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Cat Meows Have Evolved Because of Humans
GuyMannDude writes: "ABCNews.com has a story on research being done at Cornell University's Psychology of Voice and Sound Laboratory on cat meows. The scientists believe that over generations, cats have learned how to meow in different ways specifically in order to hook into human perception tendencies and get what they want."
Our society has become so dominated by the evolutionary theories that whenever something changes over time, it doesn't change, but evolves, as if it were a change in the make-up of a cat's genetic code.
That's exactly how it's supposed to happen. All evolution by natural selection as described by neo-darwinism involves a change in a specie's genetic pool.
If you are trying to debunk evolutionary as only a "theory", something George W. Bush said recently, please note that the scientific definition of "theory" is very different from the layman's definition. An idea has to be able to withstand unrelenting scrutiny in order to earn the title "theory." Evolution through natural selection is an easily observed occurance and can be proven through statistical and mathematical analysis. Neo-Darwinist principles should be renamed "The Law of Evolution through Natural Selection" just as we currently have "The Law of Gravity."
> We feed and take care of cats despite the fact
> that they do absolutely nothing for us.
In rural areas cats are kept in barns and other such
buildings to keep the rodent population under control.
I've noticed several times how a cat will adapt to be more and more attention grabbing as time goes on, and how her housemates will learn particularly effective behavior quite rapidly.
IP is just rude.
Is there any torture so subl
I'm not sure where I heard this tidbit exactly; I think it was a video documentary about cats. Anyway, it seems that cats by themselves do not meow to each other or to animals other than humans -- it's something that they only do with us.
It's not only a parental thing handed down the line either -- we have one cat that was separated at birth from her mother, and she is very good at indicating when she wants affection, a trip outside, or food. As to her emotional needs beyond that short list, I'm afraid I'm not evolved enough to pick those up. The other cat, being a glutton, only asks for food whenever possible, though she does trill a lot.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
I think the first poster had a valid point, and that is that in the popular conception, any change over this timescale is seen as evolution, when, sometimes, it's just change.
Incidentally, the hyper-Darwinstic viewpoint is not accepted by most scientists, either. (By h-D I mean, as I stated above, the conception that all change is evolution.) The mechanism for evolution is a random process. We can only hope to understand it in the average, large-scale dynamics. And a good amount of the time, a random change will not lead to progress. It's just that since there is a selection bias towards things that work, you do see it.
Come on, give it up, that's
I think the first poster had a valid point, and that is that in the popular conception, any change over this timescale is seen as evolution, when, sometimes, it's just change.
The popular conception which you descibe is infact correct. Evolution is change over time. Evolution doesn't have to use the mechanism put forward by Darwin and refined by various others. Stellar evolution is a example of this.
Your post is also misleading in stating that the "The mechanism for evolution is a random process". Random processes are only a part of evolution. The natural selection bit also plays a very considerable role. To leave it out, leaves one open to creationist probability strawmen.
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