Just to dot the ‘t’s,’ the quote “Nature, red in tooth and claw” is not originally from Darwin. It’s from the poem In Memoriam A.H.H. by Tennyson. It’s a fantastic poem that I highly suggest reading.
I’m going to have to take a look at this book when I have the chance. It sounds fascinating. I’m curious, though, are all of the examples of animal altruism between members of the same species or are there examples where a member of one species helps another? The two possibilities have different ramifications, evolutionarily speaking.

There are examples of inter speies altruism. For example, a bonobo found a starling that must have been injured. It set it upright on the ground, and when the bird did nothing, it tossed it into the air. When the bird still did nothing, the bonobo took it to the highest point it could reach, ‘manually’ spread its wings for it, and tossed it as high as it could. When it still did not fly, the bonobo guarded it against other apes. (p. 108) There are other examples.

Some anecdotal examples of inter-species altruism: dolphins helping human shipwreck victims, dogs nursing kittens & bluejays warning other birds of approaching hawks. I’m sure a quick search would turn up scores of similar episodes.

Well since it is the same Divine Spark from the Gods that animates all living creatures, it’s not surprising to me that we’ll see similarities between us all.
As for the bluejays, it’s not always altruistic. Around here when the bird feeders are covered with birds, my jays will shriek a warning to clear out the feeders so they can move in. A few minutes later the other birds will come back, then the jays will do it again. They’ll do that over and over and the other birds never seem to catch on to the fake-out.

Are there examples of altruism from non-social animals? ie Opossums, porcupines, skunks etc.

At this point there seem not to be. Evolutionarily that makes sense – but as the authors caution- we’ve only begun to look.

Cheryl: Well since it is the same Divine Spark from the Gods that animates all living creatures, it’s not surprising to me that we’ll see similarities between us all.
Not meaning to contradict that statement (with which I agree), there is a fundamental flaw to how this topic is pursued: We have no basis in fact or science to ascribe human, rational motivations to non-human animals.
We have some research and guarded speculation about the sentience of some species and how it may approach the human level. Simians and cetaceans are the main focus there. However much it may satisfy to view animal behavior from a spiritual stand point, it makes no rational sense to equate animal behavior with human.

I don’t see them as being solely “human, rational motivations” — as though rational motivations somehow belong exclusively to humans, whereas animals experience a pale reflection of it, if at all. For example, the motivation for those blue jays was clear – to have unfettered access to the food in the bird feeders at the expense of the other birds. Their “fake-out” took intelligence to pull off.
I also love science. But it is a flawed logic that asserts if science cannot prove something, it doesn’t exist.

Franklin raises an interesting point but I thin he gets it wrong. Maybe this will be worth a longer post on its own terms.
Scientific methodologies focus on externally observable, measurable and predictable phenomenon. As such they CANNOT give us assurance of internal states and motivations.
The gulf between us ‘knowing’ we have a mind and knowing other minds exist starts between me and you, not between me and an animal. The problems, philosophically, are essentially the same.
Now that we know evolution is true, I think this distinction between humans and other animals is even less defensible than it was for Descartes.

Cheryl and Gus,
I wonder if we may be approaching this from incomplete starting points… that may not be clear, so please bear with me.
The scientific method (I beg to differ with making that plural, there really is only one methodology) is a mechanical construction, a set of instructions. Science uses it as its primary tool, but not the only one.
When science explains something, it can be reduced to this: this is the best explanation we have for (X) right now. Science — proper science, not the politicized or marketized version of it called technology — is by definition open to being wrong. It can be completely wrong, as the prevailing wisdom in geology was proven to be by plate tectonics; it can be partially wrong, as Newtonian physics is made by quantum mechanics; and it can be mistaken in small parts, as Darwinian evolution at its beginning has long since been shown and continues to be refined.
All of that, written in an assertive tone, is what I’ve learned from science training. I didn’t work it out for myself, but I do accept it as assertion because to be blunt in almost 40 years of my pursuit of it (as a layman, mostly), I’ve yet to encounter a refutation of it. The specific academic work I’ve done in social sciences leads me to this opinion: we can speculate to a certain level of confidence that internal processes can be deduced from behavior, and over time that confidence can be increased by both further evidence in favor of it and proof that some assumptions were wrong. Again, refinement, though in this case I readily agree that we have much to explore and explain.
Sorry for the lecturing tone. Please allow me to reiterate my point having written the above: human motivations are routinely ascribed to non-human animals. This is a fundamental mistake because no matter how closely the behaviors match, animals simply do not exhibit them for the reason we ascribe to them… or, rather, that we project onto them.
Cheryl, while being prepared to possibly be wrong, I do insist that “rational” cannot be applied to non-human animals. It is a distinctly human trait, its functionality can be traced to specific areas of the human brain that do not exist in animals — the exceptions, again, being higher simians and cetaceans — and that animals can look like they are problem solving or making intelligent decisions is a human projection upon them. Those behaviors are readily explained without rational thought capability.
It is, I must admit, interesting to debate this. I have my own store of anecdotal accounts of animals responding to me or their surroundings in ways humans would respond. I just don’t see the evidence to support that they are actually responding for human reasons.

