Cross species altruism?

[MonDie]

I think the altruism towards other species comes from a survival stand point of food resources rather than an association with other species.

 

If you notice, a majority of the altruism presented is predator to prey. The Gorilla to human altruism is a result of the training they probably go through.

 

I just understood this post. That's interesting, but why then is it taboo for us to eat our pets, the animals whom we're the most altruistic toward?

Edited August 18, 2014 by MonDie

[Edwina Lee]

I don't know what formal conventions zoological sciences adopt in publications of animal behaviour.

 

It seems to me that Occam's Razor is used too liberally to mean that the minimum assumption of human like qualities should be used to interpret animal behaviour.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

 

If I have my own way, I would propose several plausible hypothesis to explain animal behaviour.

 

The concept of altruism began in philosophical thinking, but the explanation ought to be rooted in evolutionary biology.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism

 

I just understood this post. That's interesting, but why then is it taboo for us to eat our pets, the animals whom we're the most altruistic toward?

Taboo is very much a cultural development. Say, somebody in a group is sensitive about something, then any association of a particular matter may upset them, then this behaviour would drive people to avoid talking about it.

 

Hence a taboo is born. The extent of taboo building is thus dependent on how groups in society deal with taboos - social history.

[arc]

Is this a case of cross species altruism:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ_3BN0m7S8

 

I would venture to guess that the bear has had little social interaction besides this crow. This crow has been hanging around for possibly enough time (maybe years) to form a bond. The bear is probably little involved with the endless human spectators, do not feed the bear and what not has left this animal isolated in its little island of cement.

 

The bears "attachment" to the crow is psychological, it is based on the loneliness of its existence. The bears motive could be either empathetic or selfish. I would say a little of both. A female would do the same for her cub, this would not be too far removed from that response.

[breekee]

This one's striking and quite a species jump:

 

Swans like to wet their food before they eat it. It's not feeding the fish (if you look close, you can tell the fish are trying to snatch the bread and the swans aren't dropping it for them).

 

The bear sees something unusual in the water, pulls it out for a better look, gets pecked, drops it and goes away.

What altruism?

 

 

OK, but why?

Bears are intelligent enough to be inquisitive so that's an entirely plausible explanation.

Saying it's due to compassion or empathy requires evidence that bears have the capacity to feel those things.

Occam's razor is on the side of simple curiosity.

The bear plainly does something- It takes the trouble to pull the bird from the water.

The question of altruism is one (as I said earlier) of intent,

Did it do it because it was curious or because it didn't want a dead bird in the pool or because it felt sorry for the bird.

It's not clear how we could hope to know from that video clip.

 

Disagreeing on what you think the bear's motivations are (curiosity vs. sympathy) isn't simplifying or following any better evidence. If you think that bears are intelligent enough to be inquisitive, why aren't they intelligent enough to understand when an animal is in peril? It would be a shame and a waste to disregard this "rescue" as a fluke or useless because we can't ask the bear why he/she did it. Since we have a lot to learn about how bears think, this video is a great starting point for the question of "do bears/animals show empathy or sympathy towards other creatures?".

Another instance of cross-species altruism (or rather sympathy, a precursor to altruism) is the Indian elephants that avoid harming human children while rampaging. There were a few reports of this, such as an elephant moving a child out of the way before crashing down a street, and here is one where a baby was involved:

 

http://guardianlv.com/2014/03/elephant-stops-rampage-to-save-crying-baby/

 

 

 

The 10-month-old’s parents, Dipak Mahato and wife, Lalita, were interrupted during their dinner when they heard a loud “cracking” noise coming from their bedroom. They ran over and were surprised to see their wall in ruins and the tusker standing over their child. The baby was lying in its cot surrounded by pieces of rubble. The elephant started to move away to continue its rampage through the village, but when the child began to cry, the tusker stopped and returned to the scene. It started to lift the pieces of wall out of the way with its trunk to free the child. The elephant carefully removed every bit of mortar, brick and stone away from the crib before returning to the forest.

 

[Moontanman]

Looks like the bear understood that the bird was drowning, so it took so much trouble to rescue it.

 

More than that, the bird pecked the bear after being hulled out of the water, & the bear clearly got hurt, but it did not react with aggression. So it also looks as if the bear was expecting the bird to defend itself.

 

To me, that looks like empathy towards the bird, and it took action that has no direct benefit to itself. That surely is altruistic behaviour.

 

Also, notice the bear's food source. Vegetarian! A vegetarian bear? Is this natural?

 

 

Bears are omnivores much like humans and eat both plant and animal food.

[Edwina Lee]

OK, but why?

Bears are intelligent enough to be inquisitive so that's an entirely plausible explanation.

Saying it's due to compassion or empathy requires evidence that bears have the capacity to feel those things.

Occam's razor is on the side of simple curiosity.

The bear plainly does something- It takes the trouble to pull the bird from the water.

The question of altruism is one (as I said earlier) of intent,

Did it do it because it was curious or because it didn't want a dead bird in the pool or because it felt sorry for the bird.

