Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!rochester!cornell!oravax!daryl
From: daryl@oravax.UUCP (Steven Daryl McCullough)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Are Humans Naturally Monogamous?
Summary: The fact that people who hold a belief may do horrible
	 things doesn't imply that their belief is wrong.
Message-ID: <1827@oravax.UUCP>
Date: 6 Dec 90 20:25:10 GMT
References: <6128@crash.cts.com>
Organization: Odyssey Research Associates, Ithaca NY
Lines: 22

In article <6128@crash.cts.com>, rcf@pnet01.cts.com (Bob Forsythe) writes:
> ...once someone decides they are made and
> not born, it's a much shorter step to deciding that they can change if they
> "really want to", and the person deciding begins coming up with tactics to
> *make* them want to. In the case of handedness, this belief led teachers to
> beat my grandmother and mother's hands, tie their left-hands behind them, and
> generally make them ashamed of what they were.

I am sorry for the pain that you, your mother and grandmother went
through because of your handedness (and other people's failure to
accept it). However, I would not claim that these experiences
illustrate what is wrong with believing that handedness is learned.
Would the teachers' mistreatment of your mother and grandmother have
been justified if they were trying to change some behavior that is
truly learned? (Suppose they had been teaching them to play piano.)

In my opinion, the teachers acted horribly regardless of whether
handedness is innate or not. I believe you that handedness is innate,
but I don't consider the fact that some people who believe otherwise
do horrible things counts as evidence.

Daryl McCullough