Yet strangely, your insistence doesn’t convince me.
Using the term “rational” in the mathematics sense I would agree is unlikely to apply to non-humans. I’ll also concede that humans have evolved to rely move heavily upon reason than non-humans due to the absence of other natural gifts afforded to non-humans. But asserting that animals are incapable of reason because it is a “distinctly human trait” originates from the pompous belief that humans are superior beings with a birthright that permits us to subjugate the earth and it’s non-human inhabitants. That areas of the human brain that process rational thought don’t exist in animals could simply mean animals process their rational thought differently.
Animals look as if they are problem solving and making intelligent decisions because that is what they are doing. As an example, even when birds perform instinctive tasks such as nest-building, they hone their skills and decision-making regarding what materials to use. The nests of first-time parents are far inferior to those of more experienced birds.
Anyone wanting to see an animal think need only put up a “squirrel-proof” birdfeeder. After the first failed attempts, the squirrel will walk away and sit down to scrutinize the setup. You can almost see the “wheels turning” as it reasons out how to access the bird seed. And within a short time, they’ll be on that feeder. I don’t even try to keep them off anymore, I just put out peanuts as well as some extra bird seed and everybody’s happy. If it shows up in my back yard, I feed it.
I’ve lived with animals all my life, including a duck that was as smart as any dog, and have seen what is for me irrefutable evidence of “human traits” – emotions such as love, hate, fear, jealousy, anger, frustration, hurt feelings, humor, happiness, as well as the ability to forgive. And yes also the ability to reason. My 3 cats are able to open any cabinet in the house (even the ones where you must first un-do the metal latches) and any door that doesn’t have a completely round doorknob. If they had opposable thumbs I’ve no doubt they’d take over. I know they’ve been plotting it for a while!

Cheryl, I’m not trying to convince you of anything except the notion that objectivity is the only valid measuring tool in drawing conclusions from our observations. Scientists have only recently (in historic terms) begun to ask a critical question: How does the act of observation and measurement change that which is being observed and measured? They continue to find inadequate answers to that question.
In the observation of behavior, a distinction is made between learning and conditioning. In general, all animals human or not exhibit both processes. The difficulty (which you and I are having here) is in determining which process is taking place, or even what mixture and balance between the processes is taking place. The ability to reason refines that distinction.
Nearly all of what we know about the human brain is in comparing the outward functioning of normal humans to that of people who have experienced brain trauma. It is a negative “proof”, and one which scientists continue to work on to replace with direct observation and constructive proof. A quick search found one article that covers both of our positions partially and discusses the difficulties: http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/0012brain.html
I respectfully suggest you ask me about my personal take on things, and not ascribe to me such things as “pompous belief that humans are superior beings with a birthright that permits us to subjugate the earth and it’s non-human inhabitants.” You may not have intended that as a personal criticism, but it would be nice to at least phrase it in a way that allows me to agree or disagree with it personally. As a general criticism, I would still take issue with it. I have yet to encounter a serious scientist — including some who are avowed Christians — who even suggest that attitude. Thanks.

Franklin, what I said was “But asserting that animals are incapable of reason because it is a “distinctly human trait” originates from the pompous belief that humans are superior beings with a birthright that permits us to subjugate the earth and it’s non-human inhabitants”
I do believe it *originates* from that belief. The “animals can’t experience things like we do” mentality. I don’t know if you feel that way because you haven’t told me, but that’s where it comes from. It justifies keeping hens in battery cages to lay eggs, calves in confined quarter with their heads in a type of vice to keep them from moving (to produce veal), and a lot of other similarly unsavory practices. I’m not a vegetarian but animals – even our food animals – should be treated kindly and with the understanding that they DO feel, reason and understand fairness to varying degrees. I’ve even heard Christians (they were Mennonites, actually) tell me that animals don’t feel pain the way we do so it’s okay to leave their horses hitched up to the buggies for hours in the hot sun with no water.
So no it wasn’t a personal criticism; how could it be I don’t know you. But you bet it was a general one.

Franklin- you have managed to completely miss the point I was trying to make. Completely.
I will do a separate post on this issue soon. Unlike my promised but not yet performed analysis of Spiral Dynamics, I wont have to read a big book and get into the intricacies of internal politics among the SD crowd to do so.
But for now I’ll say this – the scientific method (which differs to some degree as applied from field to field), is wonderful for finding knowledge that fits the presuppositions involved in the method as to what characteristics knowledge has. But when this model of knowledge, scientific knowledge, is equated with Knowledge, or with Truth, or Our Closest Approximation to Truth, assumptions about the nature of the world are being surreptitiously imported so that it is no surprise that the method is the best since knowledge is defined around the method.
For a quick and dirty example of this in practice, think of an ‘objective’ description of a human being who is your close friend or lover or son or daughter. It can provide an enormous amount of information and still tell you little to nothing of what you might regard as the most important knowledge there is about that person.
One of these assumptions underlying the model of reality that those wedded exclusively to the scientific method make is that so-called ‘objective’ knowledge is superior to so-called ‘subjective’ knowledge. Michael Polanyi, a practicing chemist, demonstrated the profound limitations of that view in his book Personal Knowledge quite some time ago, but it has not penetrated very deeply in popular culture. Ignoring an argument is the easiest way to deal with it when it is inconvenient, as has been demonstrated by some commentators on this blog in the recent past…
As to learning and conditioning, I suggest Franklin take a look at the book. It reasonably answers his concerns.

