Justin Erik Halldór Smith

Forget Fodor and Piatelli-Palmarini

The real reason polar bears are white:

It may be perpended whether [pigmentation] might not fall out the same way that Jacobs cattel became speckled, spotted and ring-straked, that is, by the Power and Efficacy of Imagination; which produceth effects in the conception correspondent unto the phancy of the Agents in generation; and sometimes assimilates the Idea of the Generator into a reality in the thing ingendred. For, hereof there pass for current many indisputed examples, so in Hippocrates we read of one, that from the view and intention of a Picture conceived a Negro; and in the history of Heliodore of a Moorish Queen, who upon aspection of the Picture of Andromeda, conceived and brought forth a fair one. And thus perhaps might some say it was the beginning of this complexion: induced first by Imagination, which having once impregnated the seed, found afterward concurrent co-operations, which were continued by Climes, whose constitution advantaged the first impression. Thus Plotinus conceiveth white Peacocks first came in. Thus many opinion that from aspection of the Snow, which lieth long in Northern Regions, and high mountains, Hawks, Kites, Bears and other creatures become white

--Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 1646, Bk. VI, ch. 10, 275-76.

Elephant Wars

Tim Flannery notes in a recent review, of books that to me look mostly bad, that "elephants have been known to raid a shed filled with the body parts of slaughtered elephants, removing the feet and ears (which were destined to be turned into umbrella stands) and burying them." This follows the various reports over the past decade of complicated premeditated raids by elephants on villages inhabited by humans who, often years before, had killed members of their elephant families.

In the Politics Aristotle says that hunting is a form of war, and the common wisdom has it that this is a war that has been decisively won by humans in the past few millennia. We have killed off the great majority of other megafauna species, and now the only creatures that pose any real threat to us are mosquito-sized and smaller. But elephants remind us that the war is still on in some spots. The particular expression of their violence can only lead one to conclude that 'war' is not an analogy here. In fact, what their behavior most resembles is that of besieged guerillas, who are ultimately doomed and have no real hope of winning against their enemy, and are fighting, whether they know it or not, precisely because they are doomed.

What more, I wonder, do elephants have to do in order to have their moral personhood acknowledged? Write an elephant version of The Praise of Folly? What does a creature have to do in order for humans to stop dismissing as 'anthropocentrism' what looks in every way like the behavior of a reflective, moral agent?

Some might of course feel emboldened in their dismissal of the moral status of elephants by the fact that they act with such violence. But the interesting thing about this violence is that it is a feature of their behavioral repertoire that can either be manifested, or not. The refusal to attribute a moral character to animal behavior in the history of philosophy has often been grounded in the belief that animal behavior simply flows from animal nature, that there is nothing an animal does that it could just as well not have done. But elephants, like people, appear much more likely to flip out when they or their loved ones have been messed with. Elephant attacks have nothing of the character of, say, shark attacks, which really do flow directly from the shark's nature. It is simply a scientific mistake to suppose that the elephant attack ought to be studied in more or less the same way as the shark attack, rather than, say, a Naxalite attack in rural India. 

Maoist insurrection has as its root cause the inability of human beings to share land and resources; it is a problem of demography and geography. One way of solving this problem would be to cull human populations to the point where everyone could share resources to the satisfaction of all. But of course no one seriously considers this an option, since each individual human is supposed to have an irreducible moral status that precludes the possibility of treating them as anything other than an end in themselves. Yet it remains a fringe view to suggest that elephant populations should not be culled for their own good. Flannery, for example, who appears to recognize all of the different respects in which elephants behave as individual moral agents, still advocates culling. Why is this? Again, it is not enough to say that if we don't cull them, then they are doomed, since evidently the same reasoning could not possibly be invoked with respect to any human population. Human beings as a species probably are doomed, in fact, for reasons having much to do with overpopulation and competition for resources, but what righteous and decent people do nonetheless is to look for ways to save every last one of them, rather than just some of them. I want to know what it is that permits us to reason differently in the different cases, other than the fact that they are elephants, and we are human. This is true, but it's not an argument.

The great Pleistocene megafauna kill-off must have been quite a scene. Part of me --and perhaps this comes from reading too much Walter Burkert recently-- wants to think that Aristotle's characterization of hunting as a form of war derives from some ancestral memory of a time when European pachyderms were still putting up a good fight against their human competitors. In other parts of the world, in the hunting of other species, this activity has been conceptualized not on the model of war, but on the model of gift-giving. It's hard to imagine that anyone ever thought a mammoth was 'giving itself', especially if what we now know about existing elephant species --that they do in fact fight wars-- can be projected back to the extinct ones.

