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Originally Posted by QuickSilver  Are you saying that birds are, or are not a straight line hierarchy? I was agreeing with you that dogs and wolves are not.  I'm going to disagree with you on dolphins, because I've read quite a bit on this, even dolphin biology textbooks. Dolphins sleep according to rank. The higher ranked you are, the closer to the surface you sleep. It's better to sleep higher, because dolphins need to breathe air. I will caveat this by saying that dolphins in the wild are very hard to study, and they appear to form different pod structures. Also, of course, there is still the "forced pack (pod)" problem when studying them in captivity.
Karen Pryor mentions this in her book, "Lads Before the Wind". One researcher was trying to study dominance theory, and they isolated one or two dolphins. Unfortunately, by doing this, they disturbed the rank order, and when the dolphins were returned, they had to start on the bottom again.
Anyway, I think I was largely agreeing with you that dominance is complex and fluid, so it's a little weird to find you disagreeing with my agreement. |
Yes chickens are a stright line hierarchy and one of the only beings that are.
As to dolphins and others there is a debate and a relooking at things as we have been very tainted by the wolf reseach and our own human need for rank order to make the world understandable.
Lads before the wind is was printed in the time when rank order was just about to get questioned. I not sure they would see it the same way now.
Lots of things do to rank order will be rechecked due to Dr Meachs clearing up and relooking at wolf packs.
Science is also fliud and changing and humans tend to get stuck in one way of thinking and doing things so that we tend to not accept the changes. We also tend to question why science changes its mind on things. Simple as we learn more or look at it more or a new pair of eyes has a look we tend to see thing differnt or not as those at the begining thought it was.
For wolves the first study on dominace was done on a group of individule wolves from seprate packs (as well as types) tossed into a far to smal a space and they where afraid and had to fight it out. Poor dears.
The scienists at the time had no way to really study them in the wild and thought what they saw was what it was in the wild. That is how we got rank order.
For dog stuff I look at coppingers work as well as james O heares stuff.
Most of us humans like rank order as it keeps the world nice and tidy.
Look at the armys and most companies... bosses on top and lower downs do the work.
In a wolf pack it the top end that does most of the work as the lower ends need to learn what it takes to pull down a deer or elk. As they are babies.
Just like in most family units. Mum and Dad do most of the work until the childern grow up.
I know you understand this stuff but the more we repeat it and in many differnt ways the more chances are that others will come to understand that rank order is just for chickens and has no really part in our day to day lives with our dogs.
JL