
Pecking order: What chickens teach us - robg
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=410238&c=1
======
dkimball
Another interesting thing is that birds represent an evolutionary road not
taken. All modern birds are descended from a small theropod dinosaur, possibly
_Velociraptor deinonychus_ itself -- a more plausible candidate for the star
of "Jurassic Park" than _V. mongoliensis_, although it was only re-classified
as a velociraptor in the late 1990s. It probably ran, fought, and foraged like
a crane (although this is convergent evolution, as cranes probably evolved
from small shorebirds called rails), and may have looked like something
halfway between a crane and an eagle.

Of course, no intelligent birds exist, but we can see enough of the
personalities of some species to get a sense of how an intelligent bird might
act. They'd probably be less tribal, less extended-family-oriented, less self-
serving than humans, more aloof and self-reliant, more like a startup
founder... but also much more violent and warlike, as no avian however large
has the same instinctive reluctance to kill a member of its own species that
all large mammals share.

I don't know nearly as much about the _other_ path not taken, the cephalopods
-- but I've read enough about the behavior of Humboldt's and giant squid when
confronted by an unfamiliar sight to get the impression that there is a reason
why nature didn't manage to take it. Unlike squid, octopodes are not
psychotic, but they're easily bored and they have a malicious sense of humor.
The urban legend of the octopus who waits until the lights are out and the
aquarium-keepers have left, then crawls out of the water and goes over to the
neighboring fish tank to have a snack before slipping back to his own tank
before the morning, has happened any number of times.

Little-known medieval trivia point: if St. Thomas Aquinas was right about a
certain speculation, the study of avian and cephalopod behaviors is probably a
prudent one. Aquinas believed that if other worlds capable of supporting
intelligent life exist, they _would_ be populated by intelligent beings, since
God wouldn't let a perfectly good dwelling-place for souls go to waste. The
only question, to the medieval mind, was whether such worlds existed (and,
secondarily, whether Christ would have come to them separately had they
fallen, or whether it would have been necessary to convert them to
Catholicism; for more on this mindset, read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and
perhaps Poul Anderson's _The High Crusade_).

------
madair
Money quote:

 _Now, I've hardly done much to refute charges of anthropomorphism - but am I
bovvered? I'm not projecting human characteristics on to dumb animals - I'm
saying I really don't see that much difference in their hopes and fears,
behaviour and petty foibles. If one actually lives with chickens, it's a lot
harder to treat them as mere objects.

Their preferences are astoundingly obvious, so what possible excuse could
there be for giving them any less? If they like greens, why give them pellets?
If they like sunbathing, why pack them into a tiny, noisy, smelly place with
no natural light? If, as I suspect, the answer is something to do with the
"efficiency" of food production, then the notion of efficiency is horrible,
incompetent, brutalised and brutalising, and it's certainly not in the
interests of chickens at all. And I'm not sure that our ethical notions are
all that more advanced than chickens'._

~~~
dkimball
I think I know the answer that a market-economist or an American conservative
would give to this; so I'd answer that answer by observing that, as a serious
Catholic, I find this article's author to be closer to the truth than those
who think that chickens only exist to benefit humans.

Aristotle discovered or taught (I'm favoring "discovered") that all creatures
have an end for which they exist; the end of a chicken is to live the life of
a happy, fulfilled chicken. Human beings have a right to distort that under
certain circumstances (domestication, for example, is acceptable), but we must
not sacrifice all other considerations for profit. Eating meat is acceptable,
at least grudgingly; raising stock animals in cruel conditions to wring more
money out of them is not. The American way of life _is_ negotiable, in
contrast to what a certain US President said, and was not handed down on Mount
Sinai. (Actually, everything handed down on Mount Sinai _also_ wasn't handed
down on Mount Sinai, in the sense of being eternal and immutable -- or else
Jesus Christ would hardly have run roughshod over the Third Commandment.)

There's something else I want to mention about chickens, but I'll put that in
another post for ease of up/downvoting; in the meantime, I just wanted to
emphasize that touchy-feely liberals aren't the only ones who believe that a
chicken's happiness is worth something.

------
char
I really appreciate this article. I absolutely adore chickens, and understand
that they are far more complex and intelligent than they are generally given
credit for.

------
ludwig
This post makes an interesting point about the nature of co-operation in
competition. It sounds very much like the Nash equilibrium in game theory.

