help.

---

From: Mark <mtiedemann at earthlink.net>
Date: Thu, 29 Dec 2005 17:37:11 +0000

>> An ignorant opinion?<<
doomed to failure.<

The story is about epistatic drift, only in this case is moral drift
rather than genetic.  Also, a bit of transactional analysis thrown
in--people follow "scripts" sometimes with incredible fidelity, often
to their own detriment.  He mixed a bit of Rousseau's "Emile" in as
well...it's by no means a simplistic concoction Wolfe came up with and
it doesn't reduce at all to a one-line condemnation.

Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com

---

From: westprog <westprog at hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 16:59:50 +0000

> it doesn't reduce at all to a one-line condemnation.

Wolfe is the SF author who is least liable to be summed up in a couple of
sentences. Indeed, his work is so dense that an anyway complete summary
would probably be twice as long as the original story.

J/

---

From: Mark <mtiedemann at earthlink.net>
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 17:29:02 +0000

Got that right.  He's one of the few on my read and reread shelf.

Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com

---

From: jerry_friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:15:18 +0000

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> evil.

True.

> Nor, if it is evil, does it indicate *why* it is evil.

In this case, because it's egoistical, I think.

> Nor, if

Because Wolfe is a Roman Catholic and believes in original sin, a human
flaw that can't be cured.

> Nor is it especially religious, or even technologically or socially

I think it is religious.  Our hero lives at 666 Rue du Saltimbanque,
after all.  (I'm not sure about the street name, but I'm sure about the
Number.)  Another hint is that this gene wolf's name is quite possibly
Gene Wolfe.  I don't know whether the real Wolfe was saying that all
human cloning is evil--though if anyone interviews him, I think the
question would be a good one to ask, now that he probably could be
cloned--but I think he was at least saying that the Beast or the
Antichrist or whatever is that close.  Someone much like the author
could start a project to create it now by making people who are removed
from the natural process of reproduction--does that mean removed from
Christian redemption?  The day when "they'll want us" is the beginning
of the Christian Eschaton.  Rather chilling, even for a non-Christian
like me if I apply some WSOD.  So I think Galt_57 is on the right
track, except...

> > underlying basis of a story.

....it's not stupid or ignorant.  I see no reasoning Wolfe is incapable
of and nothing he doesn't know that leads him to it.  It's just based
on beliefs that you and I don't share, John.

> I think you are the one with strange issues.

There is no chance that he takes it personally because he's the 57th
clone of John Galt.  Right?

> I suspect you would

Not only that, he believes in a very specific religion.

-- 
Jerry Friedman

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 14:06:29 +0000

> flaw that can't be cured.

Even if that is why (and I don't know that it was necessarily the 
reason), having a flaw that cannot be cured does not prove that one 
cannot at least improve!

[And you don't have to be a Catholic to believe in original sin - one 
might draw a similar conclusion from the study of Darwin!]

> like me if I apply some WSOD.  So I think Galt_57 is on the right

Interesting.  I lent my copy, and I want it back!  Of course Wolfe 
plays with lots of things, and not all the clues need add up to a 
single answer.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: westprog <westprog at hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, 31 Dec 2005 15:09:20 +0000

....

> Not only that, he believes in a very specific religion.

That's not uncommon.

J/

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 15:16:52 +0000

galt_57 at hotmail.com wrote:
> flaws I am dismayed... [...]

Also when you consider the likely (or at least predictable) decline of
Western civilization simply due to the differential birth rates, the
hidden religious morality in this story further annoys me. Considering
that the least educated (and perhaps least intelligent) of the worlds
population are vastly out-reproducing those who probably are more
intellectually capable. How many children did Einstein have? Two? How
many children per typical welfare mom? What does this lead to by
geometric progression over the next few thousand years? Then it pains
me to remember that the Church may understand this and like this just
fine. After all the Church reached its maximum power during dark times
of turmoil and decline. Why shouldn't the Church promote beliefs which
could actually help to usher in such times and thus enhance its power
and authority?

---

From: Mark <mtiedemann at earthlink.net>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 15:25:45 +0000

How many children did Einstein have? Two? How
> many children per typical welfare mom?

