Evolution Of Instincts

[ApatheticParasites]

I was wondering if someone could please provide me a link regarding the evolution of instincts. For example how some animals are by instinct afraid of snakes(likely not the best example but I'm tired). This aspect of evolution amazes me the most. Particularly in how they develop.

[judanne]

Most behavior (in any animal) that is deemed "instinctual" relates to either survival or reproduction. In general, such behavior is a complex mixture of biological, social or cultural, and environmental factors. Here is an interesting link (http://www.apperceptual.com/baldwin-editorial.html) to get you started. You will probably find most material relating to this subject in the field of sociobiology. Keep in mind that a fair amount of the research in this field is hotly contested, not so much by the scientists within the discipline as by social and cultural critics (some of them scientists - a guy named Lewontin comes to mind). Google searches of journals in the field of developmental biology or psychology also might turn up some interesting material. If this doesn't get you on your way to finding what you're looking for, let me know and I'll see what else I can dig up for you.

Good luck

[ApatheticParasites]

Very interesting read, thanks. I'll for sure be googling what you suggested and hopefully it turns up some useful items.


What puzzles and confuses me is how for example when an animal learns something is bad, how that is passed down to the offspring without teaching it, but instead by instincts. I just can't seem to figure it out. Forgive my ignorance as I start my first year of uni in a month and thus far have only had High School biology.


What puzzles me is how exactly learned behaviors turn to instinct that can be passed down to an offspring without having to teach it.


Maybe I'm confusing everyone lol but its just something that puzzles me and I'm excited to learn about.

[RidgeBe]

Jodanne-

Much as I have respected the previous posts you have made, your understanding of instinctual is incorrect; that term refers to unlearned survival behavior. It has nothing to do with social and/or cultural and/or environmental factors. I shall give you my favorite example. When a missile is perceived as heading toward your eyes, your instinct is to close your eyes and duck. Humans who want to be baseball catchers must learn to overcome that instinct by keeping their eyes open when a ball approaches them and a batter swings at the incoming ball.

[Punc_E]

For the love of....

Man, I really wish I'd known this forum existed a year-and-a-half ago when I wrote a rebuttal to a venomously anti-evolutionist editorial run in the school paper. The author of it argued the point that it can't be explained where instincts come from, and that was the one bit I didn't manage to refute completely.

Lack of intermediate forms? Countered that by tracing the Hyracotherium-Equus bush and the Australopithecus-Homo sapiens bush (doing the best I could in a relatively limited amount of space) explaining that while apes exist, and humans exist, but there are no Homo ergaster running around because they were supplanted by a species better suited to utilize the same niche in nature and were out-competed.

Using half of Darwin's famous quote about the development of the eye to suggest even he questioned natural selection? Countered that.

Saying organic molecules can in no way spontaneously generate? Countered that, describing the Miller-Urey experiments.

Argued that Darwin's finches were not separate species but variations of a single species? Countered that by explaining what constitutes 'species' (with emphasis on the ability to breed and produce viable offspring) and that since a grub-eating finch on one island and a seed-eating finch on another island can't mate and can't produce offspring, then they are separate species.

Mutations are detrimental? Countered that, while noting that while many mutations do prove harmful, others allow survival (mutability of the AIDS virus, for example, is beneficial to it) and thus cannot be entirely counted out.

But man, if I'd have had that info on instincts then...I could have really trounced him.

Oh, by the way, hi, I'm new, just graduated high school, planning to major in Biology and Secondary Education come fall at SUNY Geneseo in New York State. I've recently begun collecting fossils, sea shells, and mounted insects. I'm debating having a small (positively puny) Elrathia kingii mounted in a ring, or would that be too pretentious?

[RBH]

Welcome to Infidels, Punc_E. Nice monicker. :thumbs: And yeah, I'd do the ring!

RBH

[Godfather]

Trilobite? That would make a nice ring. . . . .

Think the girlfriend would take one of those over a diamond?

[Punc_E]

I figure the trilobite cufflinks and tie-tack are a necessity - for those paleontological formal events, you know.

I got really lucky - my girlfriend doesn't like diamonds. I'm not saying she'd be open to a ring with a tiny arthropod on it...

Hey, that'd be even better than a trilobite - a ring with a Marrella splendens mounted in it.

[Richard Forrest]

I'm debating having a small (positively puny) Elrathia kingii mounted in a ring, or would that be too pretentious?

Depends on the mode of preservation and the minerals of which it is formed. If there is much pyrite there you may end up with an expensively mounted pile of dust.

Oh, and yes. It would be pretentious! By hey, you're young and allowed to be.

Richard Forrest

[Amen-Moses]

What puzzles and confuses me is how for example when an animal learns something is bad, how that is passed down to the offspring without teaching it, but instead by instincts.

It survives.

It's not that it "learns" that something is bad but that if it behaves in a certain manner that allows it to survive long enough to reproduce it can pass on that behaviour.

As someone already said, "Instinct" is unlearned behaviour, "behaviour" is just reaction to stimulus so for example a dislike of green fruit could be instinctual because in general eating green fruits could be detremental to survival so even if a particular green fruit is edible (or a particular stripey snake harmless) an animal may instinctiuvely avoid it.

Amen-Moses

[ApatheticParasites]

It survives.

It's not that it "learns" that something is bad but that if it behaves in a certain manner that allows it to survive long enough to reproduce it can pass on that behaviour.


Amen to moses! (never thought I'd say that). Thats what I was pretty much thinking but wasnt entirely sure. It seems every new thing I learn about biology fills me with a sense of awe and admiration for nature and its mechanisms. The more I learn it seems the more I appriciate life in general, and nature in particular. Only drawback is I keep finding myself talking about science when my girlfriend wants to cuddle.


Thanks again to all for the info, and thank you judanne for suggesting I read up a bit on sociobiology... I've pretty much become obsessed with it.

[RBH]

Amen to moses! (never thought I'd say that). Thats what I was pretty much thinking but wasnt entirely sure. It seems every new thing I learn about biology fills me with a sense of awe and admiration for nature and its mechanisms. The more I learn it seems the more I appriciate life in general, and nature in particular. Only drawback is I keep finding myself talking about science when my girlfriend wants to cuddle.


Thanks again to all for the info, and thank you judanne for suggesting I read up a bit on sociobiology... I've pretty much become obsessed with it.You might also look into the Baldwin effect (http://www.kcl.ac.uk/ip/davidpapineau/Staff/Papineau/OnlinePapers/SocLearnBald.htm). While I hold no brief for it, it's not actually disreputable, AFAIK. :) Just very hard to do research on.

(And anyone who wants to talk about science when his girlfriend wants to cuddle is courting reproductive disadvantage! :cool: )

RBH

[chieftain]

I used to have a very hard time understanding instincts until I started learning more about evolution. Suddenly, instincts made sense: simply, those animals whose brains happened to be wired in a certain way that made them more able to survive, did survive, and passed this wiring onto their offspring.

So I'm puzzled why people say evolution can't explain instincts: to me, it's the only thing that can explain them. (And yes, I'm aware that my summary above is a terrible oversimplification.)