Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id LAA14757 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:37:39 +0100 Message-ID: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D3101745EEC@inchna.stir.ac.uk> From: Vincent Campbell <v.p.campbell@stir.ac.uk> To: "'memetics@mmu.ac.uk'" <memetics@mmu.ac.uk> Subject: RE: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal cul ture Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 11:15:42 +0100 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" X-Filter-Info: UoS MailScan 0.1 [D 1] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Lovely quote from de Waal in this article.
I can hear it now 'If I could fly higher than a chicken...'
Both of these books, which I believe others have mentioned on the list, I've
seen good reviews of, and must get around to getting.
When I daydream about what subject I'd do if not the current one I work in,
I usually put archaeology and paleontology at the top of the list, but
ethology is creeping up on me. Bit of a pipe dream, particularly since my
experimental skills in all sciences at school confounded nature. I remember
one experiment that I was doing as part of my GCSE Biology coursework where
osmosis simply didn't happen. Now I think about it, I also had problems in
my physics experiments at school, particularly those ones where you are
testing things like acceleration and velocity. Looking back I wonder how
inept one has to be to produce experimental results that confound even the
most basic processes in nature...
Vincent
> ----------
> From: Ray Recchia
> Reply To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Sent: Friday, June 8, 2001 12:47 am
> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
> Subject: USA Today - interview with Gugatkin and de Waal on animal
> culture
>
> Article in USA today on Tuesday
> For the European crowd, USA today is a nationally distributed newspaper
> with
> rougly the same popularity as CNN.
>
> http://www.usatoday.com/news/healthscience/science/2001-06-05-animal-usat.
> htm
> CULTURE'S NOT ONLY HUMAN
>
> By Tim Friend, USA TODAY
>
>
> Louisville Courier-Journal
> Lee Dugatkin, a professor at the University of
> Louisville,
> has shown that dating habits can be similar to behavior of the simplest
> fish.
>
> Let's get something straight. Humans and animals are much more
> similar than scholars have led us to believe, and we share at least two
> fundamental aspects of behavior that have been used for centuries to
> define
> our differences and thus our humanity: culture and learning.
> Animal culture and the transmission of cultural behaviors from
> one generation to the next - known as cultural transmission - are still
> hotly contested ideas. Two recent books, The Ape and Sushi Master (Basic
> Books) by Frans de Waal and The Imitation Factor (Free Press) by Lee
> Dugatkin, support the pro-animal-culture side of the debate.
> For those humans who find comparisons with animals offensive,
> rest easy. None of the beasts running around outdoors can write poetry or
> plays, paint masterpieces that hang in museums or dine with fine cutlery.
> But our differences, as Charles Darwin pointed out more than 100 years
> ago,
> are differences of degree and not of kind.
> Dugatkin, a professor of behavioral ecology at the University
> of
> Louisville, and de Waal, a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta,
> provide powerful evidence for the existence of culture and cultural
> transmission in animals. Some of the evidence stems from their own
> research,
> but they also include the major findings by others in their field over the
> past 40 years.
> "The question of whether animals have culture is a bit like
> whether chickens can fly," de Waal says. "Compared to an albatross or
> falcon, perhaps not. But chickens do have wings, they do flap them, and
> they
> do get up in the trees. Now imagine a world devoid of flying creatures
> except for the chicken. We would probably be mightily impressed, writing
> poems and songs about how we wished to be like them."
> De Waal uses the albatross/chicken comparison to illustrate
> the
> differences between human culture with our masterpieces of art, literature
> and cuisine, and animal culture with its simpler traditions - different
> methods of fishing for termites among chimpanzees from different troops,
> for
> instance, and different ways of grooming.
>
> A broader definition
>
> Humans have defined themselves by culture for thousands of
> years.
> Among Webster's dictionary's definitions of culture: "the integrated
> pattern
> of knowledge, belief and behavior that depends on man's capacity for
> learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations."
> The strictest definition includes the ability to use a spoken
> and written language and teaching as a means of transmitting knowledge,
> beliefs and behaviors. That one would certainly keep animals barred from
> the
> culture club, but most biologists accept a broader definition, de Waal and
> Dugatkin say.
> "There is growing evidence for animal culture - most of it
> hidden in field notes and technical reports - that deserves to be more
> widely known," de Waal says. "Culture simply means that knowledge and
> habits
> are acquired from others - often, but not always from the older generation
> -
> which explains why two groups of the same species may behave differently."
> The title of his book refers to the fact that animals, like
> humans, learn from each other by close observation. The sushi apprentice
> in
> Japan performs menial tasks in the master's kitchen for several years but
> never touches fish. At the end of the observation period, the apprentice
> is
> expected to prepare sushi as perfectly as his master.
> De Waal says he also hopes to dispel Western society's notion
> that culture is the opposite of human nature. The old philosophers
> believed
> that culture allowed humans to rise above their animalistic nature. De
> Waal
> says that Asians believe in a greater continuity between animals and
> humans
> and don't debate the existence of animal culture.
> One classic example of animal culture is potato washing by
> Japanese macaques on Koshima Island. In 1952, scientists began feeding
> sweet
> potatoes to the monkeys so they could watch the animals' social behavior.
> The potatoes were cut in pieces and tossed on the ground. Even monkeys
> don't
> like sand, so they usually tried rubbing it off with their hands.
> One day, a juvenile female named Imo took her sandy potatoes
> to
> the water's edge and washed them clean. By 1958, potato washing had been
> adopted by 14 of 15 juveniles and two of 11 adults. These monkeys have all
> since died, but the macaques at Koshima Island continue washing potatoes
> today. Since the behavior was transmitted through observation rather than
> genetics, it is cultural, Dugatkin says.
>
> Non-human animals imitate
>
> One of the chief ways cultural information is transmitted in
> humans is through imitation. Any parent knows too well that children
> imitate
> adult behavior. In the third century B.C., Aristotle wrote: "Imitation is
> natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower
> animals
> being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and
> learns
> at first by imitation."
> "Aristotle was wrong, at least for the most part, about the
> ability of non-human animals to imitate. It was a big oversight," Dugatkin
> says. Results of Dugatkin's experiments with lowly guppies indicate
> imitation is a far-flung behavior in the animal kingdom.
> It's no secret that females and males of our species find
> certain traits in the opposite sex more attractive than others. Popularity
> and good looks often top the list. Studies at the University of Louisville
> found this to be true in students and also found that if one person wanted
> to date X, so did others - a phenomenon called date copying.
> Dugatkin designed an experiment to see if guppy love follows a
> similar path. As a rule, female guppies prefer to mate with bright-orange
> males. The preference is determined by guppies' genes. In Dugatkin's
> experiment, he placed female guppies in an area of their fish tank where
> they could observe bright-orange males and dull males at the same time and
> also see a female making a mate choice. Through a trick with opaque and
> see-through dividers, the females saw what appeared to be a female
> selecting
> a dull-colored male. Surprisingly, the female observers also then chose a
> dull-colored male, and then overruled their normal instinct to mate with
> brightly colored males.
> Mate copying also has been found in other fish species, Japanese
> quail and small marine animals called isopods. Imitation of many different
> types of behavior is widespread in the animal kingdom, Dugatkin says.
> His and de Waal's accounts may just be persuasive enough to
> convince humans it's finally time to open the door and allow animals into
> the culture club.
>
>
>
> ===============================================================
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