Two. (Less, really, but I've never quite figured out how to feel about
half a child :>)  That's a myth about welfare moms, an exaggeration
based on very local stats and media attention.  In countries where the
term 'welfare mom' has no meaning, birth rates tend to fall within
similar limits top to bottom.  It has much more to do with infant
mortality rates and available resources.  When the infant mortality
rate drops, the birth rate drops.

The decline of Western birth rates seems more tied to environmental
factors than anything else.  Fertility rates are demonstrably lower,
even among people who desperately want children (hence the geometric
growth of the medical fertility industry, centered in the very
countries that can afford it--which is the industrialized West).

Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 17:34:29 +0000

> hidden religious morality in this story further annoys me. 

Perceived religious morality.

> Considering

I have not heard of the Church exhorting intellectuals to use 
contraception!

Though I suspect that the idea of cloning an intellectual master race 
(if that is the platform you propose) would be abhorrent to her.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: jerry_friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:39:48 +0000

> reason), having a flaw that cannot be cured does not prove that one

Of course not.  I think Galt is right to say that Wolfe is against this
attempt at improvement, and that he probably is against many like it.
He's certainly in favor of the traditional method of doing one's best
to live up to one's values, and the Christian method of trying to
accept God's grace (which he presumably believes in).  Galt left that
out of his sweeping statement.  I suspect Wolfe's extremely dubious
about other methods.

> might draw a similar conclusion from the study of Darwin!]

Similar, but not the same.  For one thing, in sf, the flaws we inherit
from our ape ancestors are conceivably curable.

> > I think it is religious.
....

> plays with lots of things, and not all the clues need add up to a

I certainly can't claim I know what everything in the original novella
adds up to, and I understand even less about the other two (which Wolfe
apparently didn't have in mind when he wrote the first one).

-- 
Jerry Friedman

---

From: Tim McDaniel <tmcd at panix.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:44:53 +0000

>[in re _Split Heirs_]

Counterexample in the Deryni books: Nigel Haldane, duke of Carthmoor,
uncle to King Kelson, and utterly devoted to him.

Quasi-counterexample: Uncle Brinker in _A College of Magics_.
Plotting and scheming, yes, but as I recallhe really did want good for
the duchy and his niece.  Not quite evil enough.  Semi-evil.
Quasi-evil.  The margarine of evil.  The Diet Coke of evil, just one
calorie, not "evil" enough.

-- 
"Me, I love the USA; I never miss an episode." -- Paul "Fruitbat" Sleigh

---

From: Lawrence Watt-Evans <lwe at sff.net>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 18:59:22 +0000

>uncle to King Kelson, and utterly devoted to him.

I knew there was some reason I didn't like the Deryni stories!  What
nonsense.

---

From: Mike Schilling <mscottschilling at hotmail.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 19:13:39 +0000

> I knew there was some reason I didn't like the Deryni stories!  What

Richard III was a kindly uncle in Blackadder. (I don't recall if it 
explained what happened to Edward V, but Richard III was succeeded by 
Edward's brother Richard.)

---

From: Malcolm <regniztar at btinternet.com>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 21:25:25 +0000

"Gerry Quinn" <gerryq at DELETETHISindigo.ie> wrote
> I have not heard of the Church exhorting intellectuals to use
Until the Reformation all the universities were run by the church.
Most of the academic staff were clergymen, and of course celibate.

---

From: David T. Bilek <dtbilek at comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 01 Jan 2006 22:21:02 +0000

>I knew there was some reason I didn't like the Deryni stories!  What

The fact that the prose in at least the earlier Deryni books is
painfully stilted and amateur may also have something to do with it.

I loved _Deryni Rising_ when I was a kid.  I re-read it at about 20
and laughed at my younger self.

-David

---

From: westprog <westprog at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 00:29:22 +0000

....

> and laughed at my younger self.

The idea behind the Deryni books seems to have been that it was a good idea
to use paranormal powers to fake supernatural events, and that this was OK
if you were one of the good guys. Couldn't read a Deryni book now - but at
the time, there was hardly any fantasy around.

J/

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:14:33 +0000

> from our ape ancestors are conceivably curable.

