dyer@vaxuum.DEC (This did not happen to/Pablo Picasso) (08/12/85)
Avoiding Anthropomorphism_______________________________________________________ > Seems to me that in a great number of species, sex is associated with force > and violence (including killing of mates). There are really very few human > behaviors (language may be one) that are unique to Homo sapiens. I don't want to carry this digression too much further, but I'd like to make one point: If humans aren't doing it, it's not human behavior. It's an all-too-common mistake to attribute human emotions and motivations to animal behavior. Let's avoid making that mistake. <_Jym_> :::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer ::::' :: `:::: Dracut, Massachusetts ::' :: `:: :: :: :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA :: .::::. :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::..:' :: `:..:: ::::. :: .:::: Statements made in this article are my own; they might not :::::::::::::::: reflect the views of |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation.
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/15/85)
> > Seems to me that in a great number of species, sex is associated with force > > and violence (including killing of mates). There are really very few human > > behaviors (language may be one) that are unique to Homo sapiens. > > I don't want to carry this digression too much further, but I'd like to > make one point: If humans aren't doing it, it's not human behavior. It's an > all-too-common mistake to attribute human emotions and motivations to animal > behavior. Let's avoid making that mistake. It's also a mistake to assume that human motivations are different than animal ones. If the original poster had left out the unnecessary adjective "human", the posting would have been correct. Jeff Winslow
chabot@miles.DEC (All God's chillun got guns) (08/21/85)
>>> Seems to me that in a great number of species, sex is associated with force >>> and violence (including killing of mates). There are really very few human >>> behaviors (language may be one) that are unique to Homo sapiens. >> >> I don't want to carry this digression too much further, but I'd like to >> make one point: If humans aren't doing it, it's not human behavior. It's an >> all-too-common mistake to attribute human emotions and motivations to animal >> behavior. Let's avoid making that mistake. > > It's also a mistake to assume that human motivations are different than > animal ones. > > If the original poster had left out the unnecessary adjective "human", the > posting would have been correct. Right. Okay, let's consider the case of the spouse-murderer. The female black widow spider usually eats her mate. Therefore, we can relate the wife who kills her husband to the black widow's motivation for survival. The cuckoo lays her egg in somebody else's nest. This, of course, can be directly related to the motivation for day care and babysitters. Many US Americans travel to scenic Niagara Falls for a traditional honeymoon trip. This is transparently like pacific salmon swimming upstream to spawn. The kiwi is a shy bird whose habits resemble those of the hacker: only coming out at night (it's the only time the shy folk can get to a chinese restaurant when it's relatively uncrowded). Similarly, both will upon occasion lay an unusually large egg for something of its size. L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot chabot%amber.dec@decwrl.arpa
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/23/85)
> > It's also a mistake to assume that human motivations are different than > > animal ones. > > > > If the original poster had left out the unnecessary adjective "human", the > > posting would have been correct. > > Right. Okay, let's consider the case of the spouse-murderer. The female > black widow spider usually eats her mate. Therefore, we can relate the wife > who kills her husband to the black widow's motivation for survival. > > The cuckoo lays her egg in somebody else's nest. This, of course, can be > directly related to the motivation for day care and babysitters. > > Many US Americans travel to scenic Niagara Falls for a traditional honeymoon > trip. This is transparently like pacific salmon swimming upstream to spawn. > > The kiwi is a shy bird whose habits resemble those of the hacker: only coming > out at night (it's the only time the shy folk can get to a chinese restaurant > when it's relatively uncrowded). Similarly, both will upon occasion lay an > unusually large egg for something of its size. > > L S Chabot Thank you, Lisa, for proving that men are not the only ones who, after misunderstanding someone's posting, proceed to take all kinds of cheap shots at them, generally raising the net-blood pressure in the process. Your response was insulting and inappropriate, and I'll try to show you why. First, read the first sentence again. See that word "assume"? Do you know what it means? Good. Now, tell how it is that you managed to confuse that word with "think", "believe", or "say", any of which result in a completely different meaning, one which you apparently think was intended? Human beings are animals. It is reasonable to expect that they share some behaviors with other animals, while other behaviors are unique to humans. Some behaviors which are unique to humans may be an evolutionary descendent of other animal behaviours. Still others have probably evolved in only humans. IT IS A MISTAKE TO **ASSUME**, A PRIORI, THAT A HUMAN BEHAVIOR HAS A DIFFERENT CAUSE THAN AN ANIMAL ONE. To do so encourages the idea that humans are some sort of special, priveleged species that can stomp on whatever they want to with impunity. Although, come to think of it, that does bear some resemblance to your net behavior. By the way, there seems to be a rather large egg here with your name on it. Would you mind coming by and taking it away? Jeff Winslow PS. If your article had been in response to someone who claimed that there was essentially no difference between human and animal behavior, it would have been appropriate. And I would have laughed all the way through.
