A Reader, (wanna give yourself numbers or something guys?)

"We can argue till the viruses come home about the exact order, but no one's going to deny that it's something like that. (Except you, Mr Temple, though I suspect you are only playing.)"

Although my style may be playful at times, I assure you my position is dead serious. *stares menacingly*

Tom,

"When I sprain my ankle and my genes cause so much painful swelling that I choose not to run up the stairs, how is that not an example of genetic influence?"

That's like saying genes encourage typing by giving us fingers. We don't deny genes can indirectly effect behavior in *that* manner.

Anyway, our best theories of intelligence say we have a conjecture machine in our brains, and a refutation/criticism machine too. Having those, or not, is boolean. Our best theories of dolphin brains say they have various hardwired behaviors just like a Warcraft III program (various units even carry out coordinated tasks, and if the code is object oriented, then we could say the various units communicate with each other to carry out complex, coordinated battle maneuvres... or in other words we could say Warcraft III units have language as much as dolphins.)

-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.blogspot.com/