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Showing posts from March, 2010

Not So Special After All

I just finished reading Frans De Waal's "The Age of Empathy" and just recently listened to a lecture by Dr Robin Murphy entitled "Does Rule Making Make Us Human?" De Waal is a primatologist of world fame, Robin is a Darwinian psychologist. One studies primates, the other studies rats.  Both relate stories of animals showing real signs of empathy - such as sharing food, returning grooming, trying to rescue a fellow. Rats refusing to press a lever that would release food if the consequence is a fellow rat being shocked - Robin relates the story of a rat depriving himself of food for several days in order to avoid inflicting pain to his friend. De Waal argues that empathy is an innate ability that many animals have.  Empathy, he argues, implies having a sense of who we are and he relates experiments involving dolphins and primates able to recognize themselves in a mirror.  If a primate mother dies, other females take care of her orphan.  He even mentions cro...