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Author | Topic: Mike's ego trip | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
custard Inactive Member |
ohnai writes: Then , and here’s the killer, nut monkey takes about half of the nuts and gives them to rock monkey!!! Cooperation and reciprocity. Sorry, my BS detector just went off big time. No criticism of you, Ohnai, but is there any link to the data? Animal behaviorists are right up there with Parapsychologists when it comes to 'interpreting' their own data. Does the monkey share 'about' 50% of the nuts EVERY time? Or just once in a while. Or just on that program? (sorry I meant 'programme,' it was BBC right?) I have to wonder what kind of reward the monkeys get from their researchers if they do the 'experiment' (read 'routine') correctly. I also have to wonder how many times 'rock monkey' ended up throwing his feces at 'nut monkey' out of frustration when 'nut monkey' ate all the goods. Ideally I'd like to see how many times the experiment was run, how much help the monkeys had 'learning' to cooperate, how frequently cooperation and sharing occurred, etc. I realize you probably don't have access to this info, but that's the data I'd need to see before I felt comfortable accepting it as and example that falsifies Mike's claim. This message has been edited by custard, 02-27-2005 23:05 AM This message has been edited by custard, 02-27-2005 23:24 AM
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custard Inactive Member |
mtw writes: You're the first to have falsified my statement according to the parameters I stated. I am assuming everyone else was being wilfully obtuse or you're just the first one to understand me.I do take this as a falsification pertaining to breathing under water. I'm NOT piling on Mike, but I think Pink Sasquatch did provide examples every bit as compelling, albeit mundane, as the aquatic spider. (C'mon Pink, is poking a stick into a nest full of ants anywhere near as dramatic as a scuba diving arachnid?)
mtw writes: Now my argument becomes somewhat quantative, in that I still think humans posess an overwhelming ability to overcome multiple natural traits it has not got. Is this reasonable? I agree with this statement. IMO there is no comparable analogue in the animal kingdom.
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custard Inactive Member |
Thanks for the links Ohnai. Interesting stuff.
I thought the last one, 'Experiment to cooperation in Brown Capuchins,' was certainly the most detailed. I'm not surprised the monkeys cooperated in this experiment (don't they display similar behavior in the wild?); but I did find it interesting that the success rate for that experiment was so low. Also the experiment does seem to indicate that the monkeys communicate visually to some degree; but it could also be that the monkeys figured out that it wasn't worth pulling the rope/lever unless they knew their partner in the cage next to them was also doing it - which they could only verify visually. I know none of these is the experiment they showed on BBC, but I appreciate the effort. Pink Sasquatch: I looked on Pubmed, but I couldn't find any raw data, nor anything about the controls or actual parameters of the experiment like Ohnai's link provided. One of the reaons I am so skeptical about the conclusions reached in the abstracts I did find on pubmed (pretty much the same things you posted), is that I have seen data on similar experiments with chimps showing the exact opposite - that chimps have incredible difficulty mastering the 'bigger reward later for immediate reward now' concept. In those cases the chimp A would not do something like split the reward 50-50 with chimp B; chimp A would simply eat the reward himself. I'm certainly not saying de Waal is a quack, and perhaps it was a bit unfair to compare him to parapsychologists without knowing anything about him; but my experience with animal behavior experiments is that the more impressive the claim, the more subjective the conclusion on the part of the researchers. Especially when it comes to communication and concepts like sharing, etc. It also isn't like the BBC has never shown misleading information as fact before. The experiment sounds great and I'd love to see the data, and I think requesting the data before accepting the conclusion of the study, like ANY scientific claim, is fair. I remember an animal communication thread last year where someone posted an item about an African gray parrot who could actually communicate - not just repeat phrases and words learned as tricks. Sounded great. I requested the data. Someone posted the links to the article, which showed the amazing conclusions of the researcher; however, when I went to the homepage of the 'owner/researcher' of the parrot, I found that the woman also claimed the parrot had psychic abilities. This wasn't mentioned in the initial article, nor did the person who proffered the article as evidence know this until I pointed it out.
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custard Inactive Member |
pink writes: I'm assuming you know that you'd have to look up the actual papers (not just the abstracts) to get that information. Having never used Pubmed, I'm not sure how it works. I was able to find the abstracts, but not the data. Are you saying that I now have to sift the internet to find the paper, or is there a way to get it from Pubmed?
Now it's my turn to ask: any references? Sadly no; otherwise, I would have posted it as evidence that these conclusions ARE unlikely rather than posting that I SUSPECTED them to be unlikely.
custard writes: my experience with animal behavior experiments is that the more impressive the claim, the more subjective the conclusion on the part of the researchers. ps writes: I find statements like this disconcerting - the possible taint of anthropomorphism in turn taints important findings; the more impressive the finding, the greater the taint. Sorry if you find that concerting, but the statement is true.It may not be your experience, and you may have much more experience with animal behavior experiments; but in my experience the more impressive the claim, the more subjective the researchers conclusions have been. Which is precisely why I requested more information, including the raw data and experiment parameters and controls. I don't understand how my treatment of this claim is any different than the way anyone else treats any other kind of claim that are posted. You don't just accept everything posted here as fact, do you? Especially if you are unfamiliar with what was posted. Do I have a problem with animal behaviorists? I suppose my experience, albeit not extensive, has probably biased me in some way; but in then end I don't treat them much differently then I do human behavioralist claims. If someone claims or concludes something that seems odd or particularly interesting I want to see the data and how the experiment was performed. I don't think that is unreasonable or out of the question.
