HUMAN COLONY FORMATION 



question. There exists no individual today, expert 

 though he might be, who, given all the basic raw mate- 

 rials (various metallic ores, all needed chemicals, etc.) 

 and permitted to use simple hand tools, (such as were 

 available in 1800) could during his lifetime, construct 

 this television set by himself. Even a very bright tech- 

 nician, engineer or physicist, probably does not have 

 in his own mind sufficient knowledge of all the tech- 

 niques that would be required, let alone the physical 

 capacity for performing them. Yet television sets as 

 well as numerous other equally complex items are be- 

 ing turned out by industry in tremendous quantities. 



But it is not merely our astounding scientific and 

 technical achievements, but indeed our most typically 

 human characteristics that are essentially attributes of 

 the social organism, rather than part of the biological 

 pattern of the individual. Many of the human charac- 

 teristics that are generally referred to as "human na- 

 ture" fall into this category. They are in their present 

 form because there exists now, and has existed for 

 many thousands of years, a society which as a group 

 was able to transmit information. An interesting con- 

 firmation of the societal origin of much of human na- 

 ture is to be found in the histories of the few known 

 cases of human beings who have been raised without 

 any contact with other human beings. Such upbring- 

 ing generally resulted in creatures, the behavior of 

 which differed only little from that of the higher ani- 



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