There was an item on ABC World News last thursday about a researcher who specializes in animal empathy.His discovery was that- given a choice of getting a watermelon that can be consumed alone or a watermelon that must be shared with others,the capuchins chose the melons that must be shared with others.His conclusion was that the morality concept of sharing pre-dated the evolutiopn of religion and one does not need religion to share and to be considerate of others.The prof reasoned that religious dictates only reinforce what seems to occur naturally. Reminds me of Julian Huxley's Evolutionary humanism. Without knowing the specifics of the experimental design (and I call on Mike P to fill in the details),it would be interesting to know if the contours of the watermelons were the same for the discriminative stimuli,for example,were watermelons that were shared bigger than those that were eaten alone? Were the sharing among the same sex ? If watermelons were shared in situations that involved both males and females,gender could have been an artifact here.( I am trying to see how I can connect this to Harlow's wire mesh monkey studies.but this is for another time). Btw,there is a group of Franciscan monks named OFM Cap because their habits emulate the capuchins and the stigmatist Padre Pio was also a capuchin and I am not certain if St.John of the Cross was also a capuchin.(Just thought someone would like to know} Send me something.
Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD Daytona Beach,Florida --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=6972 or send a blank email to leave-6972-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
