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> Carlo Siracusa, an animal behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania > who also was not involved in the research, concurred. > “The evidence shows that
by pengaru 4y ago
> Carlo Siracusa, an animal behaviorist at the University of Pennsylvania
> who also was not involved in the research, concurred.
> “The evidence shows that they want to impregnate their body with the smell,”
If the side-effect of getting this stuff on their fur while getting all frisky and euphoric from its psychoactive effects conferred an evolutionary advantage, it's not that they want to impregnate their body with the smell.
They're just seeking pleasure, they don't know jack shit about what plant chemicals are increasing the survival of their species. If the cats that liked the beneficial plants survived better, guess what, more cats like getting high in the long-term.
It's disappointing to see "an animal behaviorist at the University of Pennsilvania" making such a glaring error.
- oneoff786 4y agoThat is, at best, a semantic argument.
- gwern 4y agoThere are bigger problems with the evolutionary argument: AFAIK, catnip is first attested in Italy, and I have not seen anyone discuss finding a lot of catnip in the historical ranges of Felis lybica, that domestic cats come from; how can they have evolved to exploit the benefits of catnip if it's not there while they are evolving? Seems like you'd need a lot of wild catnip for such a selective behavior to evolve, but in the deserts where they live, there might be none. (Catnip isn't a particularly desert-tolerant plant.) Then you have the fact that something like a third of cats are immune to catnip & it's highly heritable, even though if it's a good insect repellent (that's quite fitness-relevant), there's really no reason for it to not have reached fixation quickly and become a 100% frequent trait. Further, catnip response across all of the Felidae species is super-inconsistent, with very far flung species showing some catnip response but also closely-related species showing very different responses; if it's under selection, they ought to be similar, and anyway, there may or may not be catnip where Felis lybica grew up, but then what about South American felines half a world away...? Finally, if you feel that you need an evolutionary explanation, then what is your explanation for all of the other cat psychoactives like valerian, Tartarian honeysuckle, silvervine, the Indian one, and so on? If you don't think there is one, and that, like most human psychoactives, it's just because biochemistry is really complex and stuff happens, then surely that shows catnip didn't need one either.
- rurp 4y ago> They're just seeking pleasure, they don't know jack shit about what plant chemicals are increasing the survival of their species. How do you know? Many animals, including cats, are capable of thinking strategically. Cats in particular are very aware of scents. I don't know all the reasons they roll in catnip, but don't see why it's absurd to think that they do it partially for self preservations reasons. Similar to this, cats will often rub against their humans after they return home. They specifically rub scent glands against their human to add their own smell back into the mix with all of the new ones. It doesn't seem like a large leap to think they alter their own smell for practical reasons beyond getting blitzed.
- pengaru 4y agoThe rest of TFA is literally about the evolutionary advantage conferred by the plant's chemicals. It's not about cats having knowledge of what's good for them.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- colechristensen 4y ago“Want” is often used as shorthand for the linguistic stumbling necessary to be technically correct, it is only bad for pedants and introductory students.
- ggm 4y agoThe intentionality it carries is the problem. A lot of the problems in discussing evolution with (amongst other things) religious is the literalism they routinely apply to this meaning.