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science

Member since 2005 · Posted 9 Apr 2005 · 11 comments

I read an article a few years back. It explained how dogs don't really love us humans. They just evolved this way so that, like a parasite, they could take advantage of us, to get food. (shaking my head) God damn it, says I why does science always have to explain away the magic of all the simple pleasures.

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11 comments

[5] Dovina 9-Apr-05/10:37 AM Reply

Science has explained away none of the magic of love between dog and human. The study of evolution only enhances the magic.

[7] zodiac 9-Apr-05/10:51 PM Reply

You're wrong. Dogs do love humans. They've evolved to love humans. They evolved that way because the pack-behavior and imprinting that help them find food and fend off predators in the wild reacts well to a different-species dominant male (i.e., a human owner).

Jared Diamond writes extensively on the topic in Guns, Germs, and Steel, before going on to discuss how zebras, though pack-oriented, have never been successfully domesticated. Nor even very well tamed, except by the eccentric Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild, who once rode a zebra-driven cart into Buckingham Palace (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/museum/tring/history/history.html)

PS-I propose you think dogs don't really love humans because they have reasons for loving us, while you expect love to be somehow, I don't know, unconditional and profitless for the lover. That's just crazy.

[n/a] whispern_smoke_wisp › zodiac 10-Apr-05/5:53 PM Reply

wow
u totally missed the point of this 100%, all the way

[7] zodiac › whispern_smoke_wisp 10-Apr-05/9:55 PM Reply

I think you missed the point of this 100%.

What if I told you that humans evolved to love their parents so that, like parasites, they could get food and shelter?

That's absolutely true, by the way.

[n/a] whispern_smoke_wisp › zodiac 11-Apr-05/3:20 PM Reply

okay, i dont like to be rude, but im in a bad mood and you are being an idiot, okay,
when did i say that i believed the article mentioned in this poem ..... ?!?!? NEVER........and by the way....its a poem NOT an autobiography, did you actually read it, or what, okay, why would i SHAKE MY HEAD to something i agreed with

geez

please try to not be this annoying

[5] Dovina › whispern_smoke_wisp 11-Apr-05/3:50 PM Reply

As a memeber of this club, I do appologize for zodiac. He is quite annoying. However, you seem to be dodging the poem you have written by saying that you did not mean it. That's quite alright in most cases, but here I think you really did think that science had tried to squelsh some of the love between dog and human. If you did not think that, pray tell what you were thinking.

[7] zodiac › whispern_smoke_wisp 12-Apr-05/5:32 AM Reply

Sorry, whispern_smoke_wisp, but, seriously, what are you talking about then?

Let me try to explain what I was commenting about. For one thing, you SHOULD believe in the article, and it was clear from the beginning you don't (hence all the comments). The article's not the problem. You're a little mistaken about what it's saying, though, and maybe that's why you don't agree with it.

To clarify what it was ACTUALLY saying: Dogs are not whores or parasites. They evolved loving attitudes toward humans (and were in part domesticated because they had some loving-type behaviors to begin with) so humans would provide them with food and shelter. Despite that they have pretty shallow reasons for loving humans, they DO ACTUALLY love humans, like babies do, and for the same reasons, but unlike young women who marry rich elderlies or real wholes do. Is that clear? At least in terms of what the article's talking about (and whether or not you agree with it)?

Sorry again. I'm trying not to be annoying.

[n/a] richa › whispern_smoke_wisp 13-Apr-05/3:11 AM Reply

you would shake your head at something you agree to be terrible.

[n/a] richa 13-Apr-05/3:24 AM Reply

The dogs don't love humans can be taken two ways: (i) That dogs are only in it for the reward and any attachment is to the reward and not the person and (ii) That dogs unlike humans have no consciousness and therefore do not 'love' or 'like' or 'be'. There is also the old Bernie Skinner adage that the question is not do animals think but do we. Is what humans call love qualitatively different from simple behaviourism of animals. Anyway whichever view you take, it is important I believe that you make the poem 'slant'.

[n/a] whispern_smoke_wisp 5-Aug-05/6:08 PM Reply

hae any of you ever hugged a dog?

[n/a] Alizarin_Crimson 21-Jan-06/10:08 PM Reply

Can we go any deeper than that?