offspring?

[Stormy]

Hi Stray. I have not seen you for awhile.

I think I will do some reading on instinct and evolution.

 

[notto]

Originally posted by Stormy

My question was why would the parents act in a maternal way? What advantage is it to them? It seems that by itself, this plan would have never gotten off the ground. The parents would have to somehow be motivated.
They would have to feel love.

How can that need be supplied by evolution alone.

It doesn't matter if there is advantage to the parent, only if there is an advantage to the offspring (and the instinct is passed on to their instinct). I doubt the mother in nature "knows" she is providing an advantage because again, she is following and instinct that she got from her mother, and so on and so on.

Think of it this way.

Two mother cats have a litter of babies a long time ago. In one family, there is a new instict (caused by environmental factors, new genetic mutation or a simple chemical difference in the brain). This instinct cause the mother (for whatever reason) to lick her babies as she nurses them. The second litter does not get this behavior. This new behavior provides an advantage to the kittens by fighting infection, fleas, ticks, etc. The kittens in this litter do much better because of this and more of them survive. Because of the nature of the new behavior, perhaps it has been passed on to the litter and they, in turn, will treat their offspring the same way (whether it is through a learned behavior that they duplicate what there mother does or whether it was genetic and passed on).

It provides no advantage to the mother. The mother does not "know" she is taking care of her babies.

I've seen mother cats who completely ignor their litters (I grew up on a farm with many new cat litters every year). I've also seen mother cats protect their kittens by endangering their own lives. Many litters did not survive because of the behavior of the mother, but the ones that did, often would go on to be protective mothers themselves.

Just something to think about as you do your reading. Don't try to put the thoughts of the mother on our terms. Instinct and love can be very different things (is Lust an instinct?). (I've also seen father cats kill kittens because the males in the litter pose a threat to his "dating" potential).

Edited to add: We also raised pigs and if it wasn't for MY compassionate mother, many of the runts of the litter would have simply died shortly after they were born. The sows never showed interest in them and instead their energy was expended to feed the healthy piglets. Humans superseed natural selective pressure when it comes to our own offspring and the offpring of others (we also often spent many hours caring for the abandon kittens!).

 

[MSBS]

Question to the class--

How many of you had ancestors that died in childhood?

 

[Jerry Smith]

So you think that LOVE is explainable?

Yes, in principle. I don't think that it is fully explained yet. Love is an umbrella term that covers a variety of complex phenomena... One would have to explain each of those phenomena independantly.

 

[Zipporah]

Originally posted by MSBS
Question to the class--

How many of you had ancestors that died in childhood?

Relevance?

Errrrrm ..... none of my ancestors died in childhood.  If they had, I wouldn't be here, would I.

However, several ancestral siblings have died.  (I assume this is what you meant.)  I know my mother lost two brothers at a young age, and my paternal grandfather also lost brothers and sisters - I believe that out of thirteen children, nine survived.

 

[LewisWildermuth]

I think that was the point Zippora...

Nurturing instinct hepls insure the continuance not only of a species but specific blood lines.

 

[JohnR7]

Originally posted by MSBS
Question to the class--

How many of you had ancestors that died in childhood?

I had a grandfather die when I was three years old, does that qualify as my childhood?