Re: Reply for Dissident

The difference is, it would not be illegal for the average citizen or even any journalists to look into a telescope to actually see for ourselves if such an asteroid is actually there following claims by the government that it is.

Thank you! That's exactly the point; that the evidence is not just not released by the authorities, but actively concealed by them, and everyone jailed who may have seen it and is independent of their own control. What it reminds me is how the Bible wasn't supposed to be read by laypeople in pre-Reformation times.

Is it justified to say, "Let's have less of this?" if it's proven to have a natural evolutionary benefit simply because enough people are offended by the practice of it during any given era? I certainly don't ask for more of it, but only to accept and respect as much of it as nature naturally creates--the same with all other forms of romantic attraction.

Not entirely. I agree here with Markaba and Kea that rape is a viable reproductive strategy and therefore evolutionarily beneficial to the guy who practices it, but that it's still worthy of criminalization. This is just the most obvious example (the only obvious example, I would say, but there are some more which are not so immediately obvious), but there are other examples of acts or behaviors that are evolutionarily beneficial for the agent who commits them and which nonetheless should be criminalized or at least socially disapproved because of their ill effects overall. The point is, lee lette is right that evolution should not be considered an automatic "moral" endorsement for everything it favors. A piece of evidence in favor, maybe, but not an automatic decider.