The concept of the "unnatural"
This entry was originally posted on 30 June 2002 at 9:55 a.m. This entry has been edited and slightly abridged.
Here's something that's been on my mind the last few days: the idea of something being unnatural. At work one night one of the other servers was explaining her views on dairy and meat products (of which she partakes neither), and she said something that piqued my curiosity. It was something along the lines of: Humans are the only species that drink the milk of other species, and the only species that continues to drink milk into adulthood, and this is unnatural.
This statement rattled around my brain for a few days, enticing some older and rustier neurons to start firing more rapidly again. And while the neurons were firing, it occurred to me that her statement was logically bizarre--if not wrong altogether. Here's why: The statement is that
Premise 1: H, a species, does X.
Premise 2: No other species does X.
Conclusion: Therefore, X (and, by implication, H) is unnatural.
Do you see the errors here? First off, there is no premise that states that any animal behavior must exist in more than one species in order to be "natural." Second, there are plenty of species out there that exibit peculiar or unique behaviors. Seahorses, for example: male seahorses are responsible for incubating their unhatched eggs--a job that the females of most (if not all) other species handles. This behavior is extremely unusual, if not unique, to seahorses. Is it unnatural? Well, it happens in nature, so how can it be unnatural?
It occurred to me that, by the same logic, there is nothing that humans do that is not in our nature. There is nothing that any species can do that is not, in some way, natural. The idea that something can be unnatural is a human construct: nature cannot decree that something is unnatural, it just doesn't make sense.
So then, is it natural for humans to believe that something can be unnatural? You bet.
Here's something that's been on my mind the last few days: the idea of something being unnatural. At work one night one of the other servers was explaining her views on dairy and meat products (of which she partakes neither), and she said something that piqued my curiosity. It was something along the lines of: Humans are the only species that drink the milk of other species, and the only species that continues to drink milk into adulthood, and this is unnatural.
This statement rattled around my brain for a few days, enticing some older and rustier neurons to start firing more rapidly again. And while the neurons were firing, it occurred to me that her statement was logically bizarre--if not wrong altogether. Here's why: The statement is that
Premise 1: H, a species, does X.
Premise 2: No other species does X.
Conclusion: Therefore, X (and, by implication, H) is unnatural.
Do you see the errors here? First off, there is no premise that states that any animal behavior must exist in more than one species in order to be "natural." Second, there are plenty of species out there that exibit peculiar or unique behaviors. Seahorses, for example: male seahorses are responsible for incubating their unhatched eggs--a job that the females of most (if not all) other species handles. This behavior is extremely unusual, if not unique, to seahorses. Is it unnatural? Well, it happens in nature, so how can it be unnatural?
It occurred to me that, by the same logic, there is nothing that humans do that is not in our nature. There is nothing that any species can do that is not, in some way, natural. The idea that something can be unnatural is a human construct: nature cannot decree that something is unnatural, it just doesn't make sense.
So then, is it natural for humans to believe that something can be unnatural? You bet.
posted by Circus at 10:12 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home