Creationism in Crisis
Not All Science Has to be Done in a Laboratory
Not All Science Has to be Done in a Laboratory
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A few days ago I wrote about a paper which incidentally refutes the notion that humans are a special creation with unique characteristics that distinguish us from other animals in a way over and above those handful of characteristics that distinguish any distinct species from others.
One of these, so Creationists would have us believe, is having higher emotions and cognition which enable us to form close friendships and empathise with other people, for instance. The paper showed how Caribbean flamingos forms 'cliques' or friendship groups with other flamingos with similar personalities, just like humans do.
Another piece of disinformation that the cult leaders feed their dupes, in order to attack and undermine the science behind the Theory of Evolution (TOE), is the nonsensical claim that a scientific theory must be verified with experiments in a laboratory or else it isn't real science but an unproven hypothesis which is no more valid than a belief in magic. This trick enables Creationists to present their evidence-free superstition as a theory which should carry equal weight to the TOE and so should be taken seriously as an alternative to the science.
Curiously, Creationists who despise science and try to undermine and misrepresent it at every opportunity, would like nothing more than Creationism being regarded as serious science.
Now the two authors of that flamingo paper, Fionnuala McCully of the University of Liverpool and Paul Rose of the University of Exeter, have published an article describing how they went about their research into flamingo sociability. As any Creationist can see, it is based on observation to collect data and a statistical analysis of that data. This is no less valid as a scientific methodology than astronomical observation of, for example, the orbit of the planets around the sun. No-one would seriously cast doubt on that because it isn't replicable in a laboratory.
Their article is reprinted here under a Creative Commons license, reformatted for stylistic consistency. The original can be read here.
How we discovered flamingos form cliques, just like humans
Credit: Brendt A Petersen/Shutterstock
Fionnuala McCully, University of Liverpool and Paul Rose, University of Exeter
As social animals we have an innate understanding of the joy a good friendship can bring. So it’s unsurprising humans delight in seeing such closeness between animals. We can see ourselves reflected in the behaviour of cuddling chimpanzees, but a new wave of research is showing less relatable animals have pals too.
Our team’s new research found that while flamingos appear to live in a very different world to humans, they form cliques much like human ones. Like us, flamingos have a need to be social, are long lived (sometimes into their 80s) and form enduring friendships. Paul Rose’s previous work indicates captive flamingos are as picky about their friends as we are. They spend their time with preferred companions and depend on them for support during squabbles with rivals.
A flamingo’s inner circle can include their breeding partner plus several friends. Flamingos will form both platonic and maybe even sexual bonds with birds of the same sex and can form mixed sexed trios and quartets. These relationships can last for decades.
Wise humans know you can’t be friends with everyone. Paul was keen to learn why the flamingos formed friendships with some birds but not others. Animals choose their companions according to all sort of rules. Some of them do it by body length, for example guppies, others by age, such as in albatrosses. Personality impacts friend choice in many species such as chimpanzees (and, of course, humans).
Flamingos form cliques too.
Credit: jdross75/Shutterstock
Fionnuala McCully was recruited to address this question as part of her masters in animal behaviour. She set about documenting the dramatic lives of the Chilean and Caribbean flamingos housed at WWT Slimbridgein Gloucestershire, south-west England. Each bird carried a leg ring with a unique code, which she used to tell them apart and establish who was spending time with who. Working out these friendship groups took a lot of observation – four months to be exact.
By scrutinising the birds’ behaviour over the days and months, Fionnuala built a personality profile for every flamingo in each flock. Aggressive birds would often be spotted intimidating their flock mates, while submissive birds avoided conflict. Then, we used a technique called social network analysis to investigate the relationships within each flock, and whether personality could explain the friendships.
The answer was yes. The flamingos in both flocks tended to have friends who where similar in personality. In the Caribbean flock, the importance of personality ran deeper. Aggressive, outgoing birds had more friends compared to quieter flockmates. These confident cliques also spent more time in each other’s company than less outgoing groups. Caribbean flamingos were more willing to start fights and enter a fray to defend their friends. In contrast, there was no evidence to suggest outgoing Chilean flamingos had more friends, nor were they more willing to aid their buddies during rows. This shows that what is true for one species may not be true for the others, even when they are closely related. Caribbean and Chilean flamingos, for example, both have the same body structure and foraging behaviour.
Our work demonstrates how flamingos need space and time to choose and maintain their own friendships. When a flock is large enough for all different personality types to be represented, each flamingo has the opportunity to find a social partner of its liking. Keeping flamingos within the same flock across several breeding seasons helps them work out “who is who” and get better at forming compatible relationships once they have worked out the social dimensions of the group. Flamingo breeding is a numbers game - the more birds, the greater the chance of success. So understanding choosy flamingo friendships can help staff take good care of captive flamingos and manage populations.
As behaviour scientists, we are discouraged from comparing animals directly to humans as it can increase the risk of biasing our work with human values. But sometimes we can’t help ourselves. For example, the king and queen of the Caribbean flock were a particularly outgoing mated pair who Fionnuala affectionately nicknamed “the Beckhams”.
More and more studies are revealing the complexity of animals’ social lives, which makes it harder to ignore our reflections in research findings. Using human behaviour as a blueprint might give us valuable clues into what animals need to be happy. This is applied more easily to some species (such as primates) than others. However it is critical that science doesn’t neglect the social needs of animals simply because they are considered less “clever” or “relatable” than other species in the zoo. If humans require friendships to be happy, is it really such a great leap to think that flamingos might need the same?
Fionnuala McCully, PhD candidate in behavioural ecology, University of Liverpool and Paul Rose, Lecturer, University of Exeter
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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