1 00:00:00,130 --> 00:00:01,850 The following content is provided 2 00:00:01,850 --> 00:00:04,090 under a Creative Commons license. 3 00:00:04,090 --> 00:00:06,940 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare continue 4 00:00:06,940 --> 00:00:10,800 to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:13,410 To make a donation, or view additional materials 6 00:00:13,410 --> 00:00:17,289 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:17,289 --> 00:00:17,914 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:22,970 --> 00:00:25,190 PROFESSOR: All right, this is 920. 9 00:00:25,190 --> 00:00:28,330 I'm Schneider, and this is the first class. 10 00:00:28,330 --> 00:00:32,150 I will just talk briefly about the organization 11 00:00:32,150 --> 00:00:35,690 of the class, the procedures, and the assignments. 12 00:00:35,690 --> 00:00:42,040 And then the last part will just be 13 00:00:42,040 --> 00:00:45,170 a talk about various approaches to study 14 00:00:45,170 --> 00:00:46,840 of animal behavior and the main ones 15 00:00:46,840 --> 00:00:48,250 we'll be using in this class. 16 00:00:51,610 --> 00:00:53,356 So why did you sign up for 920? 17 00:01:00,890 --> 00:01:03,900 Maybe because it's a HASS class. 18 00:01:07,000 --> 00:01:09,740 But there are other HASS classes. 19 00:01:09,740 --> 00:01:11,880 Maybe it's your schedule. 20 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:15,300 I make it at 4 o'clock to decrease schedule conflicts, 21 00:01:15,300 --> 00:01:17,940 but a few of you still have them, especially 22 00:01:17,940 --> 00:01:19,740 with the lab on Friday. 23 00:01:19,740 --> 00:01:25,440 How many of you have a lab at this time on Friday? 24 00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:31,020 Because of that, I will be posting the slides 25 00:01:31,020 --> 00:01:34,640 if not before class, at least after the class. 26 00:01:34,640 --> 00:01:38,510 And I will try to remember to record the classes so I 27 00:01:38,510 --> 00:01:43,530 can post an mp3 file of the audio. 28 00:01:43,530 --> 00:01:47,110 There won't be any video, so you won't 29 00:01:47,110 --> 00:01:51,100 know what I'm pointing at in the slides, 30 00:01:51,100 --> 00:01:56,320 but you should be able to make out what we said. 31 00:01:56,320 --> 00:01:59,350 You probably won't hear student questions. 32 00:01:59,350 --> 00:02:02,130 You will miss out on some of the discussion that way, 33 00:02:02,130 --> 00:02:05,820 but you should still be able to keep up with the class. 34 00:02:10,139 --> 00:02:12,000 So there are various practical reasons. 35 00:02:12,000 --> 00:02:14,540 Can anyone give me a non-practical reason 36 00:02:14,540 --> 00:02:17,420 for taking 920? 37 00:02:17,420 --> 00:02:22,000 Why should you be interested in animal behavior? 38 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:22,854 Yes. 39 00:02:22,854 --> 00:02:23,770 AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]. 40 00:02:26,530 --> 00:02:28,780 PROFESSOR: OK, it might help you with human behavior. 41 00:02:28,780 --> 00:02:30,760 Well, we're animals. 42 00:02:30,760 --> 00:02:32,780 That doesn't mean I will stress animals, 43 00:02:32,780 --> 00:02:35,200 but particularly when we talk-- actually 44 00:02:35,200 --> 00:02:39,240 in both parts of the class when we talk about ethology, that 45 00:02:39,240 --> 00:02:41,970 is fixed action patterns and instinctive behavior. 46 00:02:41,970 --> 00:02:45,530 And when we talk about sociobiology-- adaptive 47 00:02:45,530 --> 00:02:47,950 behavior, especially social behavior-- humans 48 00:02:47,950 --> 00:02:52,750 will come up many times. 49 00:02:52,750 --> 00:02:58,730 All right, anyway, why do I teach it? 50 00:02:58,730 --> 00:03:01,270 Well I think animal behavior is fun. 51 00:03:01,270 --> 00:03:03,940 I have done research in animal behavior, 52 00:03:03,940 --> 00:03:07,370 though that's not been the main thrust of my career. 53 00:03:07,370 --> 00:03:10,710 I am a neuroscientist, and I have done a lot of work 54 00:03:10,710 --> 00:03:16,810 on brain anatomy and anatomical changes after brain damage. 55 00:03:16,810 --> 00:03:22,010 But I like animal behavior, and I 56 00:03:22,010 --> 00:03:24,110 hope that will be evident as I talk. 57 00:03:24,110 --> 00:03:26,570 I will use examples from my own work 58 00:03:26,570 --> 00:03:30,210 as well as from other people's work. 59 00:03:30,210 --> 00:03:34,620 So it's sort of an undergraduate survey class at the beginning, 60 00:03:34,620 --> 00:03:38,930 but in the second part it'll become more and more 61 00:03:38,930 --> 00:03:40,640 a special topic seminar, and that's 62 00:03:40,640 --> 00:03:44,850 especially true for the last part of the class, when 63 00:03:44,850 --> 00:03:48,490 you guys will be giving your reports. 64 00:03:48,490 --> 00:03:56,310 I've already posted on the Stellar website an assignment. 65 00:03:56,310 --> 00:04:02,397 It's not due until the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving break. 66 00:04:02,397 --> 00:04:03,480 So you have a lot of time. 67 00:04:06,910 --> 00:04:12,150 You will make a PowerPoint slide presentation, 68 00:04:12,150 --> 00:04:13,760 and then you will prepare yourself 69 00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:18,410 to give that presentation orally. 70 00:04:18,410 --> 00:04:22,300 Your slides will include notes that 71 00:04:22,300 --> 00:04:24,870 will give me more detail about what you would like 72 00:04:24,870 --> 00:04:28,610 to talk about, even if you don't get to talk about all of it. 73 00:04:28,610 --> 00:04:31,410 In the notes section-- whenever you do PowerPoint, 74 00:04:31,410 --> 00:04:33,100 there's a note section that is not 75 00:04:33,100 --> 00:04:35,200 shown during a presentation. 76 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:37,860 But you can make lots of notes, and that gives me 77 00:04:37,860 --> 00:04:42,220 a better idea of the research you've done. 78 00:04:42,220 --> 00:04:43,540 OK, so read that assignment. 79 00:04:47,180 --> 00:04:48,960 We will let you know if we decide 80 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:51,250 to make any alterations after talking 81 00:04:51,250 --> 00:04:53,300 with students and with each other. 82 00:04:58,840 --> 00:05:03,450 Make sure you check that Stellar site regularly. 83 00:05:03,450 --> 00:05:08,590 I will try after every class to make sure I post the slides, 84 00:05:08,590 --> 00:05:13,880 but before the class, I will usually post study questions. 85 00:05:13,880 --> 00:05:17,470 Those questions cover class sessions, 86 00:05:17,470 --> 00:05:21,730 and they cover readings that will be assigned. 87 00:05:21,730 --> 00:05:24,250 Usually they don't cover readings 88 00:05:24,250 --> 00:05:29,020 that are listed as supplementary readings. 89 00:05:29,020 --> 00:05:32,000 If you don't have time to do the supplementary readings, 90 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:32,740 it's all right. 91 00:05:32,740 --> 00:05:36,420 If it's of particular interest to you, you should do them, 92 00:05:36,420 --> 00:05:39,805 and it will help you understand the material. 93 00:05:43,510 --> 00:05:47,470 OK, so there's just two small textbooks. 94 00:05:47,470 --> 00:05:51,770 I choose a smaller book in animal behavior 95 00:05:51,770 --> 00:05:58,500 so that we have time to do other kinds of readings. 96 00:05:58,500 --> 00:06:02,660 And you'll be reading quite a bit of Konrad Lorenz 97 00:06:02,660 --> 00:06:05,720 and a little bit from Niko Tinbergen, 98 00:06:05,720 --> 00:06:08,576 two of the classical great ethologists. 