Were the kids ever in danger?

Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
As a politician friend of mine learned never go after pets - in his case it was feral cats . You cannot win against cute and fuzzy. But your pet will consume your flesh if it is starving and you are dead.
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
Do animals kill for fun?
Yes, as the owner of a cat, I can say quite comfortably, animals kill for pleasure. As a chicken farmer who lost 10 chickens to a bear who didn't even eat them, I'm pretty sure the phenomenon is not confined to cats nor humans. Weasels seem to take particular glee in killing chickens.
Why you wouldn't attribute an emotional disposition to animals when humans indisputably have them, is beyond me. Recent studies show animals suffer from a sense of fairness, crows have been recorded taking revenge on ornithologists years after being captured and tagged and then freed, when they could have spent their energies better avoiding unpleasant humans and going hunting, gathering or scavenging instead. Baby animals of one species have been known to get adopted by another even when the baby could have been a meal.
Brain science now recognizes that what we interpret as emotions are the processes of valuation during the decision making process. Emotions are used by a brain to attach the individual to another or a community, to determine danger, safety, possible reward, the viability of a mate, every decision we make is decided by an emotion. Why would another mammal's brain work any differently. Most of us consider the emotional brain the inferior brain, so advanced evolution wouldn't be the answer.
I have watched my dogs and cats tease each other to no purpose but to pull each other's chain. I once stood out by my bird feeders offering hand fulls of seeds to the chickadees when one little chickadee picked up a seed right next to me from the bird feeder. He turned to me, studied me for a moment and threw the uneaten seed at me. Was he saying, "go away danger" or "you should have one too"?

- Will (Dragonfly)
 
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Feb 14, 2014
7,399
Hunter 430 Waveland, MS
Very interesting discussion.
I would offer this...
Higher intelligence and curiosity in animals does have an emotional flare. Domesticated animals do recognize [perhaps rationalize] kindness and caring. For this exchange, they often return loyalty, protection, service and more, and in turn we show emotions to their response.
______
As a chicken farmer who lost 10 chickens to a bear who didn't even eat them
And your Point?
My Uncle was a chicken farmer too. I rode on the feed cart, driving down the row for the "layers", as a kid.
Their "cackling" would drive any bear crazy.;)
______
your pet will consume your flesh if it is starving and you are dead
So will mankind.

Jim...

PS: I have seen pets refused to live from loss of their owner, passing. Grief, bonding, loyalty who knows for sure.
 
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May 6, 2004
196
- - Potomac
I have lived in a multi-animal household in which the dog would respond with what can only be described as jealousy when I displayed physical affection for others in the household, animal or human. It was most amusing, occasionally annoying.

I honestly don't know how to put this into an "eat, reproduce, survive" category.
 
Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
I honestly don't know how to put this into an "eat, reproduce, survive" category.
Why would you? The most intimate example of natural animal behavior with insight into the inner workings of the brain is our own. Why, if we are going to act like Evolution or Natural Selection is the sole motivating force that brought us into being (the scientific first position for all biology), would any scientist start from another point of view? If one is not taking a scientific position, then anything is possible and most motivations unknowable. So, why still act like it is any different for other animals than it is for us? Those orca purposely passed to either side of those kids because of a motivation that might have been curiosity, it might have been a defensive tactic, it might have been a way to leave their possibilities open. They didn't attack because they were not hungry enough, they understand humans are organised and may be vengeful, or they held some sort of sense of generosity. There is, under these conditions, no way to tell. However, to assume that orca, of all creatures who aren't human, act only on the barest of instincts based solely in a chemical biological response to stimulus and response on such a simple level, is to close the door on possibilities that are very real and astounding.

- Will (Dragonfly)
 
Feb 14, 2014
7,399
Hunter 430 Waveland, MS
I think I would like to share a bottle of bourbon
Speak of motivation, generosity and love!:plus::plus:

An Orca hasn't done that with me, ever.:)

BTW the animal kingdom continues to evolve.:)

As does our knowledge of them.

Jim...
 
Feb 14, 2014
7,399
Hunter 430 Waveland, MS
would any scientist start from another point
Yes of course, for just the reasons you pointed out.
Say what?
Darwin's theory is not a law. He proposed that as a species cross mated, the new siblings would be an evolved species in of itself. Darwin never back traced, but was forward thinking.
If you think he meant Man from Monkey, you need to double check, or even man from amoeba.
So far, anthropologists can only find evidence of any DNA link, to the Middle east and not so far back in time.

It has been proposed, that one thing and one thing only separates us from others animals....

LOVE

Love of caring for another, that caring assured the survival of mankind.
IMHO it still does.
Jim...
 
Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
So many interesting ways to take this conversation.
Drew13440, I can offer an alternative explanation of your dog’s jealousy. Dogs are pack animals. There are genetically coded behaviors that establish rank in that pack. It could well be that the jealous dog regards your attention to the other dog as a pack or sovial demotion and its behavior reflects that. We project our interperpatation of that behavior as a human emotion of jealousy. Mote later.
 
