Creationism in Crisis - The Beginnings of Empathy May Have Evolved in a Dinosaur!

Creationism in Crisis

The Beginnings of Empathy May Have Evolved in a Dinosaur!

Photo: Michael Rosskothen/MostPhotos

Artists impression of an early feathered theropod dinosaur

Credit: Daniel Eskridge Getty Images

Dinosaurs were the first to take the perspectives of others | Lund University

More evidence today that creationism is a fallacy. Scientists at Lund University, Sweden, have shown that what creationists proclaim to be the unique ability of humans, thus proving special design by their putative designer god - the ability to empathise - may have its origins, not even in ancestral mammals, but in common ancestors of both mammals and birds, i.e., dinosaurs.

Creationists normally get themselves in a terrible muddle over empathy, preferring to ignore it as an evolved source of morality in favour of their supposedly God-given morals, and yet their holy book, in which they claim their designer god wrote down these morals includes an assumption that empathy is a human trait.

So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

Matthew 7:12

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Do to others as you would have them do to you.

Luke 6:31

But creationists, while arguing that humans have this unique ability, argue that they, like a sociopath, can't work out how their actions might affect others, so need a handbook to look it up in.

The evidence that this trait first arose in a common ancestor of birds and mammals comes in the form of a paper in Science Advances by three researchers from Lund University, Sweden.

A Lund University press release explains the research:

Understanding that others hold different viewpoints from your own is essential for human sociality. Adopting another person’s visual perspective is a complex skill that emerges around the age of two. A new study from Lund University in Sweden, published in Science Advances, suggests that this ability first arose in dinosaurs, at least 60 million years before it appeared in mammals. These findings challenge the idea that mammals were the originators of novel and superior forms of intelligence in the wake of the dinosaur extinction.

When someone near you turns their head towards something in the environment, you likely can’t help to follow their gaze direction. This reaction is observed in mammals, birds and even reptiles alike. It’s an effective way to gather information about what caught the attention of your fellow, which you might otherwise have missed. However, a far more advanced behavior is to follow someone’s gaze to a location that is initially obstructed from your view. By repositioning yourself to see what the other person is looking at, you demonstrate an understanding that the other has a different perspective. This ability, known as visual perspective taking develops in children between the ages of one-and-a-half to two years and serves as the foundation for later comprehending referential communication and that others have minds that differ from your own.

Early in my career, crow birds earned the nickname “feathered apes”, due to numerous research findings that showcased their remarkable cognition. However, I’m beginning to question whether it would be more fitting to consider primates as honorary birds.

Professor Mathias Osvath, senior author
Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Visual perspective taking has, to date, only been found in very few species. Mainly in apes and some monkeys, but also in dogs and crow birds. However, there is limited knowledge regarding the evolutionary origins of this crucial social skill. A team of researchers from Lund University aimed to investigate a potential early emergence of visual perspective taking in dinosaurs. Through a comparison of alligators with the most primitive existing birds, known as palaeognaths, they discovered that visual perspective taking originated in the dinosaur lineage likely 60 million years, or more, prior to its appearance in mammals.

Birds are commonly being overlooked when it comes to their cognitive skills. Our findings show that they do not only have several cognitive skills on par with those of apes, but that their forebearers most likely had these skills long before they evolved in mammals.

Dr Claudia Zeiträg, first author
Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Crocodilians are the closest living relatives to birds. Their neuroanatomy has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, and is similar to that of the common ancestor of dinosaurs and crocodilians. Palaeognath birds comprise the ostrich birds, such as emus and rheas, but also the flighted tinamous. Their brains are in large parts comparable to their forebearers, the non- avian paravian dinosaurs, which feature such celebrities as the velociraptors. Comparing these two groups of animals creates a bracket around the extinct lineage of dinosaurs leading up to modern birds.

The study revealed that alligators do not demonstrate visual perspective taking, although they do follow gaze to a visible location. In contrast, all tested bird species exhibited visual perspective taking. Additionally, the birds engaged in a behaviour called “checking back”, where the observer looks back into the eyes of the gazer, and re-tracks the gaze, when unable to find anything in the direction of their gaze the first time. This behaviour indicates an expectation that the gaze is referring to a target in the environment. Previously, this has only been observed in humans, apes and monkeys, and ravens.

Crocodilians are ideal models to study the evolutionary origins of cognitive capacities in birds. What they share most probably existed in the common ancestor of dinosaurs and crocodilians. If crocodilians lack an ability birds possess, it likely evolved in the dinosaur lineage after the split. This approach allows us to study the cognition of extinct species.

Dr Stephan Reber, co-author
Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science
Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Palaeognath birds emerged 110 million years ago, predating the two mammal groups endowed with visual perspective taking – primates and dogs – with 60 million years. Considering the neuroanatomical similarities between these birds and their non-avian forebearers, it is plausible that the skill originated even earlier in the dinosaur lineage. However, it is less likely to have been present among the earliest dinosaurs, which had more alligator-like brains. Maybe future research will show the ability to be more widespread among mammals than currently known, but even if that would be the case it will most probably still be predated by the dinosaur origin. Nevertheless, it is not surprising that visual perspective taking emerged earlier in the dinosaurs, which include the birds, given their superior vision compared to most mammals, that historically relied on nocturnal adaptations. It was only with the emergence of the primates and certain carnivores that our visual capabilities improved.

This is yet another finding that calls into question the prevailing view that mammals drove the evolution of complex cognition, and that they are the cognitive yardstick to which other animals should be compared. An increasing number of studies show the remarkable neurocognition of the avian dinosaurs, the birds, which might prompt a rethinking of the natural history of cognition.

The trio's findings are published, open access, in Science Advances

Abstract

Taking someone else’s visual perspective marks an evolutionary shift in the formation of advanced social cognition. It enables using others’ attention to discover otherwise hidden aspects of the surroundings and is foundational for human communication and understanding of others. Visual perspective taking has also been found in some other primates, a few songbirds, and some canids. However, despite its essential role for social cognition, visual perspective taking has only been fragmentedly studied in animals, leaving its evolution and origins uncharted. To begin to narrow this knowledge gap, we investigated extant archosaurs by comparing the neurocognitively least derived extant birds—palaeognaths—with the closest living relatives of birds, the crocodylians. In a gaze following paradigm, we showed that palaeognaths engage in visual perspective taking and grasp the referentiality of gazes, while crocodylians do not. This suggests that visual perspective taking originated in early birds or nonavian dinosaurs—likely earlier than in mammals.

Claudia Zeiträg et al. ,
Gaze following in Archosauria—Alligators and palaeognath birds suggest dinosaur origin of visual perspective taking.
Sci. Adv. 9, eadf0405(2023). DOI:10.1126/sciadv.adf0405

Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

No doubt creationists will be able to dismiss the evidence that what they claim is a uniquely human, God-given ability - empathy - may have its origins in a common ancestor of mammals and birds and has evolved over millions of years from that simple beginning.

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Thank you for sharing!

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