kinship of all life… *sigh*
The NY Times had a beautiful little piece on its editorial page on March 3. Because the piece is now “archived,” I’m pasting the whole thing below:
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.
Wonderful.
Jeremy said,
March 13, 2005 @ 9:19 am
Very interesting, but the article doesn’t appear to be available at nytimes.com anymore.
Pamela said,
March 13, 2005 @ 2:54 pm
A lovely article with some very good points about the variety of personalities in the animal kingdom, of which we are surely another animal.
My only caveat would be for this author to be careful of scientific reductionism in terms of a genetically pre-determined personality. I have been studying this very topic in a wonderful course on Science, Nature and Culture. When personality is relegated to a concept of a genetic pre-determinism (even as 90% of DNA is “junk DNA” or strands not linked to geno/phenotype, and phenotypes are extremely variable even with a genetic determinant), or an evolutionary compulsion, we deliver the actions of humans and animals directly into an informatics of domination. An instinctual or pre-determined personality is extremely bio-political.
“Science has something much wiser to tell us about who we are.” This statement particularly caught my attention, since I believe science is only one component of the situated knowledges that advise who, or what, any animal is.
Emily said,
March 13, 2005 @ 2:58 pm
I agree with you, Pamela, and the line “Science has something much wiser to tell us about who we are” irked me as well. I don’t stand by that at all. The final paragraph up until the last two sentences are what I liked most.
Watermark said,
March 13, 2005 @ 8:52 pm
This Family . . .
[Click images for larger size]
Pamela said,
March 14, 2005 @ 12:05 pm
Emily,
I absolutely WILL read Derrick Jensen this summer, and I urge you to read Donna Haraway’s “Simians, Cyborgs and Women,” it is so up your alley!
Haraway’s notion of situated knowledges has totally rocked my world!