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Why mammals kill infants with another key omission (for humans) – the wicked stepmother

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File:A small cup of coffee.JPG Further to: Darwinian catechism on why some mammals kill off infants features a key omission (Now, what is really interesting is that Zimmer avoids saying “And that explains why some men murder their stepkids”) Indeed, the langur monkey specialist quoted disclaims any association between humans and langurs in this matter.

A friend writes privately to say,

According to the “Hansel and Gretel” theorem, it’s wicked stepmothers who have evolved the desire to kill their children.

Yes, I have noticed that in the literature. I replied:


Earlier in life, I read tons of folk tales. Rarely is the stepdad concerned to kill his stepkids.

For one thing, they might be an advantage to him if they are suited for work on his farm or pasture, or if they can hunt or fish.

Or perhaps he is a minor nobleman and he can now control the marriage of his pretty stepdaughter, for social mobility. In any event, his stepsons had BETTER support him in a conflict with neighbours …

He has essentially acquired what another man put into those kids, in terms of upkeep and protection all these years for nothing. (I am thinking back to the days when children were an asset, not a liability, a critical difference between today and the very recent past.*)

It is stepMOM who feels put-upon, as she inherits all the work, on her – we must hope – happy bridal day, without perceiving any obvious advantage to herself or her own kids.

And there can be serious problems if the late mom’s kids were raised with different standards from what new mom expects.

Hence, in archetypal literature, we hear so much more about wicked stepmothers than about wicked stepfathers.

One gets so befogged with the huge stupid social noise around Darwinism that one forgets even the real history of the human race!

Intelligence changes everything. Not always for the good, but it changes everything.

Which is quite different from the history of langur monkeys, amazingly enough.

* My own parents, still living, grew up in an environment where children were still a key economic asset.
O’Leary for News

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Wicked, wicked stepmother.

Comments
Seversky
Had the Roman Catholic church been well-established in China at that time, even if modern contraception had been available in rural China of the 1920s and even if the peasants had been able to afford it, they would still have been denied it by the church.
Strange comment which seemed to come from nowhere with regard to the book you were discussing. But let's just say you offered your own historical fairy tale with the Catholic Church having been well-established in China. You can't simply posit a negative influence for the Church and ignore the greatest provider of social care the world has ever known. I notice you avoided talking about infanticide and abortion, both of which are not permitted by the Church. Is that a problem for you also?Silver Asiatic
November 22, 2014
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I am reading a book called Retribution by British journalist and historian Max Hastings about the last year of the war against Japan in World War II. He devotes a substantial part of the book to the appalling suffering of the Chinese under Japanese occupation. He quotes one Chinese man describing the grinding, hopeless poverty in his village. They were so poor that he was the last of his parents children to survive. There were a number born after him but they were all drowned immediately after birth because the family simply had no way of feeding any more mouths. In those terrible circumstances, children were an economic burden not assets. Reading that, one thought occurred to me. Had the Roman Catholic church been well-established in China at that time, even if modern contraception had been available in rural China of the 1920s and even if the peasants had been able to afford it, they would still have been denied it by the church. Reality can be a lot worse than fairy tales.Seversky
November 21, 2014
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OT: BICEP2 all over again? Researchers place Higgs boson discovery in doubt - Nov. 21, 2014 Excerpt: This recent paper is from a team of researchers from Denmark, Belgium and the United Kingdom led by Dr. Mads Toudal Frandsen. Their study entitled, "Technicolor Higgs boson in the light of LHC data" discusses how their supported theory predicts Technicolor quarks through a range of energies detectable at LHC and that one in particular is within the uncertainty level of the data point declared to be the Higgs Boson. There are variants of Technicolor Theory (TC) and the research paper compares in detail the field theory behind the Standard Model Higgs and the TC Higgs (their version of the Higgs boson). Their conclusion is that a TC Higgs is predicted by Technicolor Theory that is consistent with expected physical properties, is low mass and has an energy level – 125 GeV – indistinguishable from the resonance now considered to be the Standard Model Higgs. Theirs is a composite particle and it does not impart mass upon everything.,,, In other words, the Higgs Boson might not be "the god particle" but rather a Technicolor Quark particle comprised of smaller more fundamental particles and another force binding them. http://phys.org/news/2014-11-bicep2-higgs-boson-discovery.htmlbornagain77
November 21, 2014
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