October 05, 2004
DARWIN AND BAMBI
Of Pandas and Men (Roberto Riviera, Touchstone, July, 2004)
I have my own theory about the markings: They make the creatures so cute that people care about what happens to them. Because, let’s face it, evolutionarily speaking, giant pandas are losers.This is akin to the insoluble problem evolutionists have with morality. Their naturalist world view forces them to explain right and wrong as genetically determined instincts that foster collective survival, even in the face of cases where morality obviously conflicts with utility or survival. But the one question they can’t answer is: now that we are clever and knowledgeable enough to understand all that and see that morality is just an atavistic, herd-survival instinct, why would any of us care anymore?Unlike their ursine cousins who will eat almost anything, giant pandas—as you probably know—basically eat one thing: bamboo stems and leaves. Okay, two things. (No one is sure why. It’’s not for lack of options. Their home range supports other animals, such as the snow leopard, golden monkey, golden langur, and musk deer, none of whom share the giant panda’’s “dietary restrictions.”) If that weren’t bad enough, bamboo ranks just ahead of cardboard and Styrofoam on the nutritional scale. To complete the nutritional trifecta, the giant panda is actually a carnivore with a carnivore’s digestive system. So, at best, it’s capable of extracting only 20 percent of the bamboo’s already meager nutritional value.
Then there’s the giant panda’s reproductive strategy. As one conservationist website put it, giant pandas are “notoriously unenthusiastic about breeding.” Anyone living in the Washington area is familiar with the difficulties the National Zoo has had in breeding the animals: a mating season that seems to last 34 minutes, males who are apparently clueless as to how females should be approached, and other problems that make panda pregnancies relatively rare.
And when female pandas do get pregnant, their bamboo diet leads to a very short gestational period and the smallest infants—as measured by their weight relative to their mother’s, a 1,000 to 1 ratio—of all placental mammals. If mom doesn’t accidentally roll over and crush the infant, there’s still the problem of neglect. Half of all panda births are twins. Almost invariably, the mother will choose one infant and completely neglect the other, resulting in its death. That’s why the Wolong Center had to develop what it calls “swap raising,” whereby the twins take turns being with their mother. It’s as if the species is implementing the recommendations of some prehistoric extinction consultant.
For those who take their Darwinism, as Thelonious Monk might have put it, straight, no chaser, the logical response to the plight of the giant panda is “tough.” Evolution is, if nothing else, unsentimental. It rewards adaptability and punishes, in the medium-to-long term, overspecialization. If your diet and habitat disappear—and that has happened countless times in Earth’s history—then you do, too.[...]
Yet, no one finds anything noteworthy about the lengths to which humans are prepared to go to save the giant panda and other endangered species. In Panda Nursery, the willingness of the breeding program director to spend time away from his own child to care for the panda’s was depicted as a sign of his dedication.
What wasn’t noted was the irony that a member of the apex species would—forgive the way I’m putting this—sacrifice the care of its own young to care for the young of a species incapable of doing it on its own. Likewise, in purely evolutionary terms, the mark of out-competing another species is that, at the end of the day (pardon the cliché), you’re here and they’re not. Yet humans are not only willing to surrender habitat—i.e., create reserves—to help preserve another species, they’re convinced it’s the right thing to do.
And it is. It’s just not the Darwinian thing to do. Oh yeah, biologists treat biodiversity as an indispensable good of human existence, but it’s nothing of the kind. There are probably indispensable species out there, but apart from a few food plants, I’m hard-pressed to name any of them. (Contrary to what you’ve heard, the rain forests aren’’t the “lungs” of the planet. As Bjorn Lomborg writes in The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World, if all the plants on the planet died and decomposed, the process would consume less than one percent of the atmosphere’s oxygen.)
If anything, animals are even less indispensable to human existence than plants. As animal-rights activists never tire of telling us, we don’t need to eat animals to survive; soy, legumes, and grains can provide the necessary protein. We’ve technologically outgrown our need for animal labor, at least in the industrial world. What’s true of chicks, ducks, geese, and other things that scurry is especially true of the giant panda. If it and many other species were gone tomorrow, the material impact on human existence would be less than negligible; it would be nonexistent. Saving them from extinction has nothing to do with self-interest.