sharon@faust.UUCP (08/26/85)
/**** faust:net.women / decwrl!dyer / 4:34 pm Aug 12, 1985 ****/ Avoiding Anthropomorphism_______________________________________________________ > Seems to me that in a great number of species, sex is associated with force > and violence (including killing of mates). There are really very few human > behaviors (language may be one) that are unique to Homo sapiens. I don't want to carry this digression too much further, but I'd like to make one point: If humans aren't doing it, it's not human behavior. It's an all-too-common mistake to attribute human emotions and motivations to animal behavior. Let's avoid making that mistake. <_Jym_> :::::::::::::::: Jym Dyer ::::' :: `:::: Dracut, Massachusetts ::' :: `:: :: :: :: DYER%VAXUUM.DEC@DECWRL.ARPA :: .::::. :: {allegra|decvax|ihnp4|ucbvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-vaxuum!dyer ::..:' :: `:..:: ::::. :: .:::: Statements made in this article are my own; they might not :::::::::::::::: reflect the views of |d|i|g|i|t|a|l| Equipment Corporation. /* ---------- */
chabot@amber.DEC (All God's chillun got guns) (08/28/85)
But, Jeff, reread my foolish jokes, and maybe you can catch that I'm not making fun of your point about assuming that human motivations are different from other animals', but rather the all-too-common human mistake of drawing correspondences between the wrong two behaviors; hence the honeymoon/salmon, cuckoo/daycare, and so on. Incorrect correspondences combined with the rationalization that if animals do that's justification enough for humans to do it can lead to a rather idiotic model of behavior. Unfortunately, I have held conversations with people who claim that "Ducks rape; therefore why not." (spiders/spouse- murderers) I was not concluding that "Some correspondences are false: therefore all correspondences are false." However, I did leave out an explicit premise of that premise, not apprehending it would lead to such misunderstandings. L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot
jeffw@tekecs.UUCP (Jeff Winslow) (08/30/85)
> But, Jeff, reread my foolish jokes, and maybe you can catch that I'm not > making fun of your point about assuming that human motivations are > different from other animals', but rather the all-too-common human mistake > of drawing correspondences between the wrong two behaviors; hence the > honeymoon/salmon, cuckoo/daycare, and so on. > > L S Chabot ...decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-amber!chabot I hereby plead guilty to overreacting, excess offensensibility, and general jumping of the gun. I'm sorry. And thank you for your mild response. You must have been pretty surprised to see my reaction! I guess seeing 3 years of work (more or less) go up in smoke (more or less) makes me more irritable than usual. Jeff Winslow, Power supply designer for defunct workstations
friedman@h-sc1.UUCP (dawn friedman) (08/30/85)
> > > It's also a mistake to assume that human motivations are different than > > > animal ones. > > > > > > > L S Chabot > > Thank you, Lisa, for proving that men are not the only ones who, after > misunderstanding someone's posting, proceed to take all kinds of cheap > shots at them, generally raising the net-blood pressure in the process. > Your response was insulting and inappropriate, and I'll try to show you why. > > Human beings are animals. It is reasonable to expect that they share some > behaviors with other animals, while other behaviors are unique to humans. > Some behaviors which are unique to humans may be an evolutionary descendent > of other animal behaviours. Still others have probably evolved in only > humans. IT IS A MISTAKE TO **ASSUME**, A PRIORI, THAT A HUMAN BEHAVIOR HAS A > DIFFERENT CAUSE THAN AN ANIMAL ONE. To do so encourages the idea that > humans are some sort of special, priveleged species that can stomp on > whatever they want to with impunity. Although, come to think of it, that > does bear some resemblance to your net behavior. > > Jeff Winslow I cleverly missed one week of net.women and am not as sure of what's going on as I ought to be, but I suspect it has something to do with something I tried to say earlier. One: It is natural to enjoy a few cheap shots at something that seems remarkably stupid and/or annoying to you. Often, it turns out that the thing that seemed so stupid did so because you misunderstood it. This can be pretty embarrassing, and I try to keep myself from taking cheap shots on short notice because of it, but I don't always succeed and I hardly expect others to. Two: "Some" behaviors of humans are undoubtably similar enough to animal behaviors so that we can learn more about one by reference to the other, which is my criterion of similarity. (I still hold that we know so damn little about either that we ought not do make the comparison blithely, as if we were talking about rival pitchers.) But surely we can make some judgement about WHICH kinds of behaviors are likely to fall into this category? I am ***not*** a behaviorist, the sort who thinks everything can be reduced to stimulus and response; I realize that we cannot know what is going on in a gorilla's mind, or a tarpon's, or a sea-cucumber's; but we have to make some assumptions or we may as well give up on describing animal behavior at all. Can we assume: less nervous system a creature has, the less likely its behaviors are to resemble those behaviors controlled by the human brain? (I am thereby excluding things like spinal-cord reflexes, if you want to call those behaviors.) 2) The more recent the common ancestor of and vic 4) (related to 1 and 3) Human behaviors that are most recent, most culture-dependent, most variable in time, most obviously learned, and so forth, are least likely to have animal analogues. These are just a start. You are all welcome to start shooting holes in them. But if the general principle of "we can decide if a behavior is likely to be analagous" is to be challenged, I'd like to hear what kind of ethology can be done without it. dsf (dina ansieri)