"Cardinal [Pope Benedict XVI] Ratzinger is an ape. He is driven by oh-so-typical ape motivations, the desire for dominance, the need to control the reproductive behavior of other members of his clan, the back-and-forth of social feedback. His brain contains circuits of reward and punishment we can find in rats. His neurotransmitters and the signaling cascades that modulate his neuronal activity are present in worms. The ion channels that mediate transmembrane potentials are inherited from single-celled eukaryotes. The machinery of his cells can be mapped back billions of years. I suspect that troop of primates dwelling in the Vatican could learn a great deal from the objective eye of a primatologist.PZMyers/Pharyngula 20.Apr.05
Who has the more sophisticated understanding of human nature: the man who thinks he can squeeze our history into a span of a few thousand years and the isolated vision of a single species and worse, the limited traditions of a single culture, or the one who aspires to comprehend the full breadth and depth of our place in the universe?"
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This is a good beginning for a big disgorge on Ratzinger, the papal election and things generally, that's backed up in the alimentary and making me feel a little queasy.
Not now, but above, soon.
Only to say here and now that maybe Myers isn't seeing all of what's there, because it's more comforting to see Ratzinger/Benedict as unaware of his primate nature; it makes him seem less capable and blunts the threat of his dominant posturing.
But maybe Myers doesn't go back far enough in his reminding, maybe Ratzinger/Benedict is not just an ape, maybe he's moving through a big buzzing hive, wings folded like a minor queen, glistening with the grooming attention of the drones; maybe there's something insectile going on here - and maybe that's way more scary and far less familiar than mammalian intimidation display.
Myers' scale of values and attainment puts the pragmatic realists ahead of the delusional fantasists, with their "spiritual" mumbo-jumbo - but what if that mumbo-jumbo's just cohesive noise, camoflage and diversion?
What if what's coming next isn't predictable based on a template we already have? What if Ratzinger/Benedict is delivering the mass of his congregation and the wealth of his institution to a new creature whose roots are in what we term lies, but in reality isn't dishonesty but camoflage?
Camoflage is not a biological sin, lying is not a biological sin - the only biological sin is extinction. One of the most effective augmentations for camoflage is the confidence the observer has in what he seems to be seeing.
