Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite patient

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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Michal Szkudlarek » Mon Nov 21, 2016 10:58 pm

How could they have learned how to tell what to be scared for from what wasn't ?...they must have known it from someone .

or from genes
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Mon Nov 21, 2016 11:40 pm

Massimo Trentin wrote:Mmm,,,so you're saying that moms of our ancestors used to leave their > 3 years or so babies to their destiny even if in
sort of "Kindergarden" only because they would have other new sons to care for in meantime? (correct me if I'm wrong)

YES. They left them there, under the company and guidance of their peers, their older cousins, their aunts - which is
not so bad at all, if you think of it. It was efficient. Mothers had another job to do - produce and suckle new offspring.

Many other lower mammals just don't do it, ...

Forget "lower animals" as such. We are a species, with our own problems to solve. In Pleistocene, in Africa, when & where
we emerged as a species, it was most probably a good strategy. We have just inherited it, willy-nilly. Bear with it, if you can.

How could they have learned how to tell what to be scared for from what wasn't ?...they must have known it from
someone. This was true maybe also for snakes, as it was for food and/or many other things (i.e fire)

In the "kindergarten". From the elders. From the aunts who took care of them. And don't forget that they inherited
some really useful genetic instructions as well. Activated when it really starts to count, not before...
The fear of separation (from the mother) and the fear of darkness activate at birth – for very good reasons.
Any infant left alone at night is an offered meal for a leopard or something like that. Other fears activate
later, when they become useful... for a Pleistocene H. sapiens. But that’s what has been written in our genes...
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Nov 22, 2016 7:54 am

Thanks to all, but I'm still of the idea that the fear for snakes is an acquired one.
This is a subtle difference but at this point we must distinguish between genetic predisposition and genetic instruction.
Human beings are genetically predisposed to speak, but without someone who actually teaches young children a language, those children will remain enfant sauvage just like the one of Truffaut film.
We obviously have a genetic capacity to distinguish dangerous animals, neutral unuseful animals and useful maybe eatable creatures. But we need either personal experience or someone who teaches us those informations in order to activate genes in a direction or another one.
Snakes are very strange and unusual animals: I think our genes are rather neutral towards them, but we instictly perceive snakes as something "strange". Education then will transform this particular perceiving in hate, love, disgust, curiosity or whatever else. But normally in hate and disgust. This is my opinion...

P.s. The Pleistocene "Kindergarten" theory is not against my point of view: young children will simply learn snake fear from older children, cousins, granpas... and not from their mums!
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Michal Szkudlarek » Tue Nov 22, 2016 7:41 pm

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Thanks to all, but I'm still of the idea that the fear for snakes is an acquired one.
This is a subtle difference but at this point we must distinguish between genetic predisposition and genetic instruction.
Human beings are genetically predisposed to speak, but without someone who actually teaches young children a language, those children will remain enfant sauvage just like the one of Truffaut film.
We obviously have a genetic capacity to distinguish dangerous animals, neutral unuseful animals and useful maybe eatable creatures. But we need either personal experience or someone who teaches us those informations in order to activate genes in a direction or another one.
Snakes are very strange and unusual animals: I think our genes are rather neutral towards them, but we instictly perceive snakes as something "strange". Education then will transform this particular perceiving in hate, love, disgust, curiosity or whatever else. But normally in hate and disgust. This is my opinion...

P.s. The Pleistocene "Kindergarten" theory is not against my point of view: young children will simply learn snake fear from older children, cousins, granpas... and not from their mums!


"The results show that the brain has special neural circuits to detect snakes, and this suggests that the neural circuits to detect snakes have been genetically encoded," Hisao Nishijo, of Toyama University in Japan, said in a statement.
http://www.ibtimes.com/scared-snakes-mo ... ia-1445534
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Ruggero M. » Tue Nov 22, 2016 8:12 pm

First objection to this study: human beings are not monkeys!

Second objection: it's not clear if they used images of snakes or real snakes. In any case, it's obvious that an image of a strange animal activates more neurons that an image of a hand or a chair or a toothbrush... especially if they used actual snakes for this study!
I suppose the same strong neuronal activation, maybe in other brain areas, would have happened in monkeys if a dragon image had been projected: are then monkeys genetically predisposed to recognize and fear dragons, a fantasy creature?


Third objection: I self wrote that we have genetically determined brain areas for languages. Very problably we have brain areas for recognizing living creatures too. And snakes are strange creatures. I mean otherwise that these genetically determined areas could be epigenetically influenced by experience and education to accept snakes, to love them (very rarely but it happens too, and we herpetophiles are the living proof of this fact) or to hate them as repugnant and evil creatures. I think it's all in our culture...
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Tue Nov 22, 2016 9:54 pm

Ruggero Morimando wrote:I think it's all in our culture...

I don't think so, and personally I just hate envoking this omnipotent "culture" as an explanation for anything at all...
But back to the original question - if anyone still remembers it at all: "Does the immediate pain of a bite by a
venomous snake produce... whatever.(See in the proposal of the project.)"
In my totally non-honest opinion, there is no such effect at all (save, perhaps, the Atractaspis bites, or something
as rare as that.) So, what's the real point of the proposed (scientific?) study, which should (presumably) lead to
someone's "dr. sc." or "Ph. D." or whichever present-day academic degree?
Well, THAT is what I would call "culture"... the present-day one.
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Ruggero M. » Fri Nov 25, 2016 9:31 pm

If culture does not play a role, how can you explain something like this: https://youtu.be/xMH5QuSUCcY

:lol: ;)
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Michal Szkudlarek » Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:10 pm

Ruggero Morimando wrote:If culture does not play a role, how can you explain something like this: https://youtu.be/xMH5QuSUCcY

:lol: ;)

i do not know whether im right but i understood that Berislav disagreed for your statement that it is 100% culturally determined. he did not say that culture does not play a role at all
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Ruggero M. » Fri Nov 25, 2016 10:15 pm

Ok Michal, if we say that snake hate/fear is 99% an acquired one, we could begin to reason together... :lol:
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Re: Defensive Snake Venom? A survey of pain in snakebite pat

Postby Berislav Horvatic » Sat Nov 26, 2016 12:47 am

Ruggero Morimando wrote:Ok Michal, if we say that snake hate/fear is 99% an acquired one, we could begin to reason together... :lol:

You two can just "begin to reason together", but I certainly won't join in. After all, that was not the original
issue at all, at least not in this particular "thread". See above - very, very far above. Roger & OUT.
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