[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..we find that extreme conservatism in retaining what has once been successfully tried is a vital property of the apparatus performing, in cultural evolution, a task analogous to that of the genes in species variation. Retention is not only equally important; indeed, it is even more important than additional acquisition; and we must realize that without very special investigation we cannot know which customs and usage, transmitted to us by the tradition of our culture, are dispensable, obsolete superstition and which are indispensable cultural heritage. Even in the case of behavioral norms whose bad effects are apparent, such as head-hunting in several tribes of Borneo and New Guinea, we cannot foresee what repercussions their eradication will have on the system of social-behavior norms holding the particular cultural group together. In a measure, a system of this kind represents the skeleton of the culture concerned, and, without insight into the multiplicity of its interactions, it is extremely risky to remove arbitrarily one of its elements.

[PenultimateManStanding]

More from the Nobel Prize winning Ethologist:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he erroneous belief that only the rationally comprehensible or the scietifically provable belong to the fixed knowledge of mankind produces disastrous effects. It encourages "scientifically enlightened" youth to throw overboard the enormous fund of knowledge and wisdom contained in the traditions of every old civilization and in the teaching of the great world religions. Anyone who believes that all this is null and void is harboring another illusion, just as dangerous, namely, that science can create, from nothing and by reason alone, a whole culture with everything pertaining to it.

[whiteknight]

Wow, I want some of what Konrad's smokin'. That dude is lit. I've been way gone before but never used so many words to say something so incomprehensible...

[rogerhb]

A good example is sacred cows in India, these wander over the cities and you are not allowed to obstruct them.

However, if you look back in the mists of time you could imaging tribes with cows who are hit by a famine.

Tribe A kills it's cows in order to eat, then low and behold it has no cows for milk in the future

Tribe B does not kill it's cows but struggles the best it can through the famine.

So then the good times return and Tribe A has no cows, Tribe B does. Moral of the story, don't kill your cows in a famine.

However over time this becomes don't kill cows full stop.

[trespam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('whiteknight', 'W')ow, I want some of what Konrad's smokin'. That dude is lit. I've been way gone before but never used so many words to say something so incomprehensible...

[Schweinshaxe]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('whiteknight', 'W')ow, I want some of what Konrad's smokin'. That dude is lit. I've been way gone before but never used so many words to say something so incomprehensible...

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('whiteknight', 'W')ow, I want some of what Konrad's smokin'. That dude is lit. I've been way gone before but never used so many words to say something so incomprehensible...

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..we find that extreme conservatism in retaining what has once been successfully tried is a vital property of the apparatus performing, in cultural evolution, a task analogous to that of the genes in species variation.

[trespam]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PenultimateManStanding', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('whiteknight', 'W')ow, I want some of what Konrad's smokin'. That dude is lit. I've been way gone before but never used so many words to say something so incomprehensible...

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('trespam', '
')
True. But he's got the style of all those post-modernists in want of a good editor. Though Henry James could have used a little pruning here and there.

And a good deal of the german philosophers (Kant, Hegel, etc) could have used a good editor as well. I don't have the anecdote exact here, but one fo the individuals responsible for editing and/or reviewing Kant's writings refused for fear he would go mad.

[cheRand]

I think Lorenz was saying that a scientific-rational worldview is not the only valid worldview... ithere are other metaphors or framworks which hold truths. He's arguing for cultural diversity.

[PenultimateManStanding]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cheRand', 'I') think Lorenz was saying that a scientific-rational worldview is not the only valid worldview... ithere are other metaphors or framworks which hold truths. He's arguing for cultural diversity.

[cheRand]

Yep. And he's saying what they say in systems dynamics: Don't try to tinker with more than one interdependent variable at a time.

[Hegel]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd a good deal of the german philosophers (Kant, Hegel, etc) could have used a good editor as well.