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Author | Topic: Behavioural traits and created kinds | |||||||||||||||||||||||
FliesOnly Member (Idle past 4175 days) Posts: 797 From: Michigan Joined: |
Hey Faith...calm down...what's your problem? I certainly have made no unsubstantiated assertions.
You suggested that perhaps there is a suite of behaviors that could be used to classify organisms into your biblical listing of "Kinds." Ok, fine...it sounds like an interesting concept. Now, I personally do not know what is meant by "Kinds" and prefer to use the biological terms of Class, Order, Family, etc., but the idea of using behaviors seems intriguing. However, it may also prove to be difficult. I simply have been trying to see if anyone can come up with a list of behaviors that can be used as a classification mechanism. At the same time, like it or not, if those behaviors are seen in other organisms (outside of your "Kinds"), then they cannot be used to classify. I point this out and you throw a hissy fit. What, you cannot be wrong? A mistake somehow makes you stupid. As a devout Christian and believer in a literal reading of the Bible as infallible, somehow that makes you infallible as well? All I'm trying to do is see if there are any behaviors that are unique. While I personally cannot think of any, that in and of itself, certainly does not mean that none exist. But it's important to note that IF you want to use behavior to CLASSIFY, then the behavior has to be UNIQUE to your "Kinds". If you list something as a cat behavior, but dogs, or birds, or raccoons also do it, then it cannot very well be used to classify cats now can it? Have you ever used a dichotomous key, Faith? If so, then that is what I'm trying to demonstrate here. If not, then I'd be happy to explain what one is and how to use it. Maybe that would help clear things up.
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
All I'm trying to do is see if there are any behaviors that are unique. While I personally cannot think of any, that in and of itself, certainly does not mean that none exist. Speaking of animal behavior, guess what I noticed when some raccoons came a-visiting the other night. They scoop up food with their paws, using the paws like spoons. Cats and dogs do not do this--at least not in the way the raccoons did. I thought this was a profound observation until I noticed that squirrels do it too. This trait probably has some important evolutionary implications. Too bad I don't know what it is.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
But we know, and creationists explain it by design economy, that many animals have some behaviors in common. Therefore any definitive behaviors would have to be a group or suite of them. There is no need to find one that is unique for this purpose, although if you can, fine. I think the list I gave of dog and cat behaviors is recognizable by anyone and that you will not find the entire collection applicable to any other animals, only dogs and cats. I think the lists could be expanded or modified but just as written they appear to me to make a useful delineator of the animal in question.
This message has been edited by Faith, 12-05-2005 04:22 PM
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Yes, many animals have some behaviors in common. What I'm guessing won't be found is that squirrels and raccoons have more than one or two behaviors in common.
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pink sasquatch Member (Idle past 6053 days) Posts: 1567 Joined: |
Faith writes: I think the list I gave of dog and cat behaviors is recognizable by anyone and that you will not find the entire collection applicable to any other animals, only dogs and cats. I think the lists could be expanded or modified but just as written they appear to me to make a useful delineator of the animal in question. But they don’t really, not at all. Let’s examine your dogkind-defining list:
Faith’s “dogkind delineation list” writes: You could probably breed a dog or cat to look amazingly like a rabbit but it would still behave like a dog or cat rather than a rabbit. Still wag its tail, bark at strangers, bare its teeth when threatened, slobber on its owner, need to be walked, sniff the ground and other dogs, mark its territory doggie style, fetch, in the wild run in packs... First, some of the items in the list only apply to domesticated animals, and therefore cannot be used as defining characteristics. As an example, a wolf doesn’t “slobber on its owner” or “fetch”, yet I assume a wolf fits within dogkind. [To me it seems a huge mistake to test this whole process with domesticated animals to begin with . ] Getting rid of domestic descriptors leaves: - wag its tail- bark at strangers - bare its teeth when threatened - sniff the ground and other dogs - mark its territory doggie style - run in packs Other descriptors as currently stated use prejudicial wording to suggest dogkindness, the most obvious example being territory marking “doggie style”, but also “bark” and “sniff other dogs” and “tail wag”. The latter is especially problematic to me since many dogs (I’m thinking specifically of many sight hounds) use tail carriage rather than tail movement to communicate mood. If the list of behaviors has to be generalized so that comparison can be made to behaviors of other “kinds”: - tail-based communication- vocalization at strangers - bare teeth when threatened - sniff the ground and other conspecifics (conkinds?) - territory marking with urine/scat - pack social organization When more appropriately stated (as might be done in an actual animal behavior study), these six characteristics suddenly seem far less “dog-like”. These six “defining” characteristics could easily define dogs, hyenas, lions, and quite obviously, baboons. Unless canids and primates are part of the same “kind”, I think this “cluster of behaviors” does very little to act as a “useful delineator” of kinds as you suggest.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1475 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
I'm aware that the wild versions don't demonstrate some characteristics in the wild, but people do tame wolves so tell me if they do those things in that case. But it isn't necessary to get so nitpicky about this.
It would be interesting if anyone wants to improve and refine the list, but so far the impulse seems to be to shoot it down. This isn't refining it:
- tail-based communication - vocalization at strangers - bare teeth when threatened - sniff the ground and other conspecifics (conkinds?) - territory marking with urine/scat - pack social organization Surely it's obvious that I have in mind the particular WAY dogs use their tails, not your generic tail communication. Wagging is not the switching movements cats do and I did remark on this somewhere. Barking and howling are not meowing or the roar of a big cat or the threatening yowl. There is a charactistic habitual way dogs sniff, that cats don't. And I emphasized the WAY dogs mark terrority as versus cats. The style is what is definitive. There are distinctions between dog packs and cat "packs." Fine to try to perfect the distinctions but blurring them as you are doing renders the list absolutely useless. Of COURSE it describes all kinds of animals once you've removed the defining characteristics. This message has been edited by Faith, 12-05-2005 09:52 PM
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pink sasquatch Member (Idle past 6053 days) Posts: 1567 Joined: |
Fine to try to perfect the distinctions but blurring them as you are doing renders the list absolutely useless. But the way you are defining your characteristics to begin with is "absolutely useless", since you include the kind/species in the characteristic description. To say that when a dog barks it is a dog characteristic, but when a baboon barks it is a baboon characteristic, (because a dog bark is a dog bark and a baboon bark is baboon bark), is absurd and useless to any kind of comparison. It's sort of like saying you can use the defining characteristic of being "four-legged" as a dog-specific characteristic, because of course, the four legs are dog legs. "Four legged" is also a great defining characteristic for cats, because the legs are cat legs. Are both cats and dogs "four-legged"? No. Are they each "four-legged"? Yes. What you've done is nothing more than a more convoluted version of the standard vague, biologically meaningless, I-know-it-when-I-see-it definition of kind.
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RAZD Member (Idle past 1435 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
tree climbing, building nests with leaves, are another two that quickly come to mind.
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