99 00:06:12,790 --> 00:06:19,440 And I think you'll appreciate their observations 100 00:06:19,440 --> 00:06:20,700 when you get them directly. 101 00:06:20,700 --> 00:06:26,710 We also will see-- especially Lorenz-- in videos 102 00:06:26,710 --> 00:06:27,870 that we show in class. 103 00:06:30,950 --> 00:06:32,680 There will be quizzes and homework. 104 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:36,360 And almost always, these will be on Wednesdays. 105 00:06:36,360 --> 00:06:38,440 That is if it's homework, it will normally 106 00:06:38,440 --> 00:06:42,520 be due on a Wednesday-- once in awhile on a different date, 107 00:06:42,520 --> 00:06:48,670 but the quizzes I will try to keep limited to Wednesdays. 108 00:06:48,670 --> 00:06:50,970 We don't always have a quiz. 109 00:06:50,970 --> 00:06:52,970 That is, in a week where we have homework, 110 00:06:52,970 --> 00:06:54,827 I might decide not to give the quiz, 111 00:06:54,827 --> 00:06:56,535 but we'll always let you know in advance. 112 00:07:00,770 --> 00:07:03,870 OK so first we'll be going through key concepts 113 00:07:03,870 --> 00:07:05,260 emphasizing ethology. 114 00:07:07,800 --> 00:07:11,680 And we'll talk about what that is today. 115 00:07:11,680 --> 00:07:14,510 The readings will be in the Scott textbook, 116 00:07:14,510 --> 00:07:20,060 but they'll also be, as I mentioned, from other readings. 117 00:07:20,060 --> 00:07:24,040 And then we'll see some videos relevant to ethology. 118 00:07:24,040 --> 00:07:29,690 And then, after mid-term we'll be talking about sociobiology. 119 00:07:29,690 --> 00:07:34,830 That will be mentioned today as well. 120 00:07:34,830 --> 00:07:36,400 And we'll have readings. 121 00:07:36,400 --> 00:07:41,120 The readings will mainly be a small book by John Alcock. 122 00:07:41,120 --> 00:07:43,850 It's called The Triumph of Sociobiology, 123 00:07:43,850 --> 00:07:44,970 which is a very apt title. 124 00:07:44,970 --> 00:07:48,680 It was written a few years ago, but in fact, it 125 00:07:48,680 --> 00:07:51,560 does express well how sociobiology 126 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:56,435 has become a major force in studies of animal behavior. 127 00:07:59,450 --> 00:08:03,730 And I will go over some of the key ideas of E. O. Wilson, some 128 00:08:03,730 --> 00:08:05,800 of them directly from his writings. 129 00:08:10,110 --> 00:08:13,860 These are just examples of specific topics. 130 00:08:13,860 --> 00:08:16,030 Most of you have seen these kinds of things 131 00:08:16,030 --> 00:08:18,080 if you've had any encounter with animal behavior. 132 00:08:20,590 --> 00:08:23,400 Some of them might sound a little bit-- 133 00:08:23,400 --> 00:08:26,430 we use specialized language to talk about behavior, 134 00:08:26,430 --> 00:08:28,680 and it's a little different from what you're used to 135 00:08:28,680 --> 00:08:32,380 from just talking about human behavior. 136 00:08:32,380 --> 00:08:35,710 We talk about eating in animal behavior-- talk about feeding, 137 00:08:35,710 --> 00:08:39,630 and foraging, and stalking, and prey capture, and things 138 00:08:39,630 --> 00:08:40,870 like that. 139 00:08:40,870 --> 00:08:43,530 We talk about anti-predator behavior. 140 00:08:43,530 --> 00:08:46,550 Do humans show anti-predator behavior? 141 00:08:46,550 --> 00:08:48,430 You bet they do, but we don't usually 142 00:08:48,430 --> 00:08:53,390 call it that, OK, since we don't have too many tigers 143 00:08:53,390 --> 00:08:55,770 and lions roaming the streets around here anymore. 144 00:08:58,650 --> 00:09:01,995 Terms for sexuality are used, of course, in human behavior 145 00:09:01,995 --> 00:09:05,180 and in animal behavior, and that will 146 00:09:05,180 --> 00:09:06,650 be a little more familiar to you. 147 00:09:06,650 --> 00:09:08,940 But more specialized terms will occur there. 148 00:09:12,520 --> 00:09:13,700 These are examples. 149 00:09:13,700 --> 00:09:16,410 You can read those other things I listed. 150 00:09:16,410 --> 00:09:23,030 These are examples of questions and concepts that will come up. 151 00:09:23,030 --> 00:09:26,470 We'll talk about what instinctive behavior is, 152 00:09:26,470 --> 00:09:30,540 what a fixed action pattern is. 153 00:09:30,540 --> 00:09:34,280 Fixed action patterns is an ecological term 154 00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:39,420 for instinctive behavior, but it's actually fairly complex. 155 00:09:39,420 --> 00:09:45,830 But there's a regular pattern in most of these behaviors. 156 00:09:45,830 --> 00:09:49,380 They're not the same as reflexes, 157 00:09:49,380 --> 00:09:52,890 and we will make that very clear in the class. 158 00:09:52,890 --> 00:09:57,930 Why do some animals migrate halfway around the Earth just 159 00:09:57,930 --> 00:10:02,360 to mate and raise young? 160 00:10:02,360 --> 00:10:05,830 What is the evolutionary origin of kissing? 161 00:10:05,830 --> 00:10:07,950 Do animals kiss? 162 00:10:07,950 --> 00:10:09,700 Yes, they do. 163 00:10:09,700 --> 00:10:13,090 And it has its origins in animal behavior, 164 00:10:13,090 --> 00:10:20,810 and it's been traced pretty convincingly. 165 00:10:20,810 --> 00:10:26,540 Why do animal behaviorists engage in gene counting? 166 00:10:26,540 --> 00:10:28,942 Why would they have to do that? 167 00:10:28,942 --> 00:10:33,050 It's related to a question down here-- the last one-- 168 00:10:33,050 --> 00:10:36,470 why might a worker ant behave differently 169 00:10:36,470 --> 00:10:41,417 depending on whether its mother, queen, is promiscuous 170 00:10:41,417 --> 00:10:42,000 or monogamous? 171 00:10:45,210 --> 00:10:46,810 It makes a difference. 172 00:10:46,810 --> 00:10:49,420 They behave differently. 173 00:10:49,420 --> 00:10:50,710 The question is why? 174 00:10:54,920 --> 00:10:57,720 That why question has different levels. 175 00:10:57,720 --> 00:10:59,530 It can be an approximate question-- 176 00:10:59,530 --> 00:11:02,800 that is, what stimuli is he responding to? 177 00:11:02,800 --> 00:11:05,400 What are the mechanisms of the behavior? 178 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:08,560 Or it could be what we call an ultimate question, which 179 00:11:08,560 --> 00:11:10,830 is not a theological term here. 180 00:11:10,830 --> 00:11:13,740 Ultimate question in this class simply means, 181 00:11:13,740 --> 00:11:16,020 what is the evolutionary significance? 182 00:11:16,020 --> 00:11:19,700 What makes it adaptive for the animal 183 00:11:19,700 --> 00:11:21,740 to behave in the way he does? 184 00:11:21,740 --> 00:11:23,700 So its the major issue in sociobiology. 185 00:11:27,250 --> 00:11:30,580 What's a Darwinian puzzle? 186 00:11:30,580 --> 00:11:33,380 Behaviors appear that are difficult, 187 00:11:33,380 --> 00:11:35,210 at least at the beginning, to explain 188 00:11:35,210 --> 00:11:37,550 in terms of Darwinian evolution. 189 00:11:37,550 --> 00:11:41,380 We can't figure out how they're adaptive, so they're a puzzle. 190 00:11:41,380 --> 00:11:42,900 We call them Darwinian puzzles. 191 00:11:50,880 --> 00:11:58,647 Why is the killing of infants adaptive in some animals? 192 00:11:58,647 --> 00:11:59,980 How could that ever be adaptive? 193 00:12:02,700 --> 00:12:06,520 You should be able to explain that, 194 00:12:06,520 --> 00:12:10,520 and we will do that in the class. 195 00:12:10,520 --> 00:12:13,770 Some of your projects will be on topics 196 00:12:13,770 --> 00:12:17,890 we cover in the class, but not all of them. 197 00:12:17,890 --> 00:12:21,910 In fact, most of them will not be directly on any details 198 00:12:21,910 --> 00:12:25,320 that I bring up in the class. 