Gus and Cheryl:
Your recent posts are well taken. I apologize if I seem dense or argumentative for its own sake. I assure you I am making a sincere attempt to understand, and not arguing because I can.
I’m familiar with Polanyi, but it’s been a while since I read a summary of his points. I’ll return later after I’ve refreshed my memory.
For now, I’ll submit this example from fiction, but from whom I hope you will find to be a reputable source: Carl Sagan. In the movie adaptation of his book Contact, there is this scene between the two characters whose interactions typify the objective-subjective divide:
Porter Goss (the metaphysicist): Did you love your father?
Ellie (the physicist): Yes. Very much.
Porter: Prove it.
Part of where I may come across as dense stems from my attempt to straddle the divide between these two viewpoints. I make a perhaps vain attempt to reconcile them. Please try to be patient with me.

Franklin-
Don’t be so apologetic. These are tough issues! I may be wrong – or Cheryl, or you, or all of us. The best we can do is carefully attend to one another’s arguments. If we don’t do that, I think we’re wasting our time. (That’s why I finally broke off on the left/right discussion. My arguments seemed to be being ignored.)
Your example from Sagan is a really good one. There is no way to ‘objectively’ prove love – but any normal person knows it is very real – in the sense of being perhaps the strongest manifestation of meaning.
As a Pagan academic I spent decades trying to somehow make a case within the traditional scientific framework of how meaning, and things that did not show up on existing instruments, such as spirits, could be shown to be credible. I finally concluded that you can’t get there from here any more than I can fly using a set of dumbbells. The tools exist for completely different purposes. (The best study exploring this problem is Hufford’s study of the nightmare: The Terror that Comes in the Night. It’s a great book.)
I may be wrong, but that’s my best shot. You can’t get to perceptions of meaning using techniques that deny any need for meaning to exist and cannot pick up o subjectivity as an aspect of reality. You can’t get to dimensions of reality that cannot be measured using techniques that depend on measurement for their reliability.
Now that brain imaging exists perhaps correlations can be shown, but correlation need not mean causation. As I understand it, some evidence suggests that the brain reacts to some phenomena fractions of a second before they become conscious. I have read some arguing that proves consciousness is a product of the brain. But that does not follow. For example, perhaps the brain is a receiver that enables things to manifest at the level of our normal consciousness. Different tuning of the bran opens us to different kinds of reception. (I personally am attracted to that.) Or perhaps we can ‘read’ the future, and in the process of becoming focally aware the brain gets involved? And so on.
So my point about the existence of other minds is that we do not first face it when looking at animals, we face it when looking at other people. Yet we know with greater reason that other minds exist than that the earth goes around the sun. Indeed, all of scientific methodology presupposes other minds who can evaluate rationally the evidence I bring to make my case! It presupposes what it cannot prove.

Thanks, Gus. On my own terms as a layman, I pursue the very same questions as a pagan. We can only apply that which we are sure will make sense to us.
Cheryl, I think the crux of our conflict here, you and I, is not that I don’t believe you (indeed, I trust your written words), but that I cannot buy it. There is, for want of some term that may be better, a cognitive disconnect for me when attempting to apply human referents (as in the subject line of this thread) to animals.
In my lifetime, I have had intimate emotional relationships with animals. My dog Andy (collie/G. shepherd) helped me keep my sanity during a very emotionally traumatic period of my childhood. At the time, I swore he spoke to me in words. As an infant, my mother trusted my care (for only a few minutes at a time, of course) to our pure-bred English Setter Sam. Leashed to a tree, he kept me within the diameter of the length of that leash, including using his teeth to grab me by the back of my diaper. Right now, our cat Ptolomy (the astronomer, not the pharoah) has a meow that is distinctly “I need you” compared to every other sound he makes.
I don’t need to go further than a professional dog breeder to explain the behaviors of those dogs, and that pro will readily provide it without resorting to human reasoning or any subset of it. I abstain from commenting on cats, seeing as how I’m owned by two, and one of them (Fred) is 25 lbs and likes to sit on me.
I look to Occam’s Razor, especially when there is more than a little doubt involved.

Conflict? Goodness – I thought it was just a discussion!

There’s layers in that conflict… sorta like Shrek’s onion, dontchyaknow.
Actually, you’re right. I really should reserve that word for times like last night’s “discussion” with my 16-year-old daughter. Ahem. Fortunately, the doors in our house don’t slam very well.