What it has to do with is the qualities that cause humans, alone among the millions of species on Earth, to ponder their obligations to other species. As Leon Kass pointed out in The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis, our capacity to ponder that question proves that we are not just another species. Peter Singer, Matthew Scully, and, more recently, Jeffrey Moussaeiff, have all written, with ample justification, against the cruel treatment of animals.
What often goes unmentioned in the debate about animal rights is that only human beings could debate animal rights. Not just because of the uniqueness of human language but because the arguments and appeals in such a debate only resonate with humans. Pardon the rhetorical questions, but do lions care about the suffering of the zebra? Do Orcas, which often toss their prey back and forth like a beach ball before finally killing it, care about the feelings of seals?
Our relationship to the rest of creation is different, and we know this is true even if we don’t believe in the biblical God. Even if we consider Genesis to be a pious fairy tale, we still see ourselves as the protector of other animals, especially those that are having a hard time surviving. That’s as it should be. What’s not is insisting that man act as if he were special while, at the same time, insisting that he’s not.
Posted by Peter Burnet at October 5, 2004 01:43 PM
"But the one question they can’t answer is: now that we are clever and knowledgeable enough to understand all that and see that morality is just an atavistic, herd-survival instinct, why would any of us care anymore?"
Let's rephrase this a little just to point out how silly it is:
"But the one question they can’t answer is: now that we are clever and knowledgeable enough to understand all that and see that sex is just an atavistic, herd-survival instinct, why would any of us care anymore?"
Sex is waaaay more fun than morality.
Posted by: Timothy at October 5, 2004 02:17 PM"Then there’s the giant panda’s reproductive strategy. As one conservationist website put it, giant pandas are “notoriously unenthusiastic about breeding.” Anyone living in the Washington area is familiar with the difficulties the National Zoo has had in breeding the animals: a mating season that seems to last 34 minutes, males who are apparently clueless as to how females should be approached, and other problems that make panda pregnancies relatively rare."
Sounds like how I remember Saturday nights at the University of Chicago.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 5, 2004 02:19 PMIt appears pandas are abulic in regards to mating.
Posted by: carter at October 5, 2004 02:40 PMI think we have a winner.
Posted by: joe shropshire at October 5, 2004 02:47 PMRaoul -- I don't remember any lack of enthusiasm, although that cluelessness remark does strike home.
Posted by: David Cohen at October 5, 2004 02:50 PMWorked great for the passenger pigeon.
Orrin, where DO you find these ignoramuses?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 5, 2004 03:30 PMUntil now, everything I've read from "ID" (intelligent design) proponents struck me as ravings from obsessive nutballs, the type who sends in "proofs" to math departments of "squaring the circle".
Now this Mr. Rivera writes delightful prose, not at all nutball-like. Is he an ID man? I agree fully that there is an inconsistency between the dispassionate (value-free? amoral?) stance of the evolution scientist on the one hand, and the fussing and clucking by the environmentalist over vanishing species on the other, at least when these are merely two hats worn by the same person.
But does he have a beef with the theory of evolution as such, and if so, what is it?
Or does he simply wish to point out that our Judeo-Christian morality -- embattled as it may be -- is grounded in its own right and cannot be understood as deriving from evolutionary principles?
If so, does Mr. Rivera feel that morality and science, even though neither can be subsumed by the other, are capable of co-existing, or does he reject the theory of evolution?
Posted by: Eugene S. at October 5, 2004 03:34 PMAnybody remember what the post was about?
What is the survival value of all this religion business? Just look at the United States and Europe. or the United States and the FORMER Soviet Union. The religiously formed sense of right and wrong makes limited government possible, which makes a free economy possible, which makes great wealth possible, which. . .it goes on and on.
If you do not have Big Father, you need big brother, and big brother stifles your creativity and productivity. Religion sometimes cramps your sexual style if you are the alternative life-style type , but that is a price to be paid.
Posted by: Lou Gots at October 5, 2004 03:40 PMYeah, just look at overwhelmingly Catholic South America, and the limited governments there, and the great wealth that being religious societies has made possible... Uh, er, um...