199 00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:29,530 But I do expect you, when you're dealing with the animal 200 00:12:29,530 --> 00:12:32,530 behaviors that you want to discuss in your reports-- 201 00:12:32,530 --> 00:12:36,540 I expect you to interpret them in terms of the principles 202 00:12:36,540 --> 00:12:39,560 and concepts of ethology and sociobiology 203 00:12:39,560 --> 00:12:40,780 that you learn in the class. 204 00:12:49,690 --> 00:12:55,410 What do I expect outside of class? 205 00:12:55,410 --> 00:13:02,970 Readings, study questions-- I will post these study questions 206 00:13:02,970 --> 00:13:03,855 for every class. 207 00:13:03,855 --> 00:13:08,080 I want you to try to answer them, if possible at least some 208 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:09,295 of them before the class. 209 00:13:12,020 --> 00:13:16,940 I might just ask you, sometimes, some of these questions, 210 00:13:16,940 --> 00:13:20,220 and I might not tell you who I'm going to ask. 211 00:13:20,220 --> 00:13:25,500 Otherwise you might say, well I might as well be passive. 212 00:13:25,500 --> 00:13:27,400 I can read it later. 213 00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:29,895 But I find that when you say that, it means usually 214 00:13:29,895 --> 00:13:30,930 you won't read it. 215 00:13:30,930 --> 00:13:34,610 You'll try just to get it, what I say in class, 216 00:13:34,610 --> 00:13:36,730 and hope that gets you by. 217 00:13:36,730 --> 00:13:38,500 No, you will do much better if you read. 218 00:13:41,860 --> 00:13:43,785 So read just for key concepts. 219 00:13:43,785 --> 00:13:47,780 There will be a lot of examples, details of animal behavior. 220 00:13:47,780 --> 00:13:50,811 But at least try to get the key ideas, 221 00:13:50,811 --> 00:13:52,310 and that's what I'll be emphasizing. 222 00:13:52,310 --> 00:13:54,083 I will try to. 223 00:13:54,083 --> 00:13:56,840 If you think I'm talking about some detail that's 224 00:13:56,840 --> 00:14:00,628 not a key concept, you let me know. 225 00:14:00,628 --> 00:14:03,770 Maybe some aspects of animal behavior 226 00:14:03,770 --> 00:14:06,770 I just find fascinating. 227 00:14:06,770 --> 00:14:10,332 OK, I posted, and some of you seen 228 00:14:10,332 --> 00:14:12,290 this-- you've been looking at the Stellar site. 229 00:14:12,290 --> 00:14:17,100 I posted, quite a while ago, the first reading from a book 230 00:14:17,100 --> 00:14:18,740 by Jim Corbett. 231 00:14:18,740 --> 00:14:21,080 Corbett was not an ethologist, and he was not 232 00:14:21,080 --> 00:14:22,270 a sociobiologist. 233 00:14:22,270 --> 00:14:24,085 He was actually a hunter. 234 00:14:26,810 --> 00:14:32,280 He was often hired to track down and kill man-eating tigers 235 00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:37,730 and lions in Asia and Africa. 236 00:14:37,730 --> 00:14:41,070 He was probably the best of hunters 237 00:14:41,070 --> 00:14:43,160 that did that kind of thing. 238 00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,990 And he was also an amateur naturalist. 239 00:14:46,990 --> 00:14:53,280 And he's written some things about his hunting methods. 240 00:14:53,280 --> 00:15:02,160 And I've posted some things that display his knowledge 241 00:15:02,160 --> 00:15:05,760 about what he calls sensitivity to the jungle, 242 00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:08,840 the signs of the jungle. 243 00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:12,780 A good naturalist learns those kinds of things. 244 00:15:12,780 --> 00:15:15,010 So please read that. 245 00:15:15,010 --> 00:15:17,250 You'll be asked about it in the first homework. 246 00:15:21,390 --> 00:15:23,200 I've written the first homework, but I 247 00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:26,730 will wait for feedback from the teaching assistants 248 00:15:26,730 --> 00:15:29,440 before I finalize that. 249 00:15:29,440 --> 00:15:31,910 It won't be due until a week from today. 250 00:15:35,490 --> 00:15:40,890 So for the next session, I posted the first chapter 251 00:15:40,890 --> 00:15:42,990 of Graham Scott, in case you don't have it, 252 00:15:42,990 --> 00:15:45,960 but I won't be posting later Scott readings, 253 00:15:45,960 --> 00:15:49,120 since you're supposed to get that book. 254 00:15:49,120 --> 00:15:56,410 But I did post Chapter 11 from Tinbergen's book-- 255 00:15:56,410 --> 00:16:00,740 his semi-popular book, Curious Naturalist. 256 00:16:00,740 --> 00:16:06,060 And I posted study questions already on those readings, 257 00:16:06,060 --> 00:16:07,980 as well as some for today's session. 258 00:16:17,080 --> 00:16:20,070 OK, these are things we've talked about. 259 00:16:20,070 --> 00:16:21,620 So how have we learned about animals? 260 00:16:21,620 --> 00:16:24,230 Of course, many of you have pets, 261 00:16:24,230 --> 00:16:27,350 and some of your hobbies concern animals. 262 00:16:30,470 --> 00:16:33,600 You've encountered animals in the natural world 263 00:16:33,600 --> 00:16:37,540 or you've gone to zoological parks. 264 00:16:37,540 --> 00:16:39,730 You've certainly encountered them in some films. 265 00:16:42,290 --> 00:16:47,265 But we also pick them up from common beliefs, 266 00:16:47,265 --> 00:16:50,000 what we call folklore about animals. 267 00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,180 There's a long history about that. 268 00:16:53,180 --> 00:16:57,030 You can pick up in a library these books 269 00:16:57,030 --> 00:16:59,480 that appeared in the Middle Ages that 270 00:16:59,480 --> 00:17:02,650 are called the medieval bestiaries. 271 00:17:02,650 --> 00:17:06,940 They portrayed animals in a fantastic way, 272 00:17:06,940 --> 00:17:11,030 and the reason was they heard stories 273 00:17:11,030 --> 00:17:16,380 that came from observations of African and Asian animals, 274 00:17:16,380 --> 00:17:19,089 that they didn't have in Europe. 275 00:17:19,089 --> 00:17:21,380 And these were stories in Europe, 276 00:17:21,380 --> 00:17:24,280 and they-- because they were second, third, 277 00:17:24,280 --> 00:17:27,650 and fourth-hand stories, they were often 278 00:17:27,650 --> 00:17:29,525 greatly exaggerated and distorted. 279 00:17:32,360 --> 00:17:35,070 And it was commonly believed that in the Middle Ages, 280 00:17:35,070 --> 00:17:37,300 people just didn't have any accurate 281 00:17:37,300 --> 00:17:39,190 ideas about animal behavior at all. 282 00:17:39,190 --> 00:17:41,640 But recent scholarship in that field 283 00:17:41,640 --> 00:17:46,950 has shown that even though that may have been common folklore, 284 00:17:46,950 --> 00:17:49,500 it was not generally representative of what 285 00:17:49,500 --> 00:17:54,600 was known to people who were really interested in details 286 00:17:54,600 --> 00:17:56,550 of animal behavior-- even in the Middle Ages. 287 00:17:56,550 --> 00:17:59,320 And there was a lot more known. 288 00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:03,410 Why would you expect people to know about animals 289 00:18:03,410 --> 00:18:08,550 in some realistic terms, even a long time ago, even 290 00:18:08,550 --> 00:18:11,170 before the Middle Ages? 291 00:18:11,170 --> 00:18:13,890 Why would you expect it? 292 00:18:13,890 --> 00:18:16,870 Well, think of farming. 293 00:18:16,870 --> 00:18:19,475 If you're going to raise animals, or use animals 294 00:18:19,475 --> 00:18:22,725 for work, you have to understand something about their behavior. 