Not really.  Our self-interest and our socialisation will always be at 
war, so the flaw is inescapable.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 12:20:04 +0000

> Most of the academic staff were clergymen, and of course celibate.

Until the Gregorian reforms of the late eleventh century, including the 
period I assume the OP to refer to, celibacy rules were largely 
ignored.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: galt_57 at hotmail.com <galt_57 at hotmail.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 18:38:24 +0000

Omixochitl wrote:
> From what I've heard, the typical welfare mom actually has about as many
> kids as the typical middle-class educated couple has (in both cases, the
> ones who have 7 or 8 instead of 1 or 2 are atypical).  Perhaps you're
> confusing the typical welfare mom with the typical housewife of a
> subsistence farmer?

Perhaps the statistics don't actually support the concern I voiced
above -- I don't know. Urban legend would suggest that NBA stars tend
to father far more children than any intellectual, but this again could
be bogus. My central claim however is that humankind is not getting any
more intelligent, may be getting less intelligent, and really isn't
very intelligent. I just don't believe we are going anywhere. SF tends
to posit a grand future, or at least an interesting one, but humankind
seems to me to be too stupid to make anything happen. Heck, half the US
population thinks that Noah's Ark really happened and that we need to
wait patiently for the return of Jesus. I don't believe that this is an
encouraging sign. Going forward I question whether we will have the
"grey matter" to make the grand technological breakthroughs that would
be necessary. In fact we have found that physics has become
incomprehensible. We aren't smart enough to grasp it. As a result the
general population has become increasingly Luddite. What good is
rational thinking if it only leads to incomprehensible topics such as
String Theory? Might as well believe in New Age pseudo-science or
mystical junk such as holistic healing or Feng Shui. The only hope
might be to utilize genetic engineering advancements to improve our
mental capabilities before humankind self-destructs over some idiocy,
but any move in the direction of genetic engineering is very much
opposed by fundamentalist religion. Eugenics is a very ugly word
because it was applied in some very ignorant and evil ways. Still that
doesn't change the fact that we are here and that we got here through a
very slow process.

---

From: Mike Stone <mwstone at aol.com>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 18:50:55 +0000

> be bogus.

Whether bogus or not, it's irrelevant, unless the women he fathers them _on_
refrain from getting pregnant (in or out of wedlock) by someone else.
--
Mike Stone - Peterborough, England

"To be good is noble.

To teach others to be good is yet nobler - and far less trouble."

Mark Twain

---

From: Mark <mtiedemann at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 02 Jan 2006 19:42:31 +0000

>Heck, half the US
population thinks that Noah's Ark really happened and that we need to
wait patiently for the return of Jesus.<

Well, two centuries ago probably more than 70 or 80 percent believed
both, ardently.  There have been dips and peaks in the stats since then
and will be again, but I'm not too discouraged if only half the general
population buys into mystical claptrap.  That means the other half
doesn't.

>My central claim however is that humankind is not getting any
more intelligent, may be getting less intelligent, and really isn't
very intelligent. I just don't believe we are going anywhere. SF tends
to posit a grand future, or at least an interesting one, <

Given that our "future" (ala SF) began to be imagined in, roughly, 1926
(I'm using the launch of Amazing Magazine as the beginning), I'd have
to say we live in a surprisingly interesting, far more advanced, and
less parochial future than most of our writers up to the Fifties or
even the Sixties imagined.  Along the way, we've more than doubled the
planet's population, and are now on an almost daily basis (if we wish)
far more informed about vast segments of the global population that
were rarely considered prior to the second world war.  Advancements in
medicine (including the "dreaded" genetic sciences), information
systems, transportation, communication, physics, and on and on and on
argue persuasively that we've pretty much built and even surpassed many
of the futures predicted along the way.  Bear in mind that a lot of our
best writers thought we would be either in a nuclear-war-induced stone
age by now or in the throes of massive economic depression leading to
dramatic returns to 19th and even 18th century conditions.  One may
quibble around the edges, but neither of those have happened.  Many
other writers didn't even both talking about this part of the future,
by-passing it for a rather broader interplanetary or interstellar
civilization--but the assumption was made that we'd get there.  The
only thing we seem to be lagging on is the space effort, but China may
yet realize that for us.

