Photoshotgun
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Can you provide proof to back this claim up, David?
Be safe and be well :t:
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As far as I have seen all these 'studies' show animals doing things that look a bit like something humans do and making the leap to assuming that therefore it is the same.
It's a bit like hearing a pet parrot say 'Who's a pretty boy then?' and assuming that it has some sense of aesthetics and beauty.
Until Magpies learn to talk and explain what´s going on inside their heads, the only "proof" we have is what we can see. My dog seems to express "joy" when I produce his leash, "sadness" when I leave the house without him, and "anger" when he sees a rat. These may be behavioural responses/evolutionary adaptations. So might my reactions be if I won the lottery, learned of the death of a loved one, or intercepted a burglar. Either my dog (and magpies) experience "emotions", or Humans experience Existence on an entirely different level to other living beings. That would make us a veritable "Chosen Species", which I´m inclined to doubt. I´m with the OP, I think the magpies (and my dog) have emotions that are just as valid as mine. Or else, it´s all semantics...."Emotions" means no more and no less than behavioural responses that somehow assist DNA survival - for the magpies, my dog and me.
Good 'un. I agree. I suspect they don't 'feel' such a complex range of emotions to such a depth, but they are there in some form.
Let's not place ourselves on too high a pedestal, we're all animals, you just never know....
And you are, in effect, saying 'you just never know' therefore it must be...
And you are, in effect, saying 'you just never know' therefore it must be...
That's quite a jump: you don't know Magpies don't have emotions, therefore they do.
You don't know I'm not Brad Pitt's richer, better-looking younger brother, therefore I am, right?
Turkish Van - I agree, my dog doesn´t seem to have quite the "range" of emotions that I appear (to myself) to have. "Ennui" doesn´t seem to affect him; he´s capable of sitting for hours doing nothing.
Well, each to there own. BUT, you naysayers may want to read this >
Magpies 'feel grief and hold funerals'
...and to finish of, ill leave you with this quote taken from the same article >
Scource
Im going to believe Dr Bekoff, of the University of Colorado before anyone on here
Be safe and be well.
Call me Mr Picky if you will, but I prefer my science evidence-based.
Although not a scientifically rigorous example here's an extract from the first chapter of "The Emotional Lives of Animals" by Mark Bekoff that is directly related to the original post...
"Magpies are corvids, a very intelligent family of birds. One magpie had obviously been hit by a car and was lying dead on the side of the road. The four other magpies were standing around him. One approached the corpse, gently pecked at it - just as an elephant noses the carcass of another elephant - and stepped back. Another magpie did the same thing. Next, one of the magpies flew off, brought back some grass, and laid it by the corpse. Another magpie did the same. Then all four magpies stood vigil for a few seconds and one by one they flew off."
Although there might be a number of possible explanations, Bekoff suggests that the birds both knew what they were doing and were showing respect to the dead magpie.
There are a number of books and papers out regarding cognition and emotions in animals by scientists such as Bekoff, Jonathan Balcombe, Bernd Heinrich and Gordan Burghardt. They're all "proper" scientists and from the evidence they provide it seems pretty clear that birds are emotional animals that can feel pleasure, pain etc.
Until Magpies learn to talk and explain what´s going on inside their heads, the only "proof" we have is what we can see. My dog seems to express "joy" when I produce his leash, "sadness" when I leave the house without him, and "anger" when he sees a rat. These may be behavioural responses/evolutionary adaptations. So might my reactions be if I won the lottery, learned of the death of a loved one, or intercepted a burglar. Either my dog (and magpies) experience "emotions", or Humans experience Existence on an entirely different level to other living beings. That would make us a veritable "Chosen Species", which I´m inclined to doubt. I´m with the OP, I think the magpies (and my dog) have emotions that are just as valid as mine. Or else, it´s all semantics...."Emotions" means no more and no less than behavioural responses that somehow assist DNA survival - for the magpies, my dog and me.
A great deal of science that we use today is based on visual evidence. We may not know what is causing the behaviour but just because we don't understand it doesn't make it untrue.
Observational study is a perfectly valid scientific method.
CB
It is indeed. But to go from:
'a bird has done X', to:
'a bird has done X because...' without any evidence of why, is not.
But isn´t all study of animal behaviour (and indeed human behaviour) based on supposition of this kind? That´s all we´ve got, it´s not like the physical sciences. We can only make educated guesses at the reasons for birds singing at dawn, dogs barking at strangers, or our own use of language, propensity to violence or occasional altruism. The evidence is the behaviour itself. Explaining the reasons involves studying it, and forming opinions, but these must be constantly revised and occasionally discarded as new evidence is presented. We can´t put the animals/birds/humans in a laboratory to study them, because the environment alters their behaviour, so it´s always going to be imprecise, and there will always be different interpretations of the evidence.
Yes, I do see your point, but it still seems one hell of a jump to infer that because one animal species behaves in some way that vaguely resembles something another species does, it is therefore for the same reason.
Especially when the species in question are so widely separated as a Magpie and a human. A chimpanzee and a human perhaps...
What? You think animals lack emotion. How blind you are. Emotion is the fundamental experience of life, it is love. Only a dead ‘intellectual’ Who’s jelled off their connection to life could believe otherwise.Intelligent they may be, but I think attributing anything like 'mourning', 'grieving' or 'saying goodbye' is pushing it a bit far. (To say the least.)
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