What Capabilities for the Animal?

In this essay, I defend a bi-constructivist approach to ethology—a constructivist ethology assuming that each animal adopts constructivist strategies. I put it in opposition to what I call a realist-Cartesian approach, which is currently the dominant approach to ethology and comparative psychology. The starting point of the bi-constructivist approach can be formulated as a shift from the classical Aristotelian question “What is an animal?” to the Spinozean question, which is much less classical but which seems to me to be much stronger: “What are the capacities of the animal?”. Is it possible to conceptualize an ethology which insists on interpretation and therefore on invention, innovation and creativity, rather than on causality, the monotony of behavioural routines, and/or genetic or environmental determination? Such an ethology would be based not on the fiction of an absent observer but on fully recognizing the necessity of an observer, who is effectively present in order to get an observation. A pluralistic ethology does not dissociate itself from the marginal epistemologies of practitioners like animal trainers, hunters, stockbreeders etc., or, moreover, non-western experts. An ethology of this kind is not clamped within the boundaries of purely academic epistemology, obsessed by demarcation lines between the human and the animal. My work on the bi-constructivist approach represents a contribution towards the elaboration of an authentically biosemiotic ethology, one which is significantly different from the mechanical ethology of today.     

On the Human–Animal Boundary

ABSTRACT

A sample of 514 adults completed a postal questionnaire measuring both their empathy with humans (using the Mehrabian and Epstein (1972) Questionnaire for the Measurement of Emotional Empathy) and their empathy with non-human animals (using the Animal Empathy Scale, developed for this study). There was a significant, but modest correlation between the two scales (Kendall's tau=0.26, p<0.001), indicating that although the two types of empathy measure are in some way linked, they are unlikely to tap a single, unitary construct. This conclusion is reinforced by the finding that human- and animal-oriented empathy exhibit different levels of association with different potential sources of variation. Animal-oriented empathy was related to the current ownership of pets (U=19825.5, p<0.0001) and to the ownership of pets during childhood (U= 10271.0, p<0.01), while human-oriented empathy was related to currently having a child or children at home (U= 21020.5, p<0.05).     

Animal culture: chimpanzee conformity?

Culture-like phenomena in wild animals have received much attention, but how good is the evidence and how similar are they to human culture? New data on chimpanzees suggest their culture may even have an element of conformity.     

Animal behaviour: emotion in invertebrates?

Bees exposed to vigorous shaking designed to simulate a dangerous event judge ambiguous stimuli as predicting a negative outcome - a 'pessimistic' cognitive bias that is characteristic of anxious or depressed humans and other vertebrates in putative negative emotional states.     

Application of Animal Modeling to Biodefense Research

The use of biological agents to attack enemies has substantial historical precedent,and includes documented attempts tocontaminate the wells andreservoirs of enemies withcadavers and animal carcasses;and attemptstoinfect Native Ameri-cans with smallpox via contaminated blankets offered as gifts.Awareness and concern over biological weapons has in-creased greatly as the technological sophistication required to produce related agents has become more global.That theuse of biological agents as a m…     

Animal navigation: birds as geometers?

New experiments on a bird species able to remember the sites of thousands of cached seeds have revealed how a site can be specified by combining distance information from several landmarks.     

Complete Isolation System for Laboratory Infectious Animal

Contents:Duringthe development of biological medical science,a great number of research experiments are carried out andthe various infectious animal experiments are necessary part of them.For lab animal experiments,it is necessary tochoose proper isolation equipments accordingto experiment hazardlevels.1.FunctionsAnimal isolation systemare used broadlyin laboratory research,pharmaceuticals and medical areas.The isolationsystemhas become excellent equipmentsin animal breeding,disease diagnosis…     

Animal Communication: Do Dolphins Have Names?

A new study of contact calls in dolphins shows that individuals can recognize one another using information encoded in the frequency modulation pattern of these calls, in the absence of general voice characteristics.     

Animal Behavior: Who Will Croak Next?

A recent study with the predatory bat Trachops cirrhosus has shown the importance for this species of social learning about novel prey using auditory, rather than visual or olfactory, cues.     

Animal phylogeny: back to the coelomata?

The relationship between vertebrates and the principal model invertebrates - fruitflies and nematodes - is unclear. A fly-nematode grouping was becoming widely accepted, but recent comparisons of their genomes argue against this and link flies with the vertebrates instead.