295 00:18:25,770 --> 00:18:30,920 Dogs have been domesticated probably well 296 00:18:30,920 --> 00:18:33,990 before people could write. 297 00:18:33,990 --> 00:18:38,710 OK, so it really goes back into pre-history. 298 00:18:38,710 --> 00:18:44,995 And certainly people knew a lot about the domesticated wolves 299 00:18:44,995 --> 00:18:46,430 that we call dogs. 300 00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:56,390 Stories and folklore that still abound, especially 301 00:18:56,390 --> 00:18:59,280 in cities, concern rats. 302 00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:01,710 And whole books have been written about that. 303 00:19:01,710 --> 00:19:04,590 I have one of them here, called More Cunning Than Man. 304 00:19:04,590 --> 00:19:09,070 It's basically stories about rats. 305 00:19:09,070 --> 00:19:11,740 It's not written by a scientist. 306 00:19:11,740 --> 00:19:16,720 He's interested in reports, newspaper reports, 307 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,480 what people say, the stories they pass on. 308 00:19:20,480 --> 00:19:25,446 And the stories about rats are most amazing. 309 00:19:25,446 --> 00:19:29,570 They're stories about giant rats that when you hear the story, 310 00:19:29,570 --> 00:19:34,560 you'd swear the rat must be as big as a dog at least, 311 00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:40,070 and stories about the incredible harm. 312 00:19:40,070 --> 00:19:43,550 And the fact is they have caused incredible harm. 313 00:19:43,550 --> 00:19:48,050 That's one reason rats are often hated and feared. 314 00:19:48,050 --> 00:19:50,740 Now, of course, in a department like this, 315 00:19:50,740 --> 00:19:53,950 they're used in the laboratory. 316 00:19:53,950 --> 00:19:56,600 We don't look at rats that way at all. 317 00:19:56,600 --> 00:20:02,690 But if you're in New York, and you're in a poor area, 318 00:20:02,690 --> 00:20:05,610 and your building is infested with rats, 319 00:20:05,610 --> 00:20:07,080 then it's a different story. 320 00:20:11,330 --> 00:20:15,470 They have attacked people, damaged them at night. 321 00:20:17,980 --> 00:20:20,110 But probably the things that have 322 00:20:20,110 --> 00:20:24,160 made rats the least popular is the diseases 323 00:20:24,160 --> 00:20:26,790 they have spread or have been in some way 324 00:20:26,790 --> 00:20:33,590 responsible for the spread of diseases, like Chagas' disease. 325 00:20:33,590 --> 00:20:37,430 The book covers a lot of that. 326 00:20:37,430 --> 00:20:43,335 And there's quite a few diseases like that 327 00:20:43,335 --> 00:20:46,440 that rats have been involved in spreading. 328 00:20:46,440 --> 00:20:50,270 The one that is commonly attributed to rats 329 00:20:50,270 --> 00:20:58,460 is the diseases that caused the worst pandemics 330 00:20:58,460 --> 00:21:00,400 in human history. 331 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:01,530 What am I talking about? 332 00:21:01,530 --> 00:21:04,970 What were the worst pandemics that 333 00:21:04,970 --> 00:21:12,530 killed a third of the population of Europe, that killed probably 334 00:21:12,530 --> 00:21:17,860 more than 30 million people in Asia, large numbers in Africa? 335 00:21:22,510 --> 00:21:25,390 What do we call that disease? 336 00:21:25,390 --> 00:21:32,320 The plague-- bubonic plague-- it was a horrible disease, 337 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:36,120 and there was no way to cure it. 338 00:21:36,120 --> 00:21:38,120 So people tried various ways. 339 00:21:38,120 --> 00:21:40,720 They had great fear of it. 340 00:21:40,720 --> 00:21:43,560 Many people thought the world was coming to an end 341 00:21:43,560 --> 00:21:49,465 during that period, when they saw everybody in a building 342 00:21:49,465 --> 00:21:49,965 die. 343 00:21:55,670 --> 00:21:59,080 Children invented nursery rhymes in their play, 344 00:21:59,080 --> 00:22:05,900 singing about Ring around the Rosie, a pocketful of posies. 345 00:22:05,900 --> 00:22:10,110 Why were they putting flowers in their pocket? 346 00:22:10,110 --> 00:22:12,060 To counter the smell of death. 347 00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:17,860 We make it a game now with children. 348 00:22:17,860 --> 00:22:21,890 You know, the game ends, "We all fall down." 349 00:22:21,890 --> 00:22:26,055 That was dying, but children turned it into a game. 350 00:22:30,710 --> 00:22:34,820 So how were rats involved? 351 00:22:34,820 --> 00:22:40,750 What really-- now we know it's a certain organism that 352 00:22:40,750 --> 00:22:45,520 causes it, but what was the vector? 353 00:22:45,520 --> 00:22:47,883 Was it rats? 354 00:22:47,883 --> 00:22:49,210 AUDIENCE: Was it their fleas? 355 00:22:49,210 --> 00:22:50,432 PROFESSOR: Excuse me? 356 00:22:50,432 --> 00:22:51,640 AUDIENCE: Was it their fleas? 357 00:22:51,640 --> 00:22:55,150 PROFESSOR: Yes, it was the fleas on the rats. 358 00:22:55,150 --> 00:22:57,850 And rats died. 359 00:22:57,850 --> 00:23:02,520 And when they died, they lost body heat. 360 00:23:02,520 --> 00:23:04,890 Children would sometimes play with the dead rats. 361 00:23:08,230 --> 00:23:11,650 And as the body heat dropped, the fleas 362 00:23:11,650 --> 00:23:16,450 would leave the dying body, and jump on anything-- 363 00:23:16,450 --> 00:23:19,060 any warm, live body which often was 364 00:23:19,060 --> 00:23:23,250 children or other human beings. 365 00:23:23,250 --> 00:23:27,830 And it was the fleas that were spreading the disease. 366 00:23:27,830 --> 00:23:30,630 But people didn't know that. 367 00:23:30,630 --> 00:23:35,610 And so they blamed various things. 368 00:23:35,610 --> 00:23:39,900 Some areas, they killed every dog, 369 00:23:39,900 --> 00:23:44,660 because they blamed dogs, or cats, 370 00:23:44,660 --> 00:23:48,490 or they blamed-- if you're in one country, 371 00:23:48,490 --> 00:23:52,120 you blame the neighboring countries. 372 00:23:52,120 --> 00:23:55,820 Or in many cases, it was blaming an ethnic group, 373 00:23:55,820 --> 00:23:57,750 or blaming Jews. 374 00:23:57,750 --> 00:24:03,215 It was horrible, because they were desperate and ignorant. 375 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:10,230 Of course, the way that disease has been controlled 376 00:24:10,230 --> 00:24:12,835 is through better hygiene and better knowledge. 377 00:24:16,360 --> 00:24:18,430 Anyway, I just point out here not 378 00:24:18,430 --> 00:24:21,810 all rodents are hated as much as rats. 379 00:24:21,810 --> 00:24:23,455 We still have hamsters and gerbils, 380 00:24:23,455 --> 00:24:27,830 which are cute, little rodents and used as pets, as well 381 00:24:27,830 --> 00:24:31,560 as in some research. 382 00:24:31,560 --> 00:24:34,120 And we know we use animals for various things, 383 00:24:34,120 --> 00:24:35,600 so we know about them that way. 384 00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:36,530 We use them for meat. 385 00:24:36,530 --> 00:24:38,060 We use them to make leather. 386 00:24:42,510 --> 00:24:48,440 We use them in sports-- for hunting and to help us hunting. 387 00:24:48,440 --> 00:24:49,600 We don't hunt dogs. 388 00:24:49,600 --> 00:24:52,540 We use dogs to hunt other animals. 389 00:24:52,540 --> 00:24:55,978 They're used in some religions, as you know. 390 00:24:55,978 --> 00:24:57,690 But we use them in science. 391 00:24:57,690 --> 00:25:00,510 What are they in science? 392 00:25:00,510 --> 00:25:02,910 They're stand-ins for humans, usually. 