Animal Culture - well duh
NPR is reporting new field findings that indicate cultural differences in populations of Indonesian orangutans. I respect the scientific method. Empricism is a pretty handy way to investigate things. But this announcement...I mean, come on. Any animal lover already knows this is way obvious.
Any pet lover knows our pets learn from us. Why shouldn't animals have common shared interests, that aren't genetically encoded, but assimilated from their social interactions? You can even easily see it in the behavior of semi-wild creatures. The birds that visit our yard let me know very clearly when they are pleased with the fresh water in the bird baths; when the seeds we put out are to their liking. I can notice distinct personalities between individual hummingbirds. There's one group who are very bossy and one 'family' that seem to go with the flow a little better. When the natural plantings begin to slack off in sap production, during the winter, the bossy group lets us know we'd better get on the stick and start freshening up the hummer feeders, or get dive bombed. Memo to self - time to make up a batch of sugar water.
When are we going to realize there's really not that much of a difference between mankind and, well, everything else? There's a great book on the subject: 'The Sacred Balance - rediscovering our place in nature.' by David Suzuki.
I think an interesting thing is trying to discover where animals are exhibiting a completely non-human emotion, rather than being amazed by witnessing any sort of complex emotion from our animal co-residents. We tend to see all animals behaviors, attitudes and emotions from a human perspective. It's hard not to. It gets difficult to differentiate if you only observe your pets. They afterall, learn all sorts of behavior from us. They show tons of human behaviors and habits! One thing I enjoy, is watching the coyotes and trying to spot how they act differently from our dogs. That helps me separate real canine attitude, from dog-as-human stylee.
Oh well, I guess the slightly chauvinistic empirical method allows mankind to keep thinking we're special. We, as a super-species, are special. But not *that* special, you know?
NPR is reporting new field findings that indicate cultural differences in populations of Indonesian orangutans. I respect the scientific method. Empricism is a pretty handy way to investigate things. But this announcement...I mean, come on. Any animal lover already knows this is way obvious.
Any pet lover knows our pets learn from us. Why shouldn't animals have common shared interests, that aren't genetically encoded, but assimilated from their social interactions? You can even easily see it in the behavior of semi-wild creatures. The birds that visit our yard let me know very clearly when they are pleased with the fresh water in the bird baths; when the seeds we put out are to their liking. I can notice distinct personalities between individual hummingbirds. There's one group who are very bossy and one 'family' that seem to go with the flow a little better. When the natural plantings begin to slack off in sap production, during the winter, the bossy group lets us know we'd better get on the stick and start freshening up the hummer feeders, or get dive bombed. Memo to self - time to make up a batch of sugar water.
When are we going to realize there's really not that much of a difference between mankind and, well, everything else? There's a great book on the subject: 'The Sacred Balance - rediscovering our place in nature.' by David Suzuki.
I think an interesting thing is trying to discover where animals are exhibiting a completely non-human emotion, rather than being amazed by witnessing any sort of complex emotion from our animal co-residents. We tend to see all animals behaviors, attitudes and emotions from a human perspective. It's hard not to. It gets difficult to differentiate if you only observe your pets. They afterall, learn all sorts of behavior from us. They show tons of human behaviors and habits! One thing I enjoy, is watching the coyotes and trying to spot how they act differently from our dogs. That helps me separate real canine attitude, from dog-as-human stylee.
Oh well, I guess the slightly chauvinistic empirical method allows mankind to keep thinking we're special. We, as a super-species, are special. But not *that* special, you know?
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