Wednesday Animals, #13

Baraminology in Action!

Holobaramin of the Chimp-Gorilla Relationship

Some Archaebaramins

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For more, equally delirious illustrations, purporting to show the relations between divinely created animal kinds, please see Wayne Frair, "Baraminology-- Classification of Created Kinds," in Creation Research Science Quarterly Journal 37, 2 (2000): 82-91. 

Wednesday Animals, #12

The Most Impious of Animals

Here again I may as well speak of the peculiarities of animals. The sheep and the ass seem inclined to be sluggish; fawns, roe-deer, gazelles, antelopes, hares (which poets style 'cowerers') are timorous creatures. Timorous also are sparrows among birds, and the mullet among fishes. Baboons and goats are lecherous, and it is even said that the latter have intercourse with women- a fact which Pindar also appears to marvel at. And even hounds are said to have assaulted women, and indeed it is reported that a woman in Rome was accused by her husband of adultery, and the adulterer in the case was stated to be a hound. And I have heard that baboons have fallen madly in love with girls and have even raped them, being more wanton than the little boys in the all-night revels of Menander. The partridge is extremely lecherous and given to adultery; at any rate these birds are said to go after the hens stealthily and with hardly a sound. Dogs do not admit others to share their food on any account; at any rate they often tear one another over a bone, just like Menelaus and Paris over Helen. I am told that the dogs of Memphis are the only ones that pool their prey and share their food. The hog is implacable and devoid of justice; at any rate these creatures eat one another's dead bodies. And the majority of fishes do the same. But the most impious of all is the hippopotamus, for it even eats its own father.

--Aelian, On Animals VII, 19.

Wednesday Animals, #11

The Asse is called in Latine Asinus, in Greeke Oros and Killos... The Haebrues call it Chamor, and the Persyans Care... the Italyans, Lasino, the Spaniardes Asno, the French Vng asne, the Germans Esel, Mul, and the Illyrians Osel; the which beast is intituled or phrased with many epithites among Poets; as, slow, burthen-bearing, back-bearing, vile, cart-drawing, mill-labouring, sluggish, crooked, vulgar, slow-paced, long-eared, blockish, braying, ydle, devill-hayred, filthy, saddle-bearer, slow-foot, four-foot, unsavoury, and a beast of miserable condition; beside many other such titles in the Greeke.

Asses are ingendred both by their owne kind and also by horses... An asse is more desirous of copulation than a horse... If a horse cover a female asse which hath been entred by a male asse, he cannot alter the seed of the asse: but if an asse cover a Mare which a horse hath formerly entered, he will destroy the seed of the horse.

When an asse dieth, out of his body are ingendred certaine Flies, called Scarabees. 

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From Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, Describing the true and lively figure of every Beast, with a discourse of their severall Names, Conditions, Kindes, Vertues (both naturall and medicinall), Countries of their breed, their love and hate to Mankinde, and the wonderfull worke of God in their Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, London, 1607.

Wednesday Animals, #10

Of the Gorgon, or strange Lybian Beast

Among the manifold and divers sorts of Beasts which are bred in Affricke, it is thought that the Gorgon is brought foorth in that countrey. It is a feareful and terrible beast to behold, it hath high and thicke eie-lids, eies not very great, but much like an Oxes or Bugils, but all fiery-bloudy, which neyther looke directly forwarde, nor yet upwards, but continuallye downe to the earth, and therefore are called in Greeke Catobleponta. From the crowne of their head downe to their nose they have a long hanging mane, which maketh them to look fearefully. It eateth deadly and poysonfull hearbs, and if at any time he see a Bull or other creature whereof he is afraid, he presently causeth his mane to stand upright, and being so lifted up, opening his lips, and gaping wide, sendeth forth of his throat a certaine sharpe and horrible breath, which infecteth and poysoneth the air above his head, so that all living creatures which draw in the breath of that aire are greevously afflicted thereby, loosing both voyce and sight, they fall into leathall and deadly convulsions...

By the consideration of this beast there appeareth one manifest argument of the creators devine wisdome and providence, who hath turned the eies of this beaste downeward to the earth, as it were thereby burying his poyson from the hurt of man; and shaddowing them with rough, long, and strong haire, that their poysoned beames should not reflect upwards, untill the beast were provoked by feare or danger, the heavines[s] of his head being like a clogge to restraine the liberty of his poysonfull nature, but what other partes, vertues, or vices, are contained in the compasse of this monster, God onely knoweth, who peradventure hath permitted it to live uppon the face of the earth, for no other cause but to be a punnishment and scourge unto mankind: and an evident example of his owne wrathfull power to everlasting destruction. And thus much may serve for a discription of this beast, untill by gods providence, more can be known thereof.

