Comments on: Are Headlines Hogwash?

By: nurim

nurim — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 06:49:53 +0000

i thought the stylistic flourish was great. What else would you say to contest “softer side”? What would it mean if the squirrell was “feeling it”?

I mean, it’s easy to extrapolate but I agree with Dr. Faulkes: survival of the fittest isn’t warm and fuzzy.

By: TV Gossip

TV Gossip — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 08:09:09 +0000

Excellent post thanks!

Sent from my iPhone 4G

By: Zen Faulkes

Zen Faulkes — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 22:03:32 +0000

And yet again, a stylistic flourish comes back to bite me. Sigh.

I’m not saying that the decision is “calculated” in the sense that there’s any sort of conscious analysis. I think one of the big challenges in animal behaviour is figuring out how animals can follow these rules with the kind of information available to them.

I used “cold” because it’s part of a common expression, and I was trying to underline the importance of self-interest for the adopting squirrel.

By: ResearchBlogging.org News » Blog Archive » Editor’s Selection: Headlines, Sea Cows, and Marxist Corals

Fri, 25 Jun 2010 18:05:12 +0000

[...] After the whole crayfish debacle, bio-bloggers begin to ask how much faith can we put in headlines? [...]

By: Bjørn Østman

Bjørn Østman — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 07:18:51 +0000

Zen, I don’t think it’s right to say that the mother squirrel’s decision to adopt is cold and calculating. That isn’t implied by the fact that her inclusive fitness is increased by the adoption. It just may be the reason why such adoptions occur, but 1) she surely isn’t calculating, but feeling it, and 2) in what way is it cold? It seems warm to me no matter what the reason is.

Similarly, humans may be altruistic because it increases/increased inclusive fitness (I’m not saying this is not contentious), but while we evolved to perform altruistic actions (i.e., to be ‘moral’) because it increased our fitness, the feeling of empathy is real.

If you know what I mean.