Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
its strength, and the reaction of the other bird, but logging these contextual
clues is time-consuming. This is why many ethograms incorporate a short-
hand notation that uses not only purely descriptive language but also proxi-
mate function language, derived from context and likely result. The demons of
tautology and teleology lurk in such language.
BEWARE TELEOLOGY
Omnipresent dangers in the study of social behavior are the closely allied traps
of teleology and unwitting anthropomorphism. Teleology, or the doctrine of
final causes, infers purpose in nature (e.g., to infer the existence of a creator
from the works of creation). The teleological conviction that mind and will are
the cause of all things in nature is not within the scope of scientific method
(Romanes 1881). In the context of animal behavior, teleological explanation
would name and account for a behavior by its presumed ultimate effect (e.g.,
appeasement, submission, or punishment) and not by its proximate causes or
physical appearance. It may be convenient to label as “punishment” the cate-
gory of attack launched by a dominant meerkat on the only member of her
group not to join in a fight with territorial trespassers. The danger lies in (inad-
vertently) interpreting the functional nuance of this convenient label as the
proximate cause of the attacker's behavior. We know only that one individual
did not join the fight and that the dominant member of its clan then initiated
an attack on it (joined by all its group-mates). It is a matter of interpretation
whether this attack functioned as punishment and a matter of speculation
whether the attacking meerkat had punishment (or anything else) in mind
when it attacked; it is certainly unwarranted to conclude that the putatively
punitive attack was launched with the ultimate purpose of increasing the fit-
ness of the attacker (although that may well be its consequence).
Interpretation based on context again harbors the pitfalls of premature use
of proximate function language. It would be folly, for example, to categorize as
“supportive” an instance of a large female grooming subordinate kin but to
label as “repressive” the grooming by the same female of nonkin subordinates.
In such a case, proximate function language would have prematurely slipped
all the way to ultimate function language. Clearly, the risk is that the very
hypothesis used to make this interpretation may later be said to be supported
by the observation; in this hypothetical case, the erroneously circular conclu-
sion would be that kin selection theory is supported by the observation that
females are supportive of kin and repressive to nonkin. In fact, such theories
can be tested only by following actions through to fitness consequences—a
