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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sancho" data-source="post: 1863376" data-attributes="member: 27039"><p>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.</p></blockquote><p></p>