Comment by stackghost
7 hours ago
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
7 hours ago
They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations, though I doubt anyone could say for certain whether they do or don’t
You could have an alternative explanation: large animals invest lots of food energy in their offspring, and so the slimmest chance that a calf might not be dead is worth lots of effort. Say one in a thousand actually revive.
Here's an article about orcas: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-64559047
It seems that an orca invests so much in a son that it's like an all-or-nothing one way ticket to pass her genes on. (She might get second try later, but the probability is much lower.)
You might also argue that although there may be a non-emotional argument for why grieving could be beneficial, it’s possible or even likely that evolution encoded this instinct in something like emotions. Just how evolution encoded the tendency to care for one’s family and community in emotions for humans.
Yes! Which leads into strange territory, because we can say that attachment is not entirely rational, but is influenced by genes pointing us toward more successful reproduction, without concern for creating knowledge. But then this environment of instincts is the environment we've built up all our cultural store of meaning in, it's the human condition, so the argument can be turned around to say that meaning isn't entirely rational. So even gene-driven attachment isn't meaningless, but at the same time, I don't want to be bullied and herded around emotionally by little nucleic acid spirals just so they can replicate themselves.
Indeed. The same goes for widows at funerals. I mean, has anyone ever dissected the brain of a grieving human and said “aha hah! Here it is!! The grief!”
No, of course I haven't been doing that, and it's going to be a while before I would have collected a representative sample anyway, if I had been.
> They exhibit behaviours that seem to defy alternative explanations
No, they really don't. The article says
> indicated an inherent, strong maternal attachment to the calf
Yeah, that's not grieving.
What if I told you that marine biology is a large and rigorous field that is not fully encapsulated by TFA?
I would say that someone acting in good faith who was referring to something other than what is described in the article would have said so and would have said what they were referring to, which you again have not done. I would also note that "seem to defy alternative explanations" is not remotely "rigorous" and is not a conclusion or consensus within the field of marine biology, which you do not represent. It is telling that you write "Kudos to the author for not being so bitter and jaded, like me, and reporting this thinking some change might come" when you imply here that there are some other behaviors (which you are keeping tight to your chest) that already "seem" to defy alternative explanation, while implicitly agreeing here that inherent strong maternal attachment isn't grieving.
I don't engage with people acting in bad faith or who write such snotty comments that are intended as oneupmanship but not to impart information. Goodbye.