Void

Dreams...Not sure what the lastest research says, but this is what I remember... 1. Consolidate new inforamtion into one's life history. 2. Are a function of processing the only information available during sleep...i.e. memories/experience...May be related to #1. A little simplified, but what I currrently understand them as...

The best punishment is love.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=62 Try this area...more appropriate.

Inclusive fitness, isn't it a beautiful thing?

I disagree. You can directly measure several "outcomes" in psychology. I'll list them for you: Galvonic Skin Response Eye tracking Reaction time Heart Rate Hormone levels Hours of sleep Non-verbal cues Language Shall I go on? You can't measure MENTAL phenomena directly BUT you can measure BEHAVIOR directly. Remember behaviorism? Thus, we often infer mental process from behavioral action. For example, if I want to know how people solve math problems, I obviously can't observe their MENTAL calculation, but I can ASK them to WRITE OUT the steps they take in solving the problem. And I say to the skeptic, does the difference really matter in this case? It might, if you believe that the aid of representing something on paper has an effect on solving the problem (which I suspect for complex problems it might). In addition, it is quite possible to mis-apply scientific methods within any field of science.

Its natural for all humans to analyze each other (unless your narcissistic), it just depends on how much you want to know. What do you want to know?

Woman and men have been shown to react to stress in varying ways. However, regarding a TRAINED athlete, you may not find a systematic difference. I suspect it may be more of personality difference at that level. If you have the ability, you should search the sports psychology literature.

Back up Hoss... I do not see how you can conclude that the environment is MORE important. You need to qualify the conditions under which you making these conclusions, and do not believe you are. UNDER the conditions of torture, the fact that some develop mental disease and some don't is due to genes. UNDER the conditions that no torture exists, the fact that no one develops mental disease is due to environment. HA! Plus, if you think about it on a timeline... First, torture can be seen as a form of environmental pressure. Second, if there was not torture in the past, then of course there would not be "torture" adaptations. Third, by the very fact that your applying pressure, your selecting for individuals who may have genes that increase their chances of survival under said conditions. (i.e. the folks with mental disease aren't looking to good in the reproduction arena) Therefore, under natural selection, some sort of torture adaptation should emerge as dominant... (Cut me some slack on the timeline issues, and the extent to which this torture is applied...of course if its too severe, no one reproduces) So yes, you are not going to see a "torture" gene, but over time you might.

I'm cynical enough to accept that!

I was a little confused about the statement as well...The way I see it...If present environmental conditions are equal, and individual history is factored out...Then the only candidate are genetic dispositions.