393 00:25:02,910 --> 00:25:04,770 We use them as models. 394 00:25:04,770 --> 00:25:07,330 Of course, the most popular animal now for that 395 00:25:07,330 --> 00:25:12,560 is the mouse, because of the genetic variance and the ease 396 00:25:12,560 --> 00:25:19,670 of creating specific models of pathologies by altering genes. 397 00:25:22,780 --> 00:25:25,930 But when we're using animals, we're 398 00:25:25,930 --> 00:25:30,300 often depending on behavioral tests. 399 00:25:30,300 --> 00:25:33,110 And what are we studying? 400 00:25:33,110 --> 00:25:36,920 We're studying a human disease, but to understand 401 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:39,340 what we're really doing, we need to know something 402 00:25:39,340 --> 00:25:43,080 about animal behavior. 403 00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,640 And unfortunately, a lot of people using animals 404 00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,840 all the time don't know much about animal behavior. 405 00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:54,810 We also know about them from groups like the Humane Society, 406 00:25:54,810 --> 00:25:57,520 and the Animal Rights Movement. 407 00:25:57,520 --> 00:26:00,340 It's human oriented in a very different way, 408 00:26:00,340 --> 00:26:03,710 sometimes with very anthropomorphic thinking. 409 00:26:03,710 --> 00:26:07,330 Sometimes it's more anthropomentism-- 410 00:26:07,330 --> 00:26:10,810 thinking that their thinking must be like our thinking. 411 00:26:10,810 --> 00:26:13,830 Their feelings must be like our feelings. 412 00:26:13,830 --> 00:26:16,754 I'm not arguing that they're not. 413 00:26:16,754 --> 00:26:18,170 We know they have nervous systems, 414 00:26:18,170 --> 00:26:21,870 if they're mammals, that are very similar to ours. 415 00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:33,580 But we think of them commonly as being conscious, 416 00:26:33,580 --> 00:26:38,320 and I would argue that that's probably the case. 417 00:26:38,320 --> 00:26:40,340 It's not the same as our consciousness, 418 00:26:40,340 --> 00:26:46,820 but we know it arises in nervous activity. 419 00:26:46,820 --> 00:26:49,940 I'm not saying we can explain it by nervous activity, 420 00:26:49,940 --> 00:26:52,810 but it's correlated with it, and animals have that, too. 421 00:26:55,480 --> 00:26:57,960 Different religions have very different attitudes, 422 00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:03,580 so I'm sure some of you that follow different religions, 423 00:27:03,580 --> 00:27:08,910 if you do know some of these extremes-- on the one pole, 424 00:27:08,910 --> 00:27:10,930 you have Judaism and Christianity that 425 00:27:10,930 --> 00:27:14,740 believe in control of Nature, dominance of Nature, 426 00:27:14,740 --> 00:27:16,030 and so forth. 427 00:27:16,030 --> 00:27:19,200 And then you have examples like Jainism, 428 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:23,010 where they are totally pacific and don't 429 00:27:23,010 --> 00:27:26,900 believe in harming any life. 430 00:27:26,900 --> 00:27:28,900 And we've had examples of that in West, 431 00:27:28,900 --> 00:27:34,050 too, like Albert Schweitzer was like that. 432 00:27:34,050 --> 00:27:37,730 But in this class, we take a basic science approach. 433 00:27:37,730 --> 00:27:41,790 It will be descriptive and experimental. 434 00:27:41,790 --> 00:27:45,090 And we will use the perspective of evolution 435 00:27:45,090 --> 00:27:46,350 throughout most of the class. 436 00:27:49,280 --> 00:27:54,460 Scientific work has focused on individual organisms. 437 00:27:54,460 --> 00:27:56,670 We'll talk about that first. 438 00:27:56,670 --> 00:28:01,800 It's focused on societies, so we'll talk about that next. 439 00:28:01,800 --> 00:28:06,660 But it also has other focuses, like on the habitat and species 440 00:28:06,660 --> 00:28:14,310 in the habitat, and the interactions of all living 441 00:28:14,310 --> 00:28:18,240 things, with the nonliving things 442 00:28:18,240 --> 00:28:22,270 in that particular habitat-- interactions with the climate, 443 00:28:22,270 --> 00:28:25,210 the topography, and so forth. 444 00:28:25,210 --> 00:28:29,390 And then there's sciences that focus on a single species 445 00:28:29,390 --> 00:28:30,410 or group of species. 446 00:28:30,410 --> 00:28:34,150 You have mammalogy, for example, that deals generally 447 00:28:34,150 --> 00:28:38,730 with all aspects of mammals, including behavior-- behavior, 448 00:28:38,730 --> 00:28:40,810 anatomy, physiology, and so forth. 449 00:28:40,810 --> 00:28:44,320 Or primatology-- dealing with primates 450 00:28:44,320 --> 00:28:48,590 as a group-- a major field. 451 00:28:48,590 --> 00:28:53,220 But we don't call it primatology within, say, 452 00:28:53,220 --> 00:28:56,210 experimental psychology, generally. 453 00:28:56,210 --> 00:29:01,490 But it's used that way among anthropologists and others. 454 00:29:01,490 --> 00:29:07,260 And then, of course, we have the amateur naturalists-- 455 00:29:07,260 --> 00:29:09,390 disciplined hobbyists. 456 00:29:09,390 --> 00:29:11,770 And that's important in this field, 457 00:29:11,770 --> 00:29:14,360 just like it has been in astronomy, because they've 458 00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,630 made major contributions. 459 00:29:17,630 --> 00:29:20,430 In fact it was amateur naturalists 460 00:29:20,430 --> 00:29:22,540 that led to the initial discoveries that 461 00:29:22,540 --> 00:29:26,660 led to the whole development of ethology. 462 00:29:26,660 --> 00:29:30,240 So first of all, focus on the individual organism-- 463 00:29:30,240 --> 00:29:33,190 in America it was called, in the last century, 464 00:29:33,190 --> 00:29:34,750 comparative psychology. 465 00:29:34,750 --> 00:29:38,750 It's sometimes still called that. 466 00:29:38,750 --> 00:29:43,630 The real focus was on humans, but they used animals. 467 00:29:43,630 --> 00:29:48,170 The main type of study in the heyday of the field, 468 00:29:48,170 --> 00:29:51,830 the middle of the last century, was studies of learning. 469 00:29:51,830 --> 00:29:55,930 And it still is in many labs. 470 00:29:59,080 --> 00:30:02,200 The animals used are mostly rats and mice 471 00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:04,000 as models for studying learning. 472 00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:10,930 And it's interesting that that was not the approach 473 00:30:10,930 --> 00:30:15,085 to animal behavior in Europe at that same time. 474 00:30:18,340 --> 00:30:20,900 Why do you think that was? 475 00:30:20,900 --> 00:30:25,240 Well, think of what was unique about what 476 00:30:25,240 --> 00:30:27,350 was going on in America. 477 00:30:27,350 --> 00:30:29,050 What was our approach to education? 478 00:30:32,620 --> 00:30:40,860 The idea was that we start life with pretty much a blank slate. 479 00:30:40,860 --> 00:30:47,830 And by education we can create individuals, 480 00:30:47,830 --> 00:30:51,430 we can influence individuals and various ways. 481 00:30:51,430 --> 00:30:56,510 Our children can become whatever they can become, just 482 00:30:56,510 --> 00:31:00,390 through learning, through making the effort. 483 00:31:00,390 --> 00:31:03,340 You can do anything if you just put your mind to it. 484 00:31:03,340 --> 00:31:06,120 How many of you have heard that from your parents? 