Pecking order: What chickens teach us

Another interesting thing is that birds represent an evolutionary road not taken. All modern birds are descended from a small theropod dinosaur, possibly _Velociraptor deinonychus_ itself -- a more plausible candidate for the star of "Jurassic Park" than _V. mongoliensis_, although it was only re-classified as a velociraptor in the late 1990s. It probably ran, fought, and foraged like a crane (although this is convergent evolution, as cranes probably evolved from small shorebirds called rails), and may have looked like something halfway between a crane and an eagle.

Of course, no intelligent birds exist, but we can see enough of the personalities of some species to get a sense of how an intelligent bird might act. They'd probably be less tribal, less extended-family-oriented, less self-serving than humans, more aloof and self-reliant, more like a startup founder... but also much more violent and warlike, as no avian however large has the same instinctive reluctance to kill a member of its own species that all large mammals share.

I don't know nearly as much about the _other_ path not taken, the cephalopods -- but I've read enough about the behavior of Humboldt's and giant squid when confronted by an unfamiliar sight to get the impression that there is a reason why nature didn't manage to take it. Unlike squid, octopodes are not psychotic, but they're easily bored and they have a malicious sense of humor. The urban legend of the octopus who waits until the lights are out and the aquarium-keepers have left, then crawls out of the water and goes over to the neighboring fish tank to have a snack before slipping back to his own tank before the morning, has happened any number of times.

Little-known medieval trivia point: if St. Thomas Aquinas was right about a certain speculation, the study of avian and cephalopod behaviors is probably a prudent one. Aquinas believed that if other worlds capable of supporting intelligent life exist, they _would_ be populated by intelligent beings, since God wouldn't let a perfectly good dwelling-place for souls go to waste. The only question, to the medieval mind, was whether such worlds existed (and, secondarily, whether Christ would have come to them separately had they fallen, or whether it would have been necessary to convert them to Catholicism; for more on this mindset, read C.S. Lewis' Space Trilogy and perhaps Poul Anderson's _The High Crusade_).

Money quote:

Now, I've hardly done much to refute charges of anthropomorphism - but am I bovvered? I'm not projecting human characteristics on to dumb animals - I'm saying I really don't see that much difference in their hopes and fears, behaviour and petty foibles. If one actually lives with chickens, it's a lot harder to treat them as mere objects.

Their preferences are astoundingly obvious, so what possible excuse could there be for giving them any less? If they like greens, why give them pellets? If they like sunbathing, why pack them into a tiny, noisy, smelly place with no natural light? If, as I suspect, the answer is something to do with the "efficiency" of food production, then the notion of efficiency is horrible, incompetent, brutalised and brutalising, and it's certainly not in the interests of chickens at all. And I'm not sure that our ethical notions are all that more advanced than chickens'.

I really appreciate this article. I absolutely adore chickens, and understand that they are far more complex and intelligent than they are generally given credit for.

This post makes an interesting point about the nature of co-operation in competition. It sounds very much like the Nash equilibrium in game theory.