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Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
So many interesting ways to take this conversation.
Drew13440, I can offer an alternative explanation of your dog’s jealousy. Dogs are pack animals. There are genetically coded behaviors that establish rank in that pack. It could well be that the jealous dog regards your attention to the other dog as a pack or sovial demotion and its behavior reflects that. We project our interperpatation of that behavior as a human emotion of jealousy. Mote later.
Even if your explanation were nothing but the whole truth, how does that exclude jealousy as the name for the feeling a dog experiences that makes it behave as though it were jealous? Those same words could explain the human condition. They may, in fact, be true, but I fail to see how providing an explanation for our behaviors in such terms removed what we feel as we are motivated to act.
Darwin's theory is not a law. He proposed that as a species cross mated, the new siblings would be an evolved species in of itself.
Darwin's theories were founded on an economic theory being developed at the time. It was fundamentally survival of the fittest. Darwin added evolution to it from his observations of related but different species. Natural Selection, as part of that isn't a theory, it's a tautology. It's like saying the blocks are stacked well because the building doesn't fall down. There is nothing in these ideas that preclude or exclude emotions like love. We can say man is the only creature that feels love, but that flies in the face of behavioral evidence to the contrary. The facts are not knowable until we can clearly define such emotions in quantifiable phenomena.

I'm not trying to say it is true or untrue, only that the statement had no foundation.

- Will (Dragonfly)
 
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Jul 27, 2011
4,989
Bavaria 38E Alamitos Bay
Natural Selection, as part of that isn't a theory, it's a tautology. It's like saying the blocks are stacked well because the building doesn't fall down.
The tautology criticism is more like the following. Evolution by Natural Selection is driven by the "Survival of the Fittest." The most fit are the ones that survive; therefore, evolution by Natural Selection is effectively driven by a "survival of the survivors." Fitness, however, is defined as the probability that a particular phenotype, consequently its underlying genotype, will live to reproductive age and leave viable offspring to produce the next generation, etc.

The "Theory" to which you and others refer is the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. The fact that evolution occurs, and has occurred, is evidenced in numerous ways, including by the fossil record which confirms the genesis and eventual extinction of species over the history of the planet. So evolution, a.k.a. descent with change, is an observation. The theory of Natural Selection is one that seeks to explain how this evolution occurs and leads to new species. It is based upon the practice of civilizations to breed animals and crops to high, what is termed, "phenotypic value" which equates with the term "fitness." That is "Artificial Selection." "Natural Selection" is offered by analogy as how the production of fit individuals might be accomplished in nature where the most fit, those with the highest probability of producing viable offpspring, establish subsequent generations. A more refined view is to see mutation (another observation of fact) as the way new variation is introduced into a population and natural selection as the way beneficial mutations are propagated; not so beneficial ones eliminated, etc, over time.
 
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Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
Well you sent me to the dictionary. I had to look up tautology - because I didn't know what it meant!:biggrin:
 
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Jan 1, 2006
7,039
Slickcraft 26 Sailfish
Even if your explanation were nothing but the whole truth, how does that exclude jealousy as the name for the feeling a dog experiences that makes it behave as though it were jealous? - Will (Dragonfly)
I don't know. My point was more that we project an human emotion, known to us by the word jealousy, to an animal that we have know way of knowing what it is thinking. We make predictions on their behavior based on what we would do when we feel that emotion. Those predictions may be very inaccurate and that's why I think the kids were in peril.
I recognize that as mammals we share some brain and physical functions including reflexes. But since the animal brain is adapted to the environment it exists in we can't extend our higher brain functions on the animal since our brains are developed in a different environment. Taking KG's point even two animals with the same genotype will end up with a different phenotype once they've lived a little.
All science is just a attempt to make useful predictions about the world around us. Each step forward raises new questions and each new data point has the potential to cause the theory to need revision. We're not using the Bohr Atom model anymore. A fact I wish I had known before spending a semester learning it. I do admit to spending a good deal of that class time with my cheek firmly pressed against my desk and a puddle of drool forming on the desktop.
 
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Oct 19, 2017
7,732
O'Day 19 Littleton, NH
We make predictions on their behavior based on what we would do when we feel that emotion. Those predictions may be very inaccurate and that's why I think the kids were in peril.
Very good point. It is a good place to start, as long as we keep in mind, it is just a place to start. Science is, as you say, about building models of our universe from which we make predictions. They bear out or they show the model is deficient and needs more work. It is a historical truth that humans anthropomorphize the world around us, from our pets to the stars in the sky, to emotions like love and random events as the Fates and Lady Luck.
I remember watching a video for a class on the use of animals as models for robotics. One of my fellow students applauded the tactic, suggesting that nature has perfected it already so it makes sense to emulate it. My thought was, it is a good first place to start because nature only goes for a good enough goal (more anthropomorphozing here by assuming nature has a goal) within the environment and criteria for survival of the individual. Nature has no animal that flies over mach 1 or carries human beings 20,000 leagues under the sea or needs to know the nth place of pi. So we can't expect to satisfy all our needs by looking to nature's examples.

I don't drink bourbon, but I feel like this is a good time to share a:beer:with you all. :thumbup:

- Will (Dragonfly)