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From Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes, Describing the true and lively figure of every Beast, with a discourse of their severall Names, Conditions, Kindes, Vertues (both naturall and medicinall), Countries of their breed, their love and hate to Mankinde, and the wonderfull worke of God in their Creation, Preservation, and Destruction, London, 1607.

 

Wednesday Animals, #9

The Weasel

[T]hese Sorceresses so confidently pronouncing that they are out of their Bodies at such times, and see and do such & such things, meet one another, bring messages, discover secrets and the like, it is more naturall and easy to conclude they be really out of their Bodies, then in them. Which we should the more easily be induced to believe, if we could give credit to that Story Wierus tells of a Souldier out of whose mouth whilest he was asleep a thing in the shape of a Wesell came, which nudling along in the grasse and at last coming to a brook side, very busily attempting to get over but not being able, some one of the standers by that saw it, made a bridge for it of his sword, which it passed over by, and coming back made use of the same passage, and then entred into the Souldier's mouth again, many looking on: when he waked he told how he dream'd he had gone over an iron Bridge, and other particulars answerable to what the spectatours had seen afore-hand. Wierus acknowledgeth the truth of the story, but will by all means have it to be the Divell, not the Soul of the Man; which he doth in a tender regard to the Witches that from such a truth as this they might not be made so obnoxious to suspicion that their Extasies are not mere Dreames and Delusions of the Divell, but are accompanied with reall effects.

I will not take upon me to decide so nice a controversy, only I will make bold to intermeddle thus farre as to pronounce Bodinus his opinion, not at all unworthy of a rationall and sagacious man. And that though by his being much addicted to such like speculations he might attribute some naturall effects to the ministry of Spirits, when there was no need so to doe, yet his judgement in other things of this kind is no more to be slighted for that, then Cartesius, that stupendious Mechanicall Wit, is to be disallowed in those excellent inventions of the causes of those more generall Phaenomena of Nature, because by his successe in those he was imboldned to enlarge his Principles too farre, and to assert that Animalls themselves were mere Machina's.

--Henry More, Antidote against Atheisme, 1653, Book III, ch. 9.

Wednesday Animals, #8

From Virgil's Georgics, Part III. (To read Aristotle on the lustfulness of mares, for the sake of comparison to Virgil's account, go here. To read the original Latin, click 'keep reading' below.)

O'er all conspicuous is the rage of mares,
By Venus' self inspired of old, what time
The Potnian four with rending jaws devoured
The limbs of Glaucus. Love-constrained they roam
Past Gargarus, past the loud Ascanian flood;
They climb the mountains, and the torrents swim;
And when their eager marrow first conceives
The fire, in Spring-tide chiefly, for with Spring
Warmth doth their frames revisit, then they stand
All facing westward on the rocky heights,
And of the gentle breezes take their fill;
And oft unmated, marvellous to tell,
But of the wind impregnate, far and wide
O'er craggy height and lowly vale they scud,
Not toward thy rising, Eurus, or the sun's,
But westward and north-west, or whence up-springs
Black Auster, that glooms heaven with rainy cold.
Hence from their groin slow drips a poisonous juice,
By shepherds truly named hippomanes,
Hippomanes, fell stepdames oft have culled,
And mixed with herbs and spells of baneful bode.

Wednesday Animals, #7

Of female animals the mare is the most sexually wanton, and next in order comes the cow. In fact, the mare is said to go a-horsing; and the term derived from the habits of this one animal serves as a term of abuse applicable to such females of the human species as are unbridled in the way of sexual appetite. This is [a] common phenomenon as observed in the sow when she is said to go a-boaring. The mare is said also about this time to get wind-impregnated if not impregnated by the stallion, and for this reason in Crete they never remove the stallion from the mares; for when the mare gets into this condition she runs away from all other horses. The mares under these circumstances fly invariably either northwards or southwards, and never towards either east or west. When this complaint is on them they allow no one to approach, until either they are exhausted with fatigue or have reached the sea. Under either of these circumstances they discharge a certain substance [called] hippomanes, the title given to a growth on a new-born foal; this resembles the sow-virus, and is in great request amongst women who deal in drugs and potions. About horsing time the mares huddle closer together, are continually switching their tails, their neigh is abnormal in sound, and from the sexual organ there flows a liquid resembling genital sperm, but much thinner than the sperm of the male. It is this substance that some call hippomanes, instead of the growth found on the foal; they say it is extremely difficult to get as it oozes out only in small drops at a time. Mares also, when in heat, discharge urine frequently, and frisk with one another. Such are the phenomena connected with the horse.

