Animal minds

A curious feature of science literature in a materialist age is the frequent appearance of stories about things everyone knows are true that we are now assured are “proven by research.” Take the fact that animals have personalities: This ScienceDaily story (April 28,) and this related one (May 30, 2007) both announce that research shows that animals have personalities.

From the first,

An individual’s personality can have a big effect on their life. Some people are outgoing and gregarious while others find novel situations stressful which can be detrimental to their health and wellbeing. Increasingly, scientists are discovering that animals are no different.

and from the second,  Read More ›

In “Chimps lose out by aping others” (New Scientist, 23 April 2011), we learn, Chimps seem curiously unable to use their own initiative to gain the best possible reward if this means behaving in a different way to a dominant group member. However, Hopper is not convinced that this behaviour means that chimps are less clever than we thought. “Copying what a dominant group member does could help the chimps to maintain alliances,” she says, much like the way humans follow fashion trends. News flash: “Troubled pop star turns up as homeless bag lady. Millions of women follow suit.”

In “Idle Chatter: This Is Your Brain on Art – Can neuroscience explain art? (The Smart Set , March 17, 2011), Morgan Meis recounts V. S. Ramachandran’s neuroscience theories that, he says, explains a lot about art: Ramachandran identifies what he calls nine laws of aesthetics. Let’s look at one of them — law number two, which he calls Peak Shift — to get a sense of what neuroscience brings to aesthetics. Peak Shift refers to a generally elevated response to exaggerated stimuli among many animals. Ramachandran refers to a study in which seagull chicks were made to beg for food (just as they do from their mothers) simply by waving a beak-like stick in front of their nests. Later, Read More ›

Common sense comes in for a bit of support in “Still Red in Tooth and Claw” (The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2011), on animal morality: Though stories of seemingly altruistic animals tug at the heartstrings, humans are nature’s sole moralists.Nothing tugs at the anthropomorphic heartstrings, though, more strongly than accounts of compassion or altruism in the animal world. A spate of books by authors such as Steven M. Wise, Jeffrey Masson, Jane Goodall, Marc Bekoff and Frans de Waal accordingly offer up examples of animals acting not just intelligently but virtuously. Dolphins lovingly tend sick comrades, elephants grieve over the death of relatives, and apes stage daring rescues of people, injured birds or other beings in distress. In the Read More ›

Over at First Things Joe Carter considers whether naturalism can ever account for valid belief. “To have trustworthy convictions, we have to have properly functioning noetic equipment (i.e., a brain, spinal cord, sensory apparatus, etc., that recognize reality). But can a strictly materialistic, non-teleological, evolutionary process produce such reliable equipment? The philosopher Alvin Plantinga, one of the greatest thinkers of our era, thinks the answer is ‘no.’”

In “Men developed thicker foreheads and jaws due to fighting, over women” Richard Alleyne, science correspondent for Britain’s Telegraph, who presumably knows better, advises us (14 May 2010):

Winning a mate used to depend only on physical prowess and men with the strongest jawline and thickest skulls were better able to survive onslaughts from love rivals.

That meant that over time all men developed thicker bones in the jaws, around the eyes and on the forehead than women.

You can read the further Darwiniana for yourself here.

—
Men evolved manly jawlines and thick brows because they used to fight for women in the past, claim anthropologists
—

To dispose of the evidence-based issues first, it is more likely that characteristic male appearance is part of a kit of traits governed by the need for rapid building of muscle mass. Maybe a fuzzy navel was part of that too? Whether governed by design or chance, the kit is the kit, and if you have outdoor plumbing to begin with, you probably got whatever else came with the kit. (If you didn’t, you can always complain to the Manufacturer, though how much good that does is under debate. You might get the usual “I am the Potter, you are the clay,” boilerplate in response.)

The part I want to focus on is the observation of biological anthropologist David Puts of Pennsylvania State University and author of these theories, that “On average men are not all that much bigger than women, only about 15 percent larger. But the average guy is stronger than 99.9 percent of women.” From this he derives his theories.

As I wrote to a friend recently, Read More ›

The longer I live, the more stupid stuff I hear in legacy mainstream media whose only possible value is to front Darwinism. Here’s a good one:

Chimpanzees eat their dead?

“Researchers may have witnessed it, but been unwilling to report it for fear of drawing undue attention to cannibalism among our close relatives, he says. ”

If there is any remaining doubt that tax-funded Darwinists are nuts, let it be laid to rest.

When was the last time you were at a funeral where the reception lunch was in fact the deceased?

Oh, wait, this just in: “Chimpanzees and humans share about 99% of their DNA, and are so closely related that some academics have suggested they should be given rights similar to human rights.

PS: and, did you know, “Chimps feel death just like humans? (BBC)

Dr Anderson suggests the treatment of death marks another similarity. “

What utter rubbish, honestly. Chimpanzees do NOT know that they will all die.