Try getting a hold of "Monkeys reject unequal pay". If I recall correctly the language in the paper is extremely tentative - without the sorts of improper jumps in logic that you mention. I did: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~sbrosna/Manuscripts/BrosnanUnequalPay.pdf And this is not the study, nor the conclusions, I have been questioning. I find nothing odd about a monkey getting upset when it performs the same task it has seen its conspecific perform, yet receives a lesser reward for its efforts. That claim does not seem extraordinary to me in the least. I've seen my dogs do the EXACT same thing in fact. I'm talking about 'nut monkey' handing 'rock monkey' some nuts; then Rocky pounds the nuts and hands Nutty roughly half of the goods. This is a very interesting interaction. I have never seen animals do things like this unless they were trained to do so. In fact, I am familiar with animals exibiting the opposite behavior (unless it is a mother/child relationship). This is why I want to see the data before I accept the conclusions of the BBC or anyone else reporting on this. This message has been edited by custard, 03-02-2005 15:40 AM This message has been edited by custard, 03-02-2005 15:42 AM
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custard Inactive Member |
Did you mean chimps? Or was that supposed to be referring to humans? Good point.
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custard Inactive Member |
pink writes:
But it seemed that you were impugning any animal behaviorist that produced a significant result, because their result was significant. That does seem rather unreasonable to me. (At least, it seems, you consider animal behavior researchers as "guilty until proven innocent.") Can you come up with a real example?
Guilty as charged I suppose. Sometimes my inner skeptic gets the best of me. Lumping de Waal in with Psychic Polly was probably not fair - and probably demonstrated an inherent bias on my part. My opinion of animal beviorists dropped drastically after doing some research into the area of animal 'communication,' so my bias is probably a hold over from that. I still want to see the data for the BBC experiment; and, while I will no longer compare it to Psychic Polly, I still have my doubts at this point (which may be remedied by the data).
ps writes: Your dog refuses food if it is not as desirable as what the other dog gets? No, not exactly. Good catch. They will take the food reward regardless, yet one of them exhibit more anxious and demanding behavior if the rewards are unfair.
ps writes: I'm not familiar with this study. Since it involves tool use to open nuts, my best guess is that (if it is real) it is a chimp study. There is a large body of research describing cooperative sharing amongst chimps, particularly surrounding rationing after organized group hunts. I'm pretty sure Ohnai said they were Capuchins.
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custard Inactive Member |
ps writes: Here is a link to a pdf of a de Waal paper you may have missed. It shows a cooperative task between two capuchins where only one capuchin gets the reward, but then shares it with the other capuchin. It is a controlled study with statistically significant results that appeared in the peer-reviewed journal Nature. See what you think of the study... Thanks for the link. Much better stuff. It's interesting, but the cooperation rate is less than 40%, half of the individual and mutual success rate. Meaning, that the monkeys are LESS LIKELY to share - a suspicion I posted earlier - than the BBC program that was cited indicated. That they share at all is not groundbreaking to me since we have ample studies of animals sharing food in the wild - but they usually don't share 50/50. That cooperate and then share food is interesting though. My protestations at the BBC example were not that primates might sometimes share food after cooperating on a task, it was that they shared 50/50, and, the implication was that they ALWAYS shared. Also, in this experiment I'm curious to know what is considered successful sharing? It is not defined. There are eight apple slices in the reward bowl, is Sharer monkey giving Helper monkey four slices after they cooperate? Three slices? Is only one slice considered a successful share? The BBC program cited said that Nut monkey gave Rock monkey 'about half' the nuts after they had been cracked open.
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custard Inactive Member |
ps writes: It is defined - as the number of pieces (not slices) shared.
Crap, I totally missed that - and I was looking for it. I'll go back and take another look. Thanks for the links Pink. Thanks also for not letting me get away with lumping all researchers into my 'Parapsychologists' bucket. Sometimes it is difficult to maintain one's objectivity.
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custard Inactive Member |
Buzsaw, Mike, et al:
I second what Mammuthus has so aptly expressed:
mammuthus writes: There are only a few creationists at this site like you who persist and debate according to the forum guidelines even if once in a while things get heated. People like you, TrueCreation and even mike the wiz (when he does not get emotional) are much more necessary. Otherwise the forum would consist of debate among fairly like-minded evos (boring..I do that at work), and only a few hit and run posts by less able creos (which is also fairly pointless). You guys sustain the debate. In fact, while I doubt I'll be siding with Creos any time soon, the constant questioning and debating has really made me re-examine some of the 'facts' about evolution which I previously thought were indisputable. Precisely because you guys are the dissenters, I have learned more about the disagreements about evolution within the scientific community (e.g. the criticisms of neo-Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium), in the course of researching evidence to counter creo arguments. Now I have many questions about things I would have normally taken for granted (accumulated mutation, speciation, and natural selection), which has made me more curious and more knowledgeable about the subject.
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custard Inactive Member |
ps writes: Hopefully it didn't seem like I was jumping down your throat; I was just trying to be clear in defending the legitimate research. No worries. That's exactly the way I took it.
These books often become bestsellers, because by my guess, the people buying the books enjoy the idea of their pets or other animals having human qualities.
Yeah, completely bombarded by that. My favorite is 'pet psychics.' What I also find ironic is how that can go the other way: refusing to acknowledge behavior that is similar to that which is considered solely the domain of human beings - which seems to be congruous with Mike's argument.
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