Religion may be an integral part of what made and makes America great, but it's merely one factor.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at October 5, 2004 04:04 PMThere are plenty of collective survival traits that conflict with individual utility or survival.
The penguin practice of crowding together along a shoreline, until one or more fall in, testing for the presence of predators.
Human childbirth, which used to kill an awful lot of women.
Why would we assume that humans can, or should, get rid of atavistic, herd-survival instincts ?
It's not as though there's less need to get along than there was in the past.
Posted by: Buck Rogers at October 5, 2004 04:19 PMPeter, just think about it. If it's an instinct, how can you not care about it?
Posted by: Robert Duquette at October 6, 2004 03:03 AMNow, wouldn't that be a terrific name for the new DC baseball team, doncha think?
GO PANDAS GO!!
Just consider the mascot possibilities....
(And one can certainly discuss the vagaries of Darwinism and the role of religion in society during the seventh inning stretch.)
Posted by: Barry Meislin at October 6, 2004 06:30 AMRobert:
With respect, that is absurd. Take adultery as an example. The instinct, both parties willing, seems to be clearly to commit it, not avoid it. But, if you are going to twist and turn desperately by arguing that we don't commit it only because of some ingrained, collective, utilitarian, genotype survival impulse, how do you explain that so many do? How many penguins has "Buck" (with his Herdegen-like confidence) heard of that take a pass from the shoreline herding and decide, to heck with the tribe, they are on their own?
Posted by: Peter B at October 6, 2004 07:01 AMThe lead off question was:
"But the one question [evolutionists] answer is: now that we are clever and knowledgeable enough to understand all that and see that morality is just an atavistic, herd-survival instinct, why would any of us care anymore?"
Far from being a question evolutionists can't answer, it is one that must stump religionists. Let's take as stipulated that the only source of morality is God. That means at any time, God can simply decree that what once was right is now wrong, and vice versa.
I have it on good authority--OJ--that this has already happened. According to Leviticus, eating shellfish was once an abomination in the eyes of God. Not anymore, so it seems.
The same could go for murder, or adultery.
This means morality is not fixed, but dependends only upon the whim of God.
The alternative, of course, is that however we came to be, our morality--imperfect though it may be--is innately based.
Which makes God, as far as morality goes, dispensable.
Peter:
Why not adultery? Payback is hell.
See also: murder, theft, bearing false witness.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at October 6, 2004 12:24 PMPeter,
It is possible to have more than one set of instincts, and that these instincts can be in conflict. Why does your house have a furnace and an air conditioner? Why does your car have an accelerator and a brake? Our optimum level of survival required a balance of personal ambition and social harmony. Why is that hard to grasp?
Robert:
Ooohhhh. Click! I see now. Why does my house have air-conditioning and a furnace? Yes, it is suddenly all clear. Thanks so much.
Jeff:
Why is payback hell? Surely a modern, educated spouse who saw it was just atavistic instinct would no more care if her spouse committed adultery than if he ate shellfish. I mean, what is the point of knowing all this cool evolutionary scientific stuff it we can't change to make our behaviours rational and consistent with it--and have a little fun while we're at it? Are you suggesting we are condemned to act forever as if we were still Neandrethals trying to keep the tribe in good shape? Why don't we just shoot the stupid pandas and get on with it?
Posted by: Peter B at October 6, 2004 02:48 PMWell, Peter, we are.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at October 6, 2004 04:07 PMPeter:
Come now, you can be more serious than that. Being products of evolution directly contradicts the kind of flexibility you imply.
I am definitely suggesting that, while human behavior is somewhat flexible, it is far from infinitely so.
After all, every form of behavior we engage in has material consequences. From experience, women know full well the material consequences of adultery.
That is why the iffy prospect of some purported after life hell, likely vitiated by all that sin-forgiving, practically vanishes in comparison to the real life hell a wronged woman can--and should--dish out.
No need to invoke God the Hairy Thunderer (or Cosmic Muffin, depending on which version you use).
Robert makes far more sense than you give him credit for--he is simply noting that most things are a balance between opposing forces.
Posted by: Jeff Guinn at October 8, 2004 07:37 AM