485 00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:06,980 Most of us. 486 00:31:10,750 --> 00:31:14,380 Did you ever hear, "Well, you behave that way because you've 487 00:31:14,380 --> 00:31:17,300 inherited that behavior and that's your instinct?" 488 00:31:17,300 --> 00:31:21,840 No-- if you were in Europe, it was very different. 489 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:23,700 But that was the belief in America. 490 00:31:23,700 --> 00:31:29,240 It was wrong, but it was also very beneficial, 491 00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:31,110 because what did it lead to? 492 00:31:31,110 --> 00:31:38,530 It lead to universal education-- arguably the best in the world. 493 00:31:38,530 --> 00:31:42,330 The country that tried to educate everybody 494 00:31:42,330 --> 00:31:47,480 regardless of origins, regardless of wealth-- 495 00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:51,750 and at the time that developed, it was unique. 496 00:31:51,750 --> 00:31:54,810 And we're not the only country that does that now, 497 00:31:54,810 --> 00:31:57,570 but at that time it certainly was. 498 00:31:57,570 --> 00:32:02,390 And it was encouraged in its popularity 499 00:32:02,390 --> 00:32:03,840 by ideas of educators. 500 00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:06,670 I use John Dewey as an example. 501 00:32:06,670 --> 00:32:10,130 His dates are 1859 to 1952. 502 00:32:10,130 --> 00:32:11,330 He was very influential. 503 00:32:15,520 --> 00:32:18,490 The emphasis was on practicality-- 504 00:32:18,490 --> 00:32:22,340 on shaping the individual through learning-- 505 00:32:22,340 --> 00:32:24,330 very important in the development 506 00:32:24,330 --> 00:32:26,255 of educational systems in America. 507 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,340 And either implicitly or explicitly, 508 00:32:33,340 --> 00:32:38,510 they believe that we start life with a blank slate. 509 00:32:38,510 --> 00:32:44,620 And that was what came out of that in psychology-- including 510 00:32:44,620 --> 00:32:49,610 this comparative psychology I'm talking about-- 511 00:32:49,610 --> 00:32:51,180 is that same idea. 512 00:32:51,180 --> 00:32:56,160 They focus their whole effort on learning, almost nothing 513 00:32:56,160 --> 00:32:57,810 on instinctive behavior, unless they 514 00:32:57,810 --> 00:33:01,120 wanted-- that was the realm of the physiologist, who 515 00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:02,020 studied reflexes. 516 00:33:07,040 --> 00:33:10,640 They didn't study more complex, instinctive behavior 517 00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,490 that we'll be talking about in this class. 518 00:33:15,540 --> 00:33:20,700 And so theorists arose who tried to come up 519 00:33:20,700 --> 00:33:27,540 with a system of learning to explain all human behavior. 520 00:33:27,540 --> 00:33:30,800 You've all heard of B. F. Skinner. 521 00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,800 You've probably heard of Thorndike, inventor 522 00:33:34,800 --> 00:33:38,020 of various puzzle boxes and describer 523 00:33:38,020 --> 00:33:40,810 of instrumental learning. 524 00:33:40,810 --> 00:33:43,610 So for a long time, you pick up a book on learning, 525 00:33:43,610 --> 00:33:47,700 and it was about instrumental learning 526 00:33:47,700 --> 00:33:51,850 and classical conditioning-- the two main kinds of learning. 527 00:33:51,850 --> 00:33:53,020 Are they? 528 00:33:53,020 --> 00:33:59,060 Hardly-- but in fact, that's what was taught, 529 00:33:59,060 --> 00:34:02,380 and it was a major part of psychology 530 00:34:02,380 --> 00:34:04,760 in the middle of last century. 531 00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:07,480 In fact, that persisted for some time-- 532 00:34:07,480 --> 00:34:10,929 the second half of the last century, 20th century. 533 00:34:13,510 --> 00:34:16,340 But in Europe, it was very different. 534 00:34:16,340 --> 00:34:18,469 In Europe, you had the development 535 00:34:18,469 --> 00:34:22,420 not within psychology, but within the field 536 00:34:22,420 --> 00:34:26,449 of zoology-- part of biology. 537 00:34:26,449 --> 00:34:33,070 Zoology is the field wherein ethology, 538 00:34:33,070 --> 00:34:36,850 the study of natural behavior patterns, developed. 539 00:34:40,860 --> 00:34:44,830 I will take Conrad Lorenz, leader in that field, 540 00:34:44,830 --> 00:34:48,340 from his book, The Foundations of Ethology. 541 00:34:48,340 --> 00:34:53,290 He defined ethology this way-- it's the discipline which 542 00:34:53,290 --> 00:34:57,120 applies to the behavior of animals and humans, 543 00:34:57,120 --> 00:35:00,200 all those questions asked and methodologies 544 00:35:00,200 --> 00:35:03,940 used as a matter of course in all the other branches 545 00:35:03,940 --> 00:35:08,570 of biology since Charles Darwin's time. 546 00:35:08,570 --> 00:35:12,220 Ethology, or the comparative study of behavior, 547 00:35:12,220 --> 00:35:19,240 is based on the fact that there are mechanisms of behavior 548 00:35:19,240 --> 00:35:22,260 which evolve in phylogeny-- that is, 549 00:35:22,260 --> 00:35:25,260 among different animals of different types-- 550 00:35:25,260 --> 00:35:32,250 exactly as organs evolve, so that the concept of homology 551 00:35:32,250 --> 00:35:37,820 can be applied to them, as well as to morphological structures. 552 00:35:37,820 --> 00:35:43,170 The origins of this approach was in ornithology, and in fact, 553 00:35:43,170 --> 00:35:46,060 in amateur ornithology. 554 00:35:46,060 --> 00:35:49,520 And these are the two people that we attribute 555 00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,140 the initial discoveries to-- Charles Otis 556 00:35:54,140 --> 00:35:56,085 Whitman in America. 557 00:35:58,680 --> 00:36:01,870 These were the dates of his publications. 558 00:36:01,870 --> 00:36:05,930 He kept a collection of doves and pigeons in aviaries, 559 00:36:05,930 --> 00:36:07,610 and he studied them. 560 00:36:07,610 --> 00:36:11,030 And then Oscar Heinroth, director 561 00:36:11,030 --> 00:36:21,060 of the Berlin Zoo-- his publications 1910, 1928, 1930. 562 00:36:21,060 --> 00:36:25,460 He studied the rich collection of waterfowl 563 00:36:25,460 --> 00:36:28,350 kept at the Berlin Zoo. 564 00:36:28,350 --> 00:36:32,944 So they were both studying captive animals, captive birds, 565 00:36:32,944 --> 00:36:34,360 but very different kinds of birds. 566 00:36:34,360 --> 00:36:36,100 And they independently discovered 567 00:36:36,100 --> 00:36:41,570 that motor patterns, just like morphological characteristics, 568 00:36:41,570 --> 00:36:43,970 can be inherited, can be homology 569 00:36:43,970 --> 00:36:47,370 across different species. 570 00:36:47,370 --> 00:36:50,400 But Darwin knew a lot of this already. 571 00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:55,470 And in his book, he talks, for example, about dog behavior. 572 00:36:55,470 --> 00:36:58,720 If you look at this picture, compare this picture 573 00:36:58,720 --> 00:37:00,360 with this picture. 574 00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:04,280 What's different about these two dogs? 575 00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:08,480 You can tell right away this is a friendly dog, 576 00:37:08,480 --> 00:37:09,690 and this is not. 577 00:37:09,690 --> 00:37:13,490 This is an aggressive dog. 578 00:37:13,490 --> 00:37:17,510 How many of you can recognize that immediately? 579 00:37:17,510 --> 00:37:18,570 Oh, come on. 580 00:37:18,570 --> 00:37:22,080 Surely you have pet dogs and you know that difference. 