Monday, January 7, 2008 - Gum Springs Campground, Winnfield LA
< previous day | archives | next day >
"...Does everyone remember the berries we tested last week on the big brown dog? How many ate the berries simply because the dog didn't die that day? Quite a few. Well, I got bad news. The dog died last night. Apparently it was a slow actin' poison. Yes, Laszlo? You didn't eat the berries? But this mornin' you ate the dog. Well, Laszlo, ya got about a week. Food chain! How many times do I gotta tell you people? Food chain! By the way, anyone who's gettin' into that new cannibalisn crap - I won't mention any names - I'd strongly suggest not eatin' Laszlo..."
George Carlin, Brain Droppings
A good scrubbing with the rag followed by a good wipe with a microfiber towel got the road grime off. For the first time since I've owned LD she got washed all the way up to the roof. I wrapped the rag around an extendable wand brush thingy I bought to use with a garden hose and got the apple tree grunge off that had been washing down off the roof in ugly gobs. LD looks much much better now thank you.
Night camp
Gum Springs Campground - Winnfield LA
- This is a primitive campground with no water or electric hookups at the sites and no dump station.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here but I don't remember how strong the signal is.
- Get Kisatchie National Forest camping info
- Find other references to Gum Springs
- List the nights I've camped here
- Check the weather
- Get a Kisatchie National Forest map
- Get a Google map
Genetic Determinism and Human Nature
The "implication" that seems to worry people the most is so-called genetic determinism - the notion that if human nature was shaped by evolution, then it's fixed and we're simply stuck with it; there's nothing we can do about it. We can never change the world to be the way we want; we can never institute fairer societies - policy-making and politics are pointless.
Now, that's a complete misunderstanding. It doesn't distinguish between human nature - our evolved psychology - and the behavior that results from it. Certainly, human nature is fixed. It's universal and unchanging, common to every baby that's born, down through the history of our species.But human behavior, which is generated by that nature, is endlessly variable and diverse. After all, fixed rules can give rise to an inexhaustible range of outcomes. Natural selection equipped us with the fixed rules - the rules that constitute our human nature. And it designed those rules to generate behavior that's sensitive to the environment. So the answer to genetic determinism is simple. If you want to change behavior, just change the environment.