Jonathan Balcombe:
(Saturday, June 30, 2pm)
This presentation takes us under the sea, through streams and estuaries to reveal the inner lives of the world’s most misunderstood and exploited vertebrates. Although they exceed thirty thousand species―more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined―fishes have been widely seen as lacking minds, emotions, and experiences. In reality, fishes are sentient, aware, social, even Machiavellian.
Jonathan P. Balcombe. 2016. In praise of fishes: Précis of What a fish knows (Balcombe 2016). Animal Sentience 8(1).
Key, Brian (2016) Why fish do not feel pain. Animal Sentience 3(1)
Sneddon, Lynne U.; Lopez-Luna, Javier; Wolfenden, David C.C.; Leach, Matthew C.; Valentim, Ana M.; Steenbergen, Peter J.; Bardine, Nabila; Currie, Amanda D.; Broom, Donald M.; and Brown, Culum (2018) Fish sentience denial: Muddying the waters. Animal Sentience 21(1)
Soares, Marta C.; Rui F. Oliveira, Albert F.H. Ros, Alexandra S. Grutter, Redouan Bshary. 2011. Tactile stimulation lowers stress in fish. Nature Communications 2:534.
Woodruff, Michael L. (2017) Consciousness in teleosts: There is something it feels like to be a fish. Animal Sentience 13(1)
I was interested to hear today from a couple presenters about the difficulty of using words that describe subjective states such as 'happy' 'sad' 'angry' in scientific discourse, and how you described it as an accomplishment just to have a description of a fish as being depressed published in a scientific journal. I was wondering about how to successfully get descriptions like this published, and how important you think it is to describe affective states in the context of scientific research.
ReplyDeleteI argued earlier in the summer school that if we are to attribute "human" emotions to animals, we should how describe the emotion, what happens in our brain (which are things that have already been done in psychology) and then compare to what happens in the brain when "anthropomorphise" about the dog being happy. I think that if we say that the dog is happy and that at this specific moment we capture the activity in the brain as well as the hormones that are released, we can then say that it is actual happiness, and not some mere mechanical, emotion-irrelevant reaction to a stimulus.
DeleteThose who need brain evidence of happiness in the case of animals we know as well as our dogs will hardly be convinced by brain evidence...
DeleteJ’ai longtemps sous-estimé l’intelligence des poissons (sauf le requin). Les recherches présentées montrent qu’ils peuvent se rappeler des lieux et mieux naviguer et même reconnaître le visage de la personne qui les nourrit. Je pense qu’il devrait davantage y avoir de recherche sur la communication et la coopération entre les différentes espèces de poissons afin d’exclure de plus simples hypothèses.
ReplyDeleteOne of the other-minds problems of other minds is that when they are different from us, we do not give them the benefit of the doubt, and do not take the time or trouble to discover otherwise. Fortunately some dedicated ethologists do, and then can tell us all about it.
DeleteIs there some congnitive abilities that was lost in the transition from sea to land ? Or is it too difficult to look for (or imagine) traits that are not relevant to humans ?
ReplyDeleteDo fishes have theory of mind (an internal representation of the other or something like it) to processes information in those complex mating rituals ?
THank you!
Posting my question that I already asked in person for the sake of student evaluation: In the pufferfish “clients” and “cleaners”, I asked if there was a point up to which the clients would not get into the queue to get cleaned when the queue is too long (say 4 individuals) because of the risk of being caught by predators or anything else.
ReplyDeleteWow! To be honest, I was not so excited about fishes when I saw the title of the session. Someone asked me yersterday 'How about fish intellignece?' And I realised I didn't know anything about fish! So I watched your conference. I'm now in your team. How fascinating ! I was very fascinated about the fish who has a cleaning station. How amazing! Also, I can't believe the cleaner would change his behavior regarding who is present around him. It made me think of humans and the way we're able to twist our behavior from an individual to an other. Also, I was surprise with the cooperation tasks and the fact that some fishes would not be good helper and they would not be choosen again on the next day. I loved the way some fish can have communication between them and the fact that one can move his head and 'invite' a friend to come hunting. I had no idea wish were that smart. Thank you for you amazing presentation.