581 00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:25,990 This was what your dog looks like when he's greeting you 582 00:37:25,990 --> 00:37:27,810 when you've been gone for a long time. 583 00:37:27,810 --> 00:37:31,290 And he's greeting you-- especially his master coming 584 00:37:31,290 --> 00:37:33,780 home. 585 00:37:33,780 --> 00:37:36,340 This is a dog-- usually when they 586 00:37:36,340 --> 00:37:39,810 act like this towards humans, it can be dangerous. 587 00:37:39,810 --> 00:37:42,450 OK, but they certainly act like this 588 00:37:42,450 --> 00:37:45,990 when faced with other dogs. 589 00:37:45,990 --> 00:37:49,170 And Darwin saw these patterns, because he could recognize them 590 00:37:49,170 --> 00:37:51,820 in one dog after another. 591 00:37:51,820 --> 00:37:55,190 These were inherited patterns of behavior. 592 00:37:55,190 --> 00:37:57,340 They were instinctive behaviors. 593 00:37:57,340 --> 00:38:01,120 And he applied that concept to human behavior as well. 594 00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:04,020 For example, in his book-- this is 595 00:38:04,020 --> 00:38:06,770 from his book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man 596 00:38:06,770 --> 00:38:11,360 and Animals, as were these pictures. 597 00:38:11,360 --> 00:38:12,970 Here he's showing various pictures 598 00:38:12,970 --> 00:38:15,140 of human emotional expressions. 599 00:38:15,140 --> 00:38:19,260 Our emotional expressions are instinctive-- patterns 600 00:38:19,260 --> 00:38:27,460 that are the same across all of us, across various races. 601 00:38:27,460 --> 00:38:34,100 All Homo sapiens show these same patterns. 602 00:38:34,100 --> 00:38:36,810 Yeah, you say, oh, but the Japanese 603 00:38:36,810 --> 00:38:39,860 don't make the same expressions when they're happy, or this 604 00:38:39,860 --> 00:38:41,720 or-- oh yes, they do. 605 00:38:41,720 --> 00:38:43,480 But then in addition, of course, we 606 00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,652 develop certain ways of using expressions 607 00:38:47,652 --> 00:38:48,610 for different meanings. 608 00:38:52,020 --> 00:38:58,060 Well, ethology has been applied to humans, and not 609 00:38:58,060 --> 00:38:59,010 just by Darwin. 610 00:38:59,010 --> 00:39:08,390 But as Lorenz pointed out, the proof 611 00:39:08,390 --> 00:39:12,360 that humans really had instinctive, inherited behavior 612 00:39:12,360 --> 00:39:16,830 patterns-- though it was suggested by Darwin, 613 00:39:16,830 --> 00:39:20,070 and he was accurate in his descriptions-- 614 00:39:20,070 --> 00:39:21,950 but the real proof came from Eibl-Eibesfeldt. 615 00:39:21,950 --> 00:39:29,010 Irenaus Eibl-Eibesfeldt wrote a large book 616 00:39:29,010 --> 00:39:32,840 called Human Ecology in 1989. 617 00:39:32,840 --> 00:39:34,590 It's available in the library. 618 00:39:34,590 --> 00:39:36,900 I have a copy in my office, and if you're 619 00:39:36,900 --> 00:39:40,240 interested in how these ideas apply to humans, 620 00:39:40,240 --> 00:39:41,720 you will find them described there. 621 00:39:41,720 --> 00:39:43,920 I'll say a little bit more about human ethology 622 00:39:43,920 --> 00:39:49,390 next time, just so you'll know how Eibl-Eibesfeldt 623 00:39:49,390 --> 00:39:57,250 went about proving to anybody who studied his book that he 624 00:39:57,250 --> 00:39:59,510 was right about this. 625 00:39:59,510 --> 00:40:04,480 More popularly, we know about body language, 626 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:10,760 which became a really popular craze for awhile some time ago. 627 00:40:10,760 --> 00:40:14,986 Now it's sort of entered the common parlance, 628 00:40:14,986 --> 00:40:18,590 but that is all based on these instinctive patterns. 629 00:40:24,450 --> 00:40:26,460 We know about neuroethology. 630 00:40:26,460 --> 00:40:28,620 We'll say a little bit about that in class, 631 00:40:28,620 --> 00:40:30,980 but it's not primarily a class on neuroscience, 632 00:40:30,980 --> 00:40:33,260 so I won't stress it. 633 00:40:33,260 --> 00:40:35,820 But I will say that studies of the brain 634 00:40:35,820 --> 00:40:41,290 have led to studies of how instinctive behaviors are 635 00:40:41,290 --> 00:40:42,920 controlled. 636 00:40:42,920 --> 00:40:46,710 And brain studies have been used to distinguish 637 00:40:46,710 --> 00:40:49,670 different kinds of aggression, for example. 638 00:40:49,670 --> 00:40:53,940 But they're all things already known to ethologists. 639 00:40:53,940 --> 00:40:56,020 Obviously, if patterns are very different, 640 00:40:56,020 --> 00:40:59,215 then they're expressed differently in brain activity. 641 00:41:02,050 --> 00:41:05,830 OK, now if the focus is on societies and social behavior, 642 00:41:05,830 --> 00:41:08,780 then we're usually not talking about ethology-- 643 00:41:08,780 --> 00:41:11,160 though I should say there's a lot of overlap 644 00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:16,370 between ethological studies and sociobiological studies. 645 00:41:16,370 --> 00:41:21,339 But the main emphasis of the work in sociobiology 646 00:41:21,339 --> 00:41:22,130 has been different. 647 00:41:25,440 --> 00:41:28,450 Edward O. Wilson at Harvard was the one 648 00:41:28,450 --> 00:41:32,000 who invented the term sociobiology, 649 00:41:32,000 --> 00:41:36,940 though it had been used before, for example, by C. Judson 650 00:41:36,940 --> 00:41:39,860 Herrick, a comparative anatomist who 651 00:41:39,860 --> 00:41:43,910 wrote a book on human nature and behavior. 652 00:41:43,910 --> 00:41:47,220 But it was very speculative, and if you read what he actually 653 00:41:47,220 --> 00:41:50,060 says about sociobiology, it was very different 654 00:41:50,060 --> 00:41:54,340 from E. O. Wilson, because he never even refers to Darwin. 655 00:41:54,340 --> 00:41:58,590 So it was really Wilson that brought-- 656 00:41:58,590 --> 00:42:03,160 he wrote basically a review of many different aspects 657 00:42:03,160 --> 00:42:06,690 of social behavior in many different species, 658 00:42:06,690 --> 00:42:12,530 and in his last chapter, it was about humans. 659 00:42:12,530 --> 00:42:17,170 And that is what caused him so much trouble. 660 00:42:17,170 --> 00:42:21,980 There was actually a revolt along humanists 661 00:42:21,980 --> 00:42:27,570 and even scientists here at MIT, that tried to-- they 662 00:42:27,570 --> 00:42:30,370 wanted the whole field suppressed. 663 00:42:30,370 --> 00:42:33,530 I know that's hard to believe, that in recent years 664 00:42:33,530 --> 00:42:37,060 that actually happened. 665 00:42:37,060 --> 00:42:40,510 But I was already at MIT when that was happening. 666 00:42:40,510 --> 00:42:41,790 I met E. O. Wilson. 667 00:42:41,790 --> 00:42:47,220 I like Ed lot, and I had also, like he did, 668 00:42:47,220 --> 00:42:52,470 trouble understanding why people were getting so upset. 669 00:42:52,470 --> 00:42:55,120 Konrad Lorenz has been attacked, also, 670 00:42:55,120 --> 00:42:59,420 because he applies ethology to human behavior, too. 671 00:42:59,420 --> 00:43:03,050 You see a lot of people who do not want any of this stuff 672 00:43:03,050 --> 00:43:05,230 that we apply to animals to apply to humans. 673 00:43:09,150 --> 00:43:12,120 It becomes a political thing. 674 00:43:12,120 --> 00:43:16,750 And I will just urge you to keep politics 675 00:43:16,750 --> 00:43:20,240 separate from the science. 676 00:43:20,240 --> 00:43:21,670 But that's what people were doing. 