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<blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 7620477" data-attributes="member: 75787">Absolutely; but the theological community tends to believe they are natural states. I was drawing a parallel between the theological community's age-old search for an answer to the theological question &quot;is humanity naturally good/evil?&quot; with the scientific question posed by this thread. In general using theology to inform science works poorly, so I definitely wasn't suggesting that!I am not sure why you conclude that there is a problem -- in fact, on the face if it, you seem to be supporting my conjecture. I stated that research indicates that humanity is innately social -- and you confirm that &quot;Our default is adapted to live within a community&quot;. Isn't that the same thing -- or at least close enough for internet conversation?Your statement equating &quot;wild&quot; as&nbsp; &quot;without human influence&quot; seems a rather odd statement. Would you consider ants as not being &quot;wild&quot; as they are rarely found &quot;without ant influence&quot;? Or are you asserting that the default state of a species is that state when they are not in contact with humanity, specifically -- so that, by definition, humanity cannot be in a default state?If the latter, then we can bypass that objection by looking at research on &quot;wild&quot; apes, specifically chimpanzees, which have murder rates closer to humanity than to the average mammal. They, like us exhibit both social and territorial aspects. I cannot find a good paper on the subject, but investigations into the causes of ape murder seem rare ...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Gorgon Zee, post: 7620477, member: 75787"] Absolutely; but the theological community tends to believe they are natural states. I was drawing a parallel between the theological community's age-old search for an answer to the theological question "is humanity naturally good/evil?" with the scientific question posed by this thread. In general using theology to inform science works poorly, so I definitely wasn't suggesting that! I am not sure why you conclude that there is a problem -- in fact, on the face if it, you seem to be supporting my conjecture. I stated that research indicates that humanity is innately social -- and you confirm that "Our default is adapted to live within a community". Isn't that the same thing -- or at least close enough for internet conversation? Your statement equating "wild" as "without human influence" seems a rather odd statement. Would you consider ants as not being "wild" as they are rarely found "without ant influence"? Or are you asserting that the default state of a species is that state when they are not in contact with humanity, specifically -- so that, by definition, humanity cannot be in a default state? If the latter, then we can bypass that objection by looking at research on "wild" apes, specifically chimpanzees, which have murder rates closer to humanity than to the average mammal. They, like us exhibit both social and territorial aspects. I cannot find a good paper on the subject, but investigations into the causes of ape murder seem rare ... [/QUOTE]

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