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“Animals are good to think with.” Claude Levi-Strauss

“Animals are good to think with.” Claude Levi-Strauss. Why companion animals?.

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“Animals are good to think with.” Claude Levi-Strauss

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  1. “Animals are good to think with.”Claude Levi-Strauss

  2. Why companion animals?

  3. “It would be fair to argue that pet-keeping is genuinely ‘adaptive’ in the evolutionary sense of the word, since it contributes to individual health and survival by ameliorating stresses and strains of everyday life.” • James Serpell

  4. Proximate Level Explanations • Immediate causes of behavior • “My dog is someone to care for” • “I love my cat” • Immediate benefits to individual • Pets help cope with stress • Cardiovascular benefits

  5. Ultimate Level Explanations Evolutionary adaptations increase reproductive success.

  6. Evolution - Model 1:Organic Evolution • Charles Darwin (1859) • Requires • Variation • Replication • Selection (?) • Time – lots • Units of replication– Genes

  7. Theory 1. Attachment to pets is an evolved adaptation. • Need to show it pet-keeping is linked to genes (e.g., heritable). • Need to show that attachment to pets increases reproductive fitness.

  8. Problems with the Evolutionary Adaptation Theory of Pet-Keeping 1. No evidence that pet-keeping is a heritable trait. 2. No evidence that pet owners have higher reproductive success. 3. Too much individual variation – many (perhaps most) people are not strongly attached to animals.

  9. Theory 2. Pets are non-functional evolutionary byproducts (“spandrels”). • “Baby releasers” elicit feelings of parental care. • Attachment to pets is a misfiring of maternal instincts.

  10. Theory 3: Pets are parasites • Cuckoos in the nest. • Pets use us to pass on their genes.

  11. My cat, Kitty, is a nest parasite.

  12. Evolutionary Model 2:Cultural Evolution • Richard Dawkins (1976) • Requires • Variation • Replication • Selection (?) • Time – not much • Units of replication - Memes • Examples – • Songs, Fashions, Ideas

  13. Theory 4: Pet-keeping is a meme. Some predictions: 1. Potential for rapid cultural changes in forms of pet-keeping 2. Large cultural differences in pet keeping behaviors and attitudes 3. Pets run in families

  14. Preferences in dog breeds as memes.

  15. American Kennel Club puppy registration data(Herzog, Bentley, and Hahn) • Every AKC registered dog in the United States (1926 – 2005) • N = 53,515,291 dogs • 154 breeds

  16. AKC Labrador Retriever registrations (1946 – 2003)

  17. AKC Irish Water Spaniel registrations (1946-2003)

  18. AKC Irish Setter registrations (1946 – 2003)

  19. AKC registrations for 11 boom/bust breeds

  20. 1962 Social Epidemics • Epidemic of Irish Setters • Epidemic of “Girls Named Jennifer”

  21. Dog breeds as memes: • 1.Breed preferences can change rapidly (like other forms popular culture). • 2. Breed preference are socially contagious. • 3. Popularity is independent of “quality”(?)

  22. Are pets memes? • Memes requires a large brain and cultural transmission. • Uniquely human traits. • Symbolic language • Art • Religion • Pets(?)

  23. 1. Pet-keeping memes vary across cultures.

  24. 2. Pet memes change in frequency. “If a sufficient amount of money is spent in advertising, a pet could be sold to every home” • 1929 “Pet Dealer Magazine””

  25. Negative pet memes.50,000 dogs slaughtered in China this year.

  26. 3. Pet memes are transmitted from generation to generation. • Biggest predictor of pet ownership is family history with pets. • People raised with dogs have dog pets; people raised with cats have cat pets.

  27. Biophilia: A Synthesis? • E.O. Wilson (1984) -- “Biophilia is the innate tendency to focus on life and life-like processes.” • E.O. Wilson (1993) • -- “Biophilia is not a single instinct but a complex set of learning rules”

  28. Prepared and Counter-prepared Learning (Seligman) • Prepared pet memes -- kittens • Counter-prepared pet memes -- snakes

  29. No evidence that pet-keeping increases reproductive fitness. Too much individual, cultural and historical variation. If there is selection for pet-keeping, it is weak. Pet-keeping is (probably) not an evolved adaptation.

  30. Pet-keeping is (probably) spread by memes. • Pet-keeping memes are transmitted by imitation. • Non-adaptive cultural drift can produce changes in pet meme frequencies. • Some pet memes are more easily transmitted than others (gene-meme interactions). • Pets may have no evolutionary function.

  31. “Good to think with….”

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