Depending on which news you imbibe, I can see how one can get the
impression that somehow we're getting collectively dumber--but an awful
lot of circumstantial evidence also argues to the contrary.  Take your
choice--hopeful or hopeless.  I'll go with hopeful.

Mark
author of:
THE SECANTIS SEQUENCE
REMAINS
www.marktiedemann.com

---

From: Malcolm <regniztar at btinternet.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 00:35:45 +0000

"Omixochitl" <omixochitl2002 at yahoo.com> wrote
> confusing the typical welfare mom with the typical housewife of a
You're probably right.
Welfare moms are trotted out in discussions of "evolutionary morality" - the 
idea that there is an ethical imperative to be adaptively successful.

The point is that all evolution cares about is how many genes you get into 
the (grandchildrens') generation. It doesn't care whether you do that by 
exterminating inferior races, doing company accounts, or cashing welfare 
cheques.

---

From: Omixochitl <omixochitl2002 at yahoo.com>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 04:59:13 +0000

>> to father far more children than any intellectual, but this again
>> could be bogus.
> 
> Whether bogus or not, it's irrelevant, unless the women he fathers
> them _on_ refrain from getting pregnant (in or out of wedlock) by
> someone else. 

Also, whether bogus or not, it sidesteps the whole nurture factor.  After 
all, part of the urban legend seems to be that these athletes don't know 
of, let alone support and encourage, all their kids.

Now if an intellectual behaved the same way, would his kids be much better 
off?  Or is the kid of a single mom and a professor who totally ignores 
then no more likely to succeed than the kid of the same woman and a ball 
player who totally ignores them?

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Tue, 03 Jan 2006 11:02:31 +0000

> The only hope

Attitudes like yours go some way towards explaining why non-religious 
intelligent conservatives increasingly tend to find themselves allied 
with religion-oriented groupings.

Evolution IS a slow process - witness your adherence to the notion that 
man is perfectable by technology.  

What's especially bizarre is your notion of increasing intelligence by 
inserting mutated genes into the human genome.  Assuming, reasonably 
enough, that intelligence is somewhat heritable, a conventional 
breeding program that favoured the reproduction of high-IQ individuals 
would at least run little risk of creating a biological disaster for 
humanity, even if it promotes - as it probably would - racial tension, 
terrorism and a world war or three.  

(And if it works, I suspect that the main effect on the human race will 
be that the sudokus in the newspapers will be slightly harder, and the 
news surrounding them much the same.)

You talk about humanity "self-destructing over some idiocy".  But 
you're the one promoting such an idiocy.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Chris Thompson <cet1 at cus.cam.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 04 Jan 2006 22:31:23 +0000

>Gerry Quinn wrote:
[...]
>In this case, because it's egoistical, I think.

For some reason, I am reminded of Ethan's description of why the
Athosian religion considers cloning a sin. Specifically, the sin
of Vanity.

("That's a sin?", Terrence says bemusedly, IIRC.)

-- 
Chris Thompson
Email: cet1 [at] cam.ac.uk

---

From: Howard Brazee <howard at brazee.net>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 00:29:52 +0000

>("That's a sin?", Terrence says bemusedly, IIRC.)

The Catholics got these sins from the Greeks - but sins are popular
with fundamentalists as well - even if not supported by the Bible.

---

From: jerry_friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 01:30:46 +0000

> war, so the flaw is inescapable.

Well, that comes from being individual members of a species, not from
ape ancestry.  And one could still imagine "curing" it, at least by
arranging for more of us to be satisfied living alone.

-- 
Jerry Friedman

---

From: Gerry Quinn <gerryq at deletethisindigo.ie>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 12:52:51 +0000

> ape ancestry.  

But our species evolved to be social, with all the tensions that 
implies.

> And one could still imagine "curing" it, at least by

A species of hermits happy to live in synthetic cocoons would hardly be 
Man.  Killing the patient doesn't count as a cure.

- Gerry Quinn

---

From: Karl M. Syring <syring at email.com>
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2006 13:07:54 +0000

> Man.  Killing the patient doesn't count as a cure.
But social contacts are only required to keep the interleukin-6 level
low!

Ups, that was to nerdy
Karl M. Syring