RE: PACK HUNTING THEROPODS

["Larry Dunn" <larrydunn@hotmail.com>]

>From: Nathan Myhrvold <nathanm@MICROSOFT.com>

>> All naked mole rats aside, do you feel that it's more instructive in 
>> reconstructing the lives of dromaeosaurs that we analogize between 
>> extant vertebrate predators and dromaeosaurs or between insects and 
>> dromaeosaurs?

>       You make sweeping generalizations to butress your argument.
>Unfortunately, they are flatly untrue.  Then when confronted with this 
you
>try to switch the topic and say"all naked mole rats aside...".
>
>       You're wrong about mole rats, you're wrong about wolves - most of
>your examples are wrong. 

I must say that this is one arrogant attitude you've copped in this 
post.  (Why is the image of pack-hunting dromaeosaurs so precious that 
brings out such ugly behavior in people?)  

Maybe it's that you're not used to people disagreeing with you, and 
maybe you're pretty convinced of your own superior level of knowledge 
(always a dangerous assumption which can lead to your embarrassment -- 
for instance, it's "intelligence," not "intellegence"), but if this is 
so, try to leave it at the door in a debate.  It weakens rather than 
strengthens your arguments.

In any event, what did I say about naked mole rats to be "wrong" about?

>You are mainly arguing from a Discovery channel
>level folk knowledge rather than the current state of the art in animal
>behavior and genetics.  

I see.  

>       The point of this discussion SHOULD be somethnig along the lines of
>the following:

Finally: Someone makes the topic CLEAR for us! 

>       Is it plausible that dromaeosaurs (and potentially other theropod
>dinosaurs) hunted cooperatively in groups?

Well, if you've been following (and understanding) this debate, you'd 
see that this is PRECISELY what we've been discussing all along.

>       My claim is that there is no reason to rule this out some level of
>cooperation on the basis of cognitive ability.   I say that it is 
plausible
>that evolution would lead to groups of of closely related Deinonychus
>hunting together in a reasonable simulation of what is commmonly called
>"pack hunting".  In particular they could cooperate to kill prey larger 
than
>they could reliably kill if solitary.

Well, I do remember you making these arguments, but now you're just 
restating them.  This is pure fantasy -- you offer NO evidence as to how 
animals operating "instinctively" can mimic decision-making of the level 
required for pack hunting.  If a complex set of instinctive behaviors 
can parallel this, what then is the distinction between a level of 
decision-making ability and totally instinctual behavior?  You don't 
think there is one?  Haven't you then blurred real differences in 
intellectual capacity because they're inconvenient to your position?

>       Second, the degree of cooperation may not be identical to extant
>mammals.   If you define "pack hunting" as "just what my favorite 
mammals
>do" then there is no point continuing the argument because it is a
>tautology.  

Since my favorite mammal is now the naked mole rat, that's clearly not 
what I'm doing.

If you define "pack hunting" as "a feeding event in which more than one 
animal happens to be involved" than there is no point continuing this 
argument because it is a tautology.

>       One strong argument for this is that much of the supposed deep
>cooperation and cognition that occurs with mammals is ex post facto
>anthropomorphising.   Lions, wolves, hyena, African hunting dogs and 
other
>famous examples do not have anywhere near as much deeply cognitive
>cooperation as is commonly supposed.   Hunting statistics bear this out 
- if
>the effects 

What effects?

>are so small that they are missed by the statistics then they
>are not very important to survival, and thus to evolution.

Observe wolves hunting in a pack.  Observe Hyaena separating a 
rhinoceros calf from it's parent.  (You can see it on the Discovery 
Channel, by the way.) This will put the lie to this attempt to blur real 
distinctions in intelligence.  

>I
>find this unconvincing, in part because your facts about the mammals in
>question are wrong, 

of course --

>and in part because you are trying to make a connection
>based only on negative evidence - in ecosystems where the top predators 
are
>ALL mammals, we find lots of examples of cooperative hunting in 
mammals.   

And WHY are the top predators in these ecosystems all mammals?  

> I don't think you understand ants very well.

of course --

>  Read E. O. Wilson's
>book The Ants.  

Oh, that's ok.  I saw a program on the Discovery Channel about them.

>       Even within a caste, there is cooperation between individuals.
>Also, there are a wide range of ants, bees and wasps including some 
that are
>solitary, some that are group living but have no

What's your point? Do the solitary ones cooperate?

>> What sort of true cooperation do we recognize at work in 
dromaeosaurs, 
>> presumed to be relatively unintelligent animals?  Were there worker 
>> dromaeosaurs, soldier dromaeosaurs, queens breeding them all?   

>       The rhetorical question is pointless.  

All together now --

>Specialization of function is
>interesting but it is not the same as cooperation. 

Really?  Then how do insects "cooperate"?  How do vertebrates?

>In lion prides, the males are primarily soldiers - their role in 
procuring
>food is secondary to the female "workers". 

What an absurd statement.  This is getting really Twilight Zone-y.

>       The degree of specialization in group living mammals is LOWER than
>the degree in eusocial insects.   

Now there's the understatement of the year.

>However, by the same token it is lower in
>some species of eusocial insects too.   You are trying to make black 
and
>white characterization when in fact there is a broad spectrum.

And you're trying to blur real differences.  Can a wolf "queen" survive 
without it's "workers?"  On the other hand, can a termite queen survive 
without its workers?

>       There are MANY examples of non-mammalian "altruism" - many species
>of birds for example will put themselves at risk defending a nest, or 
acting
>as a decoy to lure predators toward themselves and away from a nest.   
Study
>the literature before making more sweeping generalizations.

A weak example.  Animals don't need to be geniuses to defend their 
nests.  Would a monitor lizard give it's all for it's sibling?  Please, 
do us a favor.

>       Saying things like "less than mammilian intellegence" betrays your
>position as a mammal bigot.  

Now THAT'S funny! So I can't recognize what you are apparently unable to 
do -- that there ARE some differences between the phyla -- without being 
a "bigot?"

>Mammalian cooperators are not more intellegent than solitary foragers.

This is a non-sequitor.  Because mammalian solitary hunters may be as 
intelligent as mammalian pack-hunters does not mean that intelligence is 
not required to pack-hunt.

>> Precisely!  A shark which appears to "herd" schools of fish along 
with 
>> other sharks  would still attack its prey with or without the 
presence 
>> of the other sharks, correct? 
>> 
>> So: Would a solitary Deinonychus hop up on Tenontosaurus regardless 
of 
>> the presence or absence of other Deinonychus?  This puts the lie to 
the 
>> idea of collective result/individual algorithm in this case.

>       This does not make sense.   

of course --

>Every group living creature - from ants
>to humans - has specific behavior patterns - some which they do in the
>presence of others, some which they do solitary.
>
>       The amount of cognitive ability required to decide to jump on a
>Tenotosaurus when in a group, but not alone, is truly modest. 

You're all over the road here.  First you state that animals pursuing 
individual algorithms can be mistaken for animals showing a great deal 
of cooperation (like predatory fish).  NOW you state that these very 
same animals pursuing individual algorithms actually have a variety of 
complex responses under different social conditions. 

Surely that can't be your argument.
  
>> >There are differences between the social behavior of lions and oras, 
>> but
>> >that example does not make the point.  
>> 
>> Please elaborate.
>
>       I think you should do some reading if you are seriously interested
>in understanding animal behavior, and its evolutionary origins, rather 
than
>just posting ptolemics.

Watch him run from the question.  And what is a ptolemic?  

Larry

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