ReplyDeleteI watched the session on a different day so couldn't buy your book but will do it. Also, I have to say you have a way to share your passion that makes it very easy to listen to you. :-)
On perçoit souvent les poissons de deux manières, soit dans le contexte de la pêche récréative et dans le contexte de repas. Pourtant, comme nous l’a montré Jonathan Balcombe de manière élégante, les poissons sont des êtres très complexes qui méritent d’être mieux connus que dans ces deux contextes-là. Effectivement, ils sont capables d’utiliser des outils, d’apprentissage observationnel ; ils sont capables de reconnaitre les visages et de subir les mêmes illusions d’optique que nous (ce qui tend à démontrer qu’ils peuvent avoir des “croyances”). De plus, ils sont capables de ressentir la douleur et des émotions, d’être vertueux et de s’amuser ; ils sont capables de communiquer ; ils sont capables de créer des objets d’art. Avec ces différentes données, lorsque nous connaissons la pêche commerciale et ses méthodes terribles qui ne se soucie aucunement des poissons, mais seulement de la manière la plus efficace pour faire le plus d’argent possible avec eux ; lorsque nous apprenons que la population marine a décliné de 50% entre 1970 et 2012, nous nous rendons compte que nous devons changer nos habitudes. Dans cette optique, je trouve très honorable la mission que s’est donnée Balcombe de prendre la connaissance scientifique pour changer nos habitudes, pour sensibiliser les gens, pour qu’il y ait un changement de comportement.
ReplyDeleteFish are not even accorded the same protection as mammals, whose protection leaves plenty of scope for the boundless horrors of the food, fur, fashion and entertainment industries.
Delete(Neither are invertebrates, nor even birds. And the minimal protection they are given is small comfort for the small mammals used in research.)
There is something profoundly (and needlessly) wrong. When we finally see fit to put an end to it, it will have been too late for legions upon legions of helpless individual victims. But we must put an end to it; otherwise ours sinks to the bottom as the eternal Donald-Trump among the other sentient species. (Psychopaths, though oblivious to the feelings of others, are themselves sentients too.)
Thanks to Mr Balcombe for this amazing and sometimes surprising presentation.I got the book and I've already found some scientific articles to know more about the mutualism between the «cleaners» and their «clients». I have a question about the references above: Mr Balcombe seems to have introduced a recent study that may contradicts his own conclusions (Key, Brian (2016) Why fish do not feel pain. I would like to understand exactly why? Is it that there is still a debate between scientists on the particular topic of the modalities of pain sentience in fishes?
ReplyDeleteHi Alexandra, I think your confusion comes from the fact that he is providing an article he disagrees with in his list of citations. Although we don't naturally tend to consider evidence that contradicts our personal beliefs and hypotheses, doing so is good practice in science. And to your last question: Yes, there is still room for debate about whether those nociceptive mechanisms translate to "felt pain". No certainty in science, especially cognitive science, so people are free to argue forever, each providing what they consider to be good, convincing evidence. The main description of the conference, in your program, mentioned this problem too: "science is not about certainty." In other words: science never was and never will be about ending debates.
DeleteThank you for your presentation. I feel very emotional because I realize that I did not know what fishes are. I was touched to learn that they can feel pain, seek pleasure, play, cooperate, and provide parental care ... Mr. Balcombe made me want to read and learn more about underwater life. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the presentation. I was fascinated by the grouper inviting the eel to hunt. Almost all conferences on social behavior in the summer school presented data on animals interacting with conspecific. To your knowledge, is there a lot of such cooperative behaviors within the rest of the animal kingdom or is it a peculiar behavior that rarely happens?
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned a fish that can jump from one puddle to another on the shore – swim over during high tide, and then use the layout at low tide to escape predator.
ReplyDeleteThis is the opposite of the popular belief of a fish having only a two second memory span…
- Nonetheless, in relation to spatial memory and wellbeing, do aquarium size matter?