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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

>Would you pit George Bush against Bobby Fisher in a chess match?  

Bobby Fischer is dead.  If he spotted Bush a rook, Bush might manage a draw.

Lynda, I just read a rather well put bit where someone used the image of the 
circus rider who has one foot one each of two horses galloping around the 
ring.   Says the writer, one of those horses is Fate and one is Free Will.  
As we 
go through life, we keep our balance and stay astride by our ability to tell 
which horse is Fate (or predisposition, or genes) and which is Free Will (or 
choices).  The problems arise when we can't tell the difference.

For all your unschooling, you seem to be unable to tell the difference.

In the example you give of horses, since we both know a bit about that, all 
horses from the miniature pasture ornament horses, to the great Clydesdales, 
to 
wild horses, to Przewalski's Horse are genetically identical, that is, they 
have the same number of chromosomes in the same order, they are the same 
species.

While it's true that they all can't do the same thing, a Welsh pony can't 
pull an oak log out of the forest and a Belgian can't fit in a mine shaft, 
there 
are things that are identical to them.  If you inject a Welsh Pony mare with 
prosteglandin, she will ovulate.  If you inject a Belgian mare with 
prosteglandin, she will ovulate.  There is no such thing as a variety of 
horse that 
because it is "different" will fail to ovulate if so injected.  

Take a group of 100 horses, any varitey or mix of varieties you like.  Feed 
50 on grass or hay only and 50 on grains only.  Within a short time the 50 on 
grain only will suffer collapsed intestines and die while the 50 grass fed 
ones 
will not.  There is no such thing as a horse that can eat all grain and live.

All hosrses, no matter what size, variety, degree of domestication, have a 
flight response.  There is no such thing as a horse that doesn't have one.

Those things are fixed and inborn.  People talk about some horses being good 
keepers and bad keepers depening on how much hay they seem to need or want.  
Some horses are easily provoked and are excitable while others are calm.  All 
those things are trifles compared to the ways in which all horses are 
identical.

Likewise all human beings are much more physiologically the same than they 
are different.  Or differences are trifles compared to the ways we are the 
same. 
 ALL human beings will gain weight in response to more calories eaten than 
they expend, ALL human beings will lose weight in response to less calories 
eaten than they expend.  ALL of them.  There is no such thing as a human 
being who 
gains weight although they eat and expend calories with no variation.

The problems arise when we lose the focus of what is pre-detemined and what 
is chosen.  Yes, people vary a very great deal and by far the vast majority 
of 
that variation is chosen.  Can your own tunnel vision keep you from seeing 
how 
Free Will has swamped out and overcome inborn variations at every turn?   So 
what if one child is born with some predisosition to to keep moving while 
another was born with a predispositon to be uber-consevative in his movement? 
 
Millions of people have, though fee will, overcome that predisposition (if it 
indeed exists) and avioded the consequences of being sedentary.  With all the 
overwhelming evidence that the phenomeon can be overcome by will, what 
difference 
does it make if the original penchant for it was genetic or chosen?  It's a 
trifle.


James