677 00:43:21,670 --> 00:43:27,030 And at the time this came out, ideologies 678 00:43:27,030 --> 00:43:28,825 were being argued a lot. 679 00:43:32,220 --> 00:43:36,660 Socialist ideologies, communist ideologies 680 00:43:36,660 --> 00:43:42,030 believe strongly in not anything inherited. 681 00:43:46,410 --> 00:43:49,530 And for very different reasons than, say, 682 00:43:49,530 --> 00:43:51,745 what we talked about in the development of education 683 00:43:51,745 --> 00:43:55,910 in America-- very different approaches. 684 00:43:55,910 --> 00:44:00,680 But it led to a more vehement opposition to sociobiology, 685 00:44:00,680 --> 00:44:03,584 and we'll go through that history 686 00:44:03,584 --> 00:44:05,000 in the middle of the class when we 687 00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:06,375 start talking about sociobiology. 688 00:44:09,220 --> 00:44:12,170 It's very different from cultural anthropology. 689 00:44:12,170 --> 00:44:13,740 It's very different from sociology. 690 00:44:13,740 --> 00:44:16,060 In fact, sociologists have been very 691 00:44:16,060 --> 00:44:20,360 resistant to applying to the application of Darwinian ideas 692 00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:25,150 and evolution to social behavior of humans. 693 00:44:25,150 --> 00:44:29,390 Many cultural anthropologists are the same way. 694 00:44:29,390 --> 00:44:36,690 It's culture that determines our behavior, not biology. 695 00:44:36,690 --> 00:44:41,410 That's almost a quote from some of these people. 696 00:44:41,410 --> 00:44:44,510 I hope you don't end up believing that. 697 00:44:44,510 --> 00:44:49,190 But anyway, here's-- from E. O. Wilson's book, 698 00:44:49,190 --> 00:44:54,650 I just wanted to show you how he conceptualized this, 699 00:44:54,650 --> 00:44:58,170 just so you can see it. 700 00:44:58,170 --> 00:45:00,170 Here was the way he conceptualised 701 00:45:00,170 --> 00:45:03,290 these fields of study of behavior in 1950. 702 00:45:03,290 --> 00:45:06,600 He has ethology and comparative psychology in America. 703 00:45:06,600 --> 00:45:08,650 Ethology in Europe is quite separate, 704 00:45:08,650 --> 00:45:11,750 which they were at that time. 705 00:45:11,750 --> 00:45:14,410 Here he has the beginnings of sociobiology, 706 00:45:14,410 --> 00:45:18,410 but the word was not being used in 1950. 707 00:45:18,410 --> 00:45:26,050 It was part of behavioral ecology, just part of ecology, 708 00:45:26,050 --> 00:45:30,440 and that was closely connected to population biology. 709 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:34,160 So that was the close link, just like over here 710 00:45:34,160 --> 00:45:38,740 on the other side, you have integrative neurophysiology 711 00:45:38,740 --> 00:45:40,340 closely linked to cell biology. 712 00:45:43,170 --> 00:45:46,000 In the middle you have these behavioral fields-- ethology 713 00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,480 and comparative psychology. 714 00:45:48,480 --> 00:45:56,090 OK, so then 1975 is when the term sociobiology originated. 715 00:45:56,090 --> 00:46:00,100 The ties to population biology were made explicit 716 00:46:00,100 --> 00:46:00,870 by E. O. Wilson. 717 00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:09,390 Ethology and biopsychology or physiological psychology-- 718 00:46:09,390 --> 00:46:12,460 it went by various names-- now it's 719 00:46:12,460 --> 00:46:14,340 often just neuroscience and behavior, 720 00:46:14,340 --> 00:46:19,870 or behavioral neuroscience-- had become a little more closely 721 00:46:19,870 --> 00:46:20,370 linked. 722 00:46:20,370 --> 00:46:22,170 But I think he's overly optimistic, 723 00:46:22,170 --> 00:46:27,290 because in 1975, those two fields were still 724 00:46:27,290 --> 00:46:28,900 largely separate in the way they were 725 00:46:28,900 --> 00:46:33,080 carried out-- the work being done. 726 00:46:33,080 --> 00:46:40,370 And here's the way he envisioned it back in 1975 and '80 727 00:46:40,370 --> 00:46:44,690 when he published his books-- he saw 728 00:46:44,690 --> 00:46:50,590 sociobiology increasing, these fields decreasing. 729 00:46:50,590 --> 00:46:53,490 It hasn't actually happened quite like that. 730 00:46:56,620 --> 00:47:05,720 What has happened is that both ethology 731 00:47:05,720 --> 00:47:11,030 and experimental studies of animal behavior in America, 732 00:47:11,030 --> 00:47:15,520 including a blurring, have become much more integrated 733 00:47:15,520 --> 00:47:17,120 with ideas of sociobiology. 734 00:47:19,750 --> 00:47:23,840 In fact, the most recent books in animal behavior-- 735 00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:29,550 I was reading them this summer-- they go to great lengths 736 00:47:29,550 --> 00:47:34,750 to integrate, almost discuss in a pretty seamless way, 737 00:47:34,750 --> 00:47:39,620 sociobiology and ethology, for example. 738 00:47:39,620 --> 00:47:43,470 What I didn't like about them is that they start out 739 00:47:43,470 --> 00:47:45,350 with all this gene counting, and you 740 00:47:45,350 --> 00:47:48,330 feel like you're studying not animal behavior 741 00:47:48,330 --> 00:47:54,230 but some mathematical field. 742 00:47:54,230 --> 00:47:56,180 It's a little hard to describe, but I 743 00:47:56,180 --> 00:47:58,730 didn't feel that it was very successful. 744 00:47:58,730 --> 00:48:00,640 If you don't know much about animal behavior 745 00:48:00,640 --> 00:48:03,520 in the first place, you'll find it really dull. 746 00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:09,280 So I don't take that tack, but you will learn the same things. 747 00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:13,310 OK, if you focus on the habitat and the species 748 00:48:13,310 --> 00:48:18,430 a habitat supports, then you're talking about ecology, 749 00:48:18,430 --> 00:48:21,660 and you can find the field of behavioral ecology talking 750 00:48:21,660 --> 00:48:23,760 mainly about behavior. 751 00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:25,720 If you focus on a single species, 752 00:48:25,720 --> 00:48:27,620 then-- we've already mentioned this-- 753 00:48:27,620 --> 00:48:31,120 you can talk about primatology or cetology 754 00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:34,100 if you're just studying cetaceans, 755 00:48:34,100 --> 00:48:37,274 entomology if you're studying insects. 756 00:48:37,274 --> 00:48:39,190 If you're looking in mammalogy, though, you'll 757 00:48:39,190 --> 00:48:41,490 find topics you simply don't find 758 00:48:41,490 --> 00:48:45,650 in ethology or physiological psychology. 759 00:48:45,650 --> 00:48:50,470 Running speeds of land mammals, submersion times 760 00:48:50,470 --> 00:48:53,250 of aquatic mammals and amphibians, 761 00:48:53,250 --> 00:48:56,140 tunnel structures of burrowing mammals, 762 00:48:56,140 --> 00:49:01,070 the composition of milk in various mammals, 763 00:49:01,070 --> 00:49:04,200 the biomass of animals, the total mass 764 00:49:04,200 --> 00:49:07,200 of all animals in a habitat or in a region, 765 00:49:07,200 --> 00:49:12,030 or the mass per unit area on the Earth's surface-- 766 00:49:12,030 --> 00:49:14,630 you don't find those in these other behavioral books, 767 00:49:14,630 --> 00:49:18,040 but you do find them in mammalogy books. 768 00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,850 And then we discuss the amateur naturalists, 769 00:49:20,850 --> 00:49:22,510 and that's where I end. 770 00:49:22,510 --> 00:49:25,610 And I will tell you a little bit more 771 00:49:25,610 --> 00:49:29,200 about these topics at the beginning of the next class.