April 07 Commentary Available
Why Study Animal Behavior?
I teach animal behavior at a local community college and in this era of worldwide political chaos it would be easy to suffer from low course esteem. Those who teach history can proudly declare, “See? Didn’t I tell you that those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it? Look at this example, and this one, and this one.†And what could be more important than a solid background in political science or economics to make sense of today’s seemingly nonsensical world? Still, I would argue that knowledge of animal behavior serves as a virtual rosetta stone when it comes to analyzing certain human displays because these often represent fundamental concepts inherent in the behavior of even the lowest life forms.
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