(Aristotle, History of Animals, Bk. VI)

Wednesday Animals, #6

"His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and macaroni, which the Right whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back."

Wednesday Animals, #5

[This is a satirical request written by G. W. Leibniz in early 1680 to his employer, the Duke of Hannover, ostensibly on behalf of the dogs residing at the royal court. Leibniz is responding to news of the invention, by Denis Papin, of the pressure cooker, which has been described as being capable of reducing even bones to a soft state in which they can be consumed by humans. For Papin's description of the machine, in the form of a report to the Royal Society of London, see A new digester or engine for softning bones containing the description of its make and use in these particulars: viz. cookery, voyages at sea, confectionary, making of drinks, chymistry, and dying: with an account of the price a good big engine will cost, and of the profit it will afford, by Denys Papin, London: Printed by J.M. for Henry Bonwicke, 1681. I've translated it from A I 3, N. 67]

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Request of the Dogs, presented to Mr. ..., French Agent General of Cuisine, and Secretary of State of this body for foreign affairs, currently located in his professional capacity at the court of Hannover.

We, the undersigned Dogs, the bloodhounds, the greyhounds, the sleuth-hounds, the lapdogs, and other dogs, large and small, humbly beg your highness to hear, and to make to hear, our reasons for this important grievance.

Your Highness will no doubt recall, having read so widely and gained such fine knowledge, that the great Diogenes, called the Cynic or the 'canine' in view of the affection that he gave us, had the custom of declaring loudly that there was sometimes a greater difference from one dog to another, than there is between certain men and certain beasts. Nevertheless, notwithstanding this great diversity among dogs, which makes them seem almost of different species, the entire body [of dogs] is now united in order to defend one of the most glorious rights our nation has ever had, and which they now wish to steal from us in an undertaking that will have very dangerous consequences. For we have learned from our correspondents that a certain quidam [i.e., Papin] claims to be able to make bones soft and suitable for being eaten by men, without thereby spoling the flesh at all, and that said quidam wishes to send his cooking pots and his entire apparatus to the Court of Hannover so that they may be tried out there. To which we have deemed it necessary to voice our opposition in a timely fashion. For although we can hardly believe it, and we should take it all for so much fanciful dreaming, nevertheless some malign demon of the canine race or of the human race, wishing to distrub the good understanding that has existed for all time between dogs and men, might have given the idea of this secret to this man, just as another demon no doubt gave the idea of gunpowder to a monk. There is no room for wondering whether one might be able to call into question the right that we have to the bones that have been stripped of flesh, which have belonged to us since time immemorial without any man or beast undertaking to disturb us in our possession [of them]. Homer and the most ancient authors spoke in explicit terms, and the Scripture, when it says that one must not take bread away from children to give it to dogs, did not however say such a thing about the bones, which they well knew to belong to us since the flood, that is to say since men began to eat the flesh of animals. And although we have relinquished the marrow to men for love of peace, this was only in order to better preserve for ourselves our right to the bones themselves, which was moreover only strengthened by this arrangement. Good God, how far does the covetousness of men reach, who sometimes do not content themselves with eating all that they have, but also have no shame in devouring our portion. But this gluttony might be punished severely by the guardian gods of our species, and by the great Sirius, or the celestial dog, who merited a place among the stars, [and who] will no doubt plead our cause before Jupiter, if men refuse to do us right. But Sirius himself could avenge the injustice of men for us by intensifying the heat of the dog days, of which he is the master, as you know in view of the great knowledge you have of astronomy. What's more, this new dish could have ill effects among men, and could turn them all into cynics, seeing that they are already today inclined towards impudence. 

After much reflection, we leave it to your prudence to consider whether it should be safe and advantageous to forever cut off ties in such a way with the dogs. You know (you who have read so much history) that a certain king, chased from his land, was brought back in the escort of two hundred dogs, who laid waste to the rebels. [You know too] that dogs have saved the lives of their masters, and that other dogs have avenged their masters' deaths. Finally, there are today cities that are guarded by dogs that would in the future be abandoned along with many others, if we are deprived of the better part of our salary. Hunting dogs will no longer attack, and will not pursue any beast; the other dogs will abandon their homes to the thieves, and the sheep to the wolves. And we little lapdogs, we will abandon our mistresses to the lovers who pursue them, and we will no longer bark at whatsoever they might undertake. And finally, there will be much disorder in the kitchens, and all you messieurs les chefs, you will often be left wanting for so much as a morsel of lamb: in denying us the bones, you will lose them along with the meat. This is why it is up to you others above all, as much as it is up to the meat carvers, whose art would be useless, if one were able to cut through the meat without concern for the bone, as one cuts through butter. For these reasons, we beseech Your Highness, upon much reflection, to deliberate in the General Assembly upon a matter of such importnce, and to despatch far away this innovator with his whole apparatus, and to forbid him from entering into all kitchens. And as for you, Monsieur, in particular, you will be so kind as to prevent him from meddling in the kitchen at Hannover. We [ask], with all the respect of which dogs are capable,

the most humble prostrate dogs
of Your Highness:

for the hunting dogs, Lelaps

for the guard dogs, Mopse

for the lapdogs, Amarille

Wednesday Animals, #4, and Thursday Translation, #5 (A Special Joint Session)

