[birdky] (no subject)
- From: "diane heise" <big_BUDDHA55@xxxxxxx>
- To: "Birdky (E-mail)" <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 14:58:19 -0600
A little something to consider
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/opinion/03thu4.html<about:blank>
>
> EDITORIAL
> My Little Chickadee
>
> Bird feeders across much of America are mobbed with black-capped chickadees
> at this time of year. Can you tell them apart, one by one? Probably not; it's
> hard enough to distinguish male from female in this species, let alone
> recognize individuals in a flock. But scientists are starting to suggest that
> if
> we look closely enough, we can distinguish birds of a single species by
> personality. A team of Dutch scientists, testing a European relative of the
> chickadee, has found that some birds are shy and others are bold, broad
> personality
> differences that have a genetic foundation. This finding doesn't erode the
> basic differences between Homo sapiens and Poecile atricapillus (the
> black-capped chickadee). But it substantially enlarges the similarities.
>
> We take the range of personalities among individuals in our species for
> granted, yet it seems surprising to think of similar diversity in other
> species.
> Many people find the implications of that genuinely shocking. If bird
> personalities have a strong genetic and evolutionary basis, there is good
> reason to
> suspect that human personalities do, too.
>
> Humans do not like to think of themselves as animals. Nor do they like to
> think that their behavior may have genetic or evolutionary roots. But the
> richer perspective - morally and intellectually - lies in examining and
> coming to
> terms with the kinship of all life. There's a certain tragic isolation in
> believing that humans stand apart in every way from the creatures that
> surround
> them, that the rest of creation was shaped exclusively for our use. The real
> fruit of that perspective is, in fact, tragic isolation on an earth that has
> been eroded by our moral assumptions. Science has something much wiser to
> tell us about who we are. So do the birds around us.
>
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