For animals like them, that is a mercy. For humans, it is the beginning of philosophy.

That animals may mourn their dead is no surprise. Read More ›

A friend wrote recently to tell me that we learned recently from the BBC that toads can ‘predict earthquakes’ and seismic activity Common toads appear to be able to sense an impending earthquake and will flee their colony days before the seismic activity strikes. The evidence comes from a population of toads which left their breeding colony three days before an earthquake that struck L’Aquila in Italy in 2009. How toads sensed the quake is unclear, but most breeding pairs and males fled. They reacted despite the colony being 74km from the quake’s epicentre, say biologists in the Journal of Zoology. It is hard to objectively and quantifiably study how animals respond to seismic activity, in part because earthquakes are Read More ›

This from ScienceNewsDaily about “grooming” behaviour in primates: ‘Our computer model GrooFiWorld shows that complex calculating behaviour is completely unnecessary. We can add the simple rule to the existing DomWorld model that an individual will begin grooming another when it expects to lose from it upon attacking the other. This in itself leads to many of the complex patterns of friendly behaviour observed in real primates.’ In the DomWorld model, individuals group together and compete with their neighbours. (Primates social intelligence overestimated, ScienceNewsDaily, January 11, 2010) Okay, I wouldn’t give you fifteen cents for the computer model. This much I know is true. I have seen cats washing each others’ faces in the middle of the night. That doesn’t mean Read More ›

Here’s the contest.

The question arose from my longstanding puzzlement over claims that reptile behaviour could be sharply demarcated from bird or mammal behaviour, according to a tri-partite brain organization. The evidence did not seem to support that. For example, if we use a crude, obvious measure like looking after young, well, many crocodilians (including the Mississippi alligator) are pretty good at it.

Perhaps most reptiles are not. I do not myself plan to conduct a household census among snapping turtles and vipers. But if any species of reptile can do it, the simple three-part claim about the brain seems suspect.

“Aidan” at 3 is the winner, and needs to be in touch with me at oleary@sympatico.ca, to receive his prize.

My only comment is this: If I were a member of a jury that had to decide whether to convict someone of a criminal offence, I would be on my guard immediately when I heard anything about the “reptile brain.” So far as I know, if a reptile did it, the reptile’s keeper could get a fine for keeping a dangerous animal. That is way less serious than what happens if you are considered morally responsible, instead of unfit to plead, stupid, or something similar.

Meanwhile, I appreciated Collin’s comments at 1 and : 2. Re 1: I fear the boy probably did lose his hand/arm or else the use of it, and my purpose in linking to the video was to disadvise foolish stunts with crocodilians. This is unrelated to claims about the “reptile brain” – I would say the same about bears, tigers, or chimpanzees, all of which have inflicted unexpected injuries for no apparent reason. Why risk serious disability to find out that an animal can be unpredictable?

Re 2, it sounds like Collin’s in-law is a wise man.

Now here is Aidan’s post, a couple of comments interspersed: Read More ›

Animal minds are a big topic now.

Always fascinating for me, but I was all the more intrigued when a local panhandler sold me the “homeless” Outreach paper on the street – always a source of news that should be approached with caution – and guess what?

The lead article informs me that “Wolves are more logical than dogs.”

My first reaction was, “Try telling that to the police van driver whose back door features the notice ‘Police Dog’.”

Would the notice “Police Wolf” convince anyone that the creature in back of the van was more “logical”?

I have seen Mounted Police (= Mountie) dogs at work. I was impressed by their ability to disable a human by a simple method: One dog blocks his way forward and – on either side – two dogs grab his jacket wrists. If their captive gets really cold, they lie down on him to keep him warm until officers arrive. But, of course, the dogs have been trained to do all this. If they had flunked, they would not be on the force.

So, nonetheless, wolves are more logical than dogs? That means that wolves are more logical than the people who train working dogs. Well, that could be right, could be wrong. Best look into it.

The story got started at LiveScience: “Wolves Beat Dogs on Logic Test” by staff writer Clara Moskowitz, (03 September 2009 02:11 pm ET). Well, it turns out,

The differences reflect an emphasis on different learning styles, scientists say.

“I wouldn’t say one species is smarter,” said Adam Miklosi of Eötvös University in Hungary, co-author of a paper describing the results in the Sept. 4 issue of the journal Science. “If you assume an animal has to survive without human presence, then wolves are smarter. But if you are thinking that dogs have to survive in a human environment where it’s very important to follow the communications of humans, then in this aspect, dogs are smarter.”

The article is replete with stuff about how this is supposed to help us understand human evolution. Not the key questions, no.

The skinny: You want a dog? Excellent dogs wait at animal shelters. I am glad if they do not know they are near the euthanasia room.

Don’t get a wolf. Get an animal that is completely happy with human society.

Also just up at The Mindful Hack: Read More ›