Summary of a Letter from G. W. Leibniz to the Abbé de St. Pierre, on a Dog that Speaks

Without a guarantee such as that of Mr. Leibniz, who was an eyewitness, we would not dare to report that near Zeitz, in Meißen, there is a dog that speaks. 

It is a peasant’s dog, of the most common figure, and of a medium size.  A small child heard it pushing out some sounds that he believed to resemble German words, and from that he got the idea to teach it to speak.  The master, who had nothing better to do, spared neither his time nor his efforts, and fortunately the disciple had dispositions that it would have been difficult to find in another.  Finally after some years the dog knew how to pronounce approximately thirty words, among which are Thé, Caffé, Chocolat, Assemblée, French words that passed into German without any change. It is worth noting that the dog was already three years old when it began its schooling. It only speaks as an echo, that is to say, after its master has pronounced a word, and it seems that it only repeats the words by force, and in spite of itself, although it is not at all mistreated.  Again, Mr. Leibniz saw it and heard it.

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Sans un garant tel que Mr. Leibniz, témoin oculaire, nous n'aurions pas la hardiesse de rapporter qu'auprès de Zeitz dans la Misnie il y a un chien qui parle.  C'est un chien de paysan, d'une figure des plus communes, et de grandeur mediocre.  Un jeune enfant lui entendit pousser quelques sons qu'il crut ressembler à des mots Allemands, et sur cela se mit en tête de lui apprendre à Parler.  Le Maître, qui n'avoir rien de mieux à faire, n'y épargna le tems, ni ses peines; et heureusement le disciple avoit des dispositions qu'il eût été difficile de trouver dans un autre.  Enfin au bout de quelques années le chien sçut prononcer environ une trentaine de mots; de ce nombre sont Thé, Caffé, Chocolat, Assemblée, mots François qui ont passé dans l'Allemand tells qu'ils sont.  Il est à remarquer que le chien avoit bien trios ans quand il fut mis à l'école.  Il ne parle que par echo, c'est-à-dire, après que son maître a prononcé un mot, et il semble qu'il ne repète que par force, et malgré lui, quoiqu'on ne le maltraitre point.  Encore une fois, Mr. Leibniz l'a vu et entendu.

--“Exposé d’une lettre de M. Leibnitz à l’abbé de Saint-Pierre sur un chien qui parle,” Histoire de l’académie des sciences, 1706 / Louis Dutens (Ed.), G. G. Leibnitii Opera Omnia II 2, 180.

Wednesday Animals #3

The Whale and the Elephant

Had [the whale's] tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones.

--Herman Melville, Moby Dick. Sketch by Rembrandt van Rijn, 1639.

From the Bookshelf, #3

More from Aelian, On Animals

The Octopus feeds first on one thing and then on another, for it is terribly greedy and forever plotting some evil, the reason being that it is the most omnivorous of all sea-animals. The proof of this is that, should it fail to catch anything, it eats its own tentacles, and by filling its stomach so, finds a remedy for the lack of prey. Later it renews its missing limb, Nature seeming to provide this as a ready meal in times of famine (I 27).

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The Red Mullet is of all sea-animals the most gluttonous and indisputably the most unrestrained in tasting everything it comes across. And some of them are known as 'roughies', deriving their name from the places where there are rough rocks full of holes and thick growths of seaweed in them, and where there is a bottom of mud or sand. A Red Mullet would eat the dead body of a man or of a fish, and its special delight is in filthy, ill-smelling food (II 41).

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The Seal, I am told, vomits up the curdled milk from its stomach so that epileptics may not be cured thereby. Upon my word the Seal is indeed a malignant creature (III 19).

From the Bookshelf, #2

There are creatures called Ephemera that take their name from their span of life, for they are generated in wine, and when the vessel is opened they fly out, see the light, and die.  Thus it is that Nature has permitted them to come to life, but has rescued them as soon as possible from life's evils, so that they are neither aware of their own misfortune nor are spectators of the misfortune of others.

--Aelian, On Animals II. 4.