Topic 1. Humans Beings and Animal Behavior: A brief historyHuman origins-Present.As long as there have been humans, they have been observing animals. Evidence of this comes from cave paintings and remains of animals such as dogs in close proximity to human remains.Early human/animal interactions and observations were undoubtedly of an exploitive nature since humans hunt, eat, and otherwise use animals for survival.Humans have also been domesticating animals for use as food, protection, leather, wool, etc. through the process of artificial selection. (A process in which humans consciously select for or against particular features in organisms. For example, the human may allow only organisms withthe desired feature to reproduce or may provide more resources to the organisms with the desiredfeature. This process causes evolutionary change in the organism and is analogous to natural selection, only with humans, not nature, doing the selecting.)1 It has been established that dogs were the first domesticated animals as a result of artificial selection 18,000-32,000 years ago.Greco-Roman Period in Western civilization.When writing became more common and “natural philosophers” observed animal behavior they would record their findings. It is not clear whether these authors actually saw and objectively recorded the behaviors of animals or whether they depended on the sometimes fanciful stories brought back by sailors or explorers. One common attribute of these descriptions is that they often contained a significant degree of anthropomorphism2 which is something modern animal behavior researchers try very hard to avoid.Medieval Europe.During this time illuminated manuscripts of animal behaviors were used by educators and prieststo impart religious or moral lessons to the mostly illiterate population.3 Bestiaries (a descriptive or anecdotal treatise on various real or mythical kinds of animals, especially a medieval work with a moralizing tone) are well-known to historians. Three 19th Century discoveries that strongly influenced our modern approach to animal behavior.1. Publication of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin’s contribution to natural science, not just biology or animal behavior, cannot be overestimated. Remember that Darwin didn’t actually initiate the concept of “evolution,” but provided a mechanism (natural selection) by which evolution can occur. (Lamarck tried without success to develop a mechanism forevolution called “inheritance of acquired characteristics.”) Darwin used artificial selection as a strong analogy to natural selection. The flow chart of evolutionary reasoning is a very simple demonstration of evolution by natural selection with 4 observations and 3 conclusions (RLF=Replacement Level Fertility). Remember a few things about evolution by natural selection:a. Natural selection occurs to individuals, but evolution ONLY occurs to populations.b. Natural selection and Evolution are NOT the same things.c. An individual changing within their lifetime is NOT evolution (maturation or metamorphosis perhaps, but NOT evolution).d. Darwin also developed the concept of sexual selection, but did not have the information to be able to develop the concept of kin selection.2. Development of the Comparative Method.Although George John Romanes formalized a comparative method in studying animal behavior, his statements were hampered by a belief in the Scala Naturae4 and obvious anthropomorphism. C. Lloyd Morgan took the basic idea of comparative methods, but insisted that only directly observed behaviors should be used to analyze animal behaviors.3. Science of genetics and inheritance.The vast majority of animal behavior researchers today acknowledge the influence of both genes (alleles) and environment in resulting animal behaviors.Three major 20th Century influences on animal behavior.1. Comparative Psychology (1900-present)2. Ethology (1930-present)3. Behavioral Ecology (1960-present)1. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/evo_302. anthropomorphism in Medicine: anthropomorphism an·thro·po·mor·phism (ān'thr -p -ə əmôr'fĭz' m) ə n. The attribution of human motivation, characteristics, or behavior to nonhuman organisms or inanimate objects.3. http://bestiary.ca/4.