COMMENTARY: DO ELEPHANTS CRY? The science is conclusive: animals are emotional beings One of the hottest questions in the study of animal behavior is, Do animals have emotions? The simple answer is, OF COURSE THEY DO. **** THE EVOLUTION OF ANIMAL EMOTIONS: DENYING EMOTIONS TO ANIMALS IS BAD BIOLOGY Its bad biology to argue against the existence of animal emotions. Scientific research in evolutionary biology, cognitive ethology and social neuroscience support the view that numerous and diverse animals have rich and deep emotional lives. Emotions have evolved as adaptations in numerous species and they serve as a social glue to bond animals with one another. Emotions also catalyze and regulate a wide variety of social encounters among friends and competitors and permit animals to protect themselves adaptively and flexibly using various behavior patterns in a wide variety of venues. Charles Darwins well-accepted ideas about evolutionary continuity, that differences among species are differences in degree rather than kind, argue strongly for the presence of animal emotions, empathy, and even moral behavior. In practice, continuity allows us to connect the evolutionary dots among different species to highlight similarities in evolved traits including individual feelings and passions. What we have since learned about animal emotions and empathy fits in well with what we know about the lifestyle of different species—how complex their social interactions and social networks are. Emotions, empathy, and knowing right from wrong are keys to survival, without which animals—both human and nonhuman—would perish. Thats how important they are. The borders between them (animals) and us are murky and permeable. emagazine/archive/3702
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 02:34:31 +0000
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