It's not clear how we could hope to know from that video clip.

Applying Occam's razor would be to consider the closeness of humans to bears from an evolutionary & genetics perspective, that they are indeed very similar to humans.

 

Clearly, proof of certainty is not at all easy, just as it is not easy for most other psychological phenomena. If indeed, proof of anything psychological.

 

To form a wholesome perspective of nature, one must consider closeness in evolutionary terms.

 

Altruism is quite a woolly concept, and that in itself makes it difficult to proof whether an action is altruistic. How does one proof that an action is altruistic when altruism is not defined?

This one's striking and quite a species jump:

 

<<"Swans like to wet their food before they eat it. It's not feeding the fish (if you look close, you can tell the fish are trying to snatch the bread and the swans aren't dropping it for them).">>

 

Some swans would drive the fishes out of the way, and these swans don't. The behaviour is similar to humans tolerating other species, like throw crums for dogs & cats.

 

A swan specialist site gave this reply -

http://www.stanley-park-swans.com/cgi-bin/ask/index.pl?read=7215

[CharonY]

Altruism is quite a woolly concept, and that in itself makes it difficult to proof whether an action is altruistic. How does one proof that an action is altruistic when altruism is not defined?

Actually it is not. The problem is that these observations are individual events and can be interpreted any way. In other words, the data is "wooly" but not the concept.

In population studies an altruic behyavior is essentially someething that decreases the fitness of the actor, while increasing that of the recipient. The problem is that it is not trivial to determine when such fitness increases or decreases actually occur.

[Edwina Lee]

Actually it is not. The problem is that these observations are individual events and can be interpreted any way. In other words, the data is "wooly" but not the concept.

In population studies an altruic behyavior is essentially someething that decreases the fitness of the actor, while increasing that of the recipient. The problem is that it is not trivial to determine when such fitness increases or decreases actually occur.

Well, the data is assumed to be real, hence not woolly. It isn't sufficient and precise enough to be conclusive, but we can make guesses.

 

But defining altruistic behaviour in terms of another fuzzily defined concept - fitness - isn't making it any less fuzzy.

[Delta1212]

Well, the data is assumed to be real, hence not woolly. It isn't sufficient and precise enough to be conclusive, but we can make guesses.

 

But defining altruistic behaviour in terms of another fuzzily defined concept - fitness - isn't making it any less fuzzy.

Fitness isn't really fuzzily defined. The more offspring you have that survive to reproduce, the more fit you are. That's pretty straightforward and easily quantifiable. What specific traits and circumstances contribute to a particular individual's reproductive fitness, and by how much, is less easily quantified, although you can do a pretty good job of estimating the average impact of a given trait on fitness by looking at a population in aggregate.

 

Edit: And being woolly doesn't mean it's "fake." It means it's vague and difficult to draw precise conclusions from, which is exactly how you describe it, yourself.

Edited September 11, 2014 by Delta1212

[breekee]

 

Some swans would drive the fishes out of the way, and these swans don't. The behaviour is similar to humans tolerating other species, like throw crums for dogs & cats.

 

A swan specialist site gave this reply -

http://www.stanley-park-swans.com/cgi-bin/ask/index.pl?read=7215

The internet "specialist" said the same thing I did. Just because the swans are tolerating the intrusion of the fish doesn't mean they are feeding them, which is what people are assuming from the video. That's the end of it.

 

Actually it is not. The problem is that these observations are individual events and can be interpreted any way. In other words, the data is "wooly" but not the concept.

In population studies an altruic behyavior is essentially someething that decreases the fitness of the actor, while increasing that of the recipient. The problem is that it is not trivial to determine when such fitness increases or decreases actually occur.

Well said! That is why I'd say the bear's behavior could be sympathy, which figures into altruism but isn't the same thing. It's not readily apparent if the bear is seeing a decrease in fitness by saving the bird (unless a scratch on the face qualifies). However, a bear showing sympathy may also be able to express altruism under the right circumstances. The important thing is that it could be tested.

 

Another thing to consider is why altruistic behavior is relevant. It becomes a philosophical discussion fairly quickly, even if it can be precisely defined. Altruism is woolly that way. It forces us to reconsider our imposed boundaries (species to species, stranger to stranger, self to others, kin to not kin) and in a way the concept of altruism modifies our views of fitness.

Edited September 11, 2014 by breekee

[CharonY]

Not necessarily. There are models which help in explaining altruistic behavior in population (kin selection for example). One has to keep in mind the difference between proximate and ultimate explanation. In this case kin selection would be an ultimate explanation (i.e. indirectly propagation of one's genes), whereas proximately there are mechanisms in place that causes organisms to act altruistically. Depending on how they function they be more or less specifically directed. Often times, one would imagine that learned behavior and imprinting are important (e.g. interaction with ones offspring or relatives) and they may be misdirected to the "wrong" species, depending on how selective theses behaviors are.

I.e. the thing is complex, but there are specific hypotheses that could be tested.