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"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blind

"If you only take one thing away from this talk, make it this: beavers are idiots. They have no idea why they’re building these huge structures; they just blindly do it." I can understand the author's use of the Beaver analogy but it may not be the right analogy. Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. This not only offers protection from predators but also makes it easy to access food. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver#Dams http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver#Dams They may have poor eyesight but they have a keen sense of hearing. May be he meant that the Beaver does not know why its teeth grow continuously but it uses it to cut down trees and make dams.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
Go further - the beaver doesn't know that its building a dam. It just builds because it feels compelled to. Then when the dam is done (the beaver triggers on the sound of water falling and stops when the sound is gone) the beaver reaps some benefit. Over millions of years, beavers that behaved like this prospered. The beaver doesn't know why or even think about it. No more than you think about your particular cell enzyme reactions.
- jarcane 12y ago
  They'll also abandon perfectly good dams just to move up stream and build another. They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth; like most creatures if allowed to thrive they'll just keep devouring every tree and damming every river until they starve and die off, only beavers can wind up taking whole ecosystems with them.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Depends on your point of view. North America used to be a festering swamp of mosquito-ridden beaver ponds. Built over millions of years. That WAS the ecology. The landscape we see today is unnatural and temporary. We reformed this continent to suit ourselves. Most attempts to protect some bit of land and trees in the name of preservation is ... shortsighted at the least.
    - jarcane 12y ago
      Eh, I think the more important take from it is that any species is prone to developing an unbalanced advantage that ultimately does them in. We humans just happen to be the ones on top right now doing the unbalanced expansion thing.
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        I don't think the beaver did itself in? It was us (or the Iroquois Confederacy anyway) that hunted them to near extinction. They got along for 10 million years just fine the way they were.
  - hereonbusiness 12y ago
    Those sneaky bastards, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that they've also been dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year while no one was looking :)
  - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
    >They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth. That's rich, coming from a human. Also, from Wikipedia: "the beaver have transformed Alhambra Creek from a trickle into multiple dams and beaver ponds, which in turn, led to the return of steelhead and North American river otter in 2008, and mink in 2009.[43][44]"
- drzaiusapelord 12y ago
  This is also how I see a lot of human behavior. We do things for emotional need or feel compelled to do them, then later justify them logically. I dislike the modern idea that humans are somehow fundamentally different than animals, from a cognition standpoint. It just seems overly self-serving.
- hawleyal 12y ago
  Go further. All things behave this way. You were compelled to comment given your current circumstance, your particular makeup of cells and electricity sitting in your chair typing, blah blah blah. The beaver knows it's building a dam insasmuch as anyone else knows what they are doing.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    That denies conscious thought to me. You can ask me why I do something. Go ask the beaver, see what it says.
    - increment_i 12y ago
      Is verbally relating the reason why one does something a prerequisite to conscious thought? Dams don't get built by beavers all over the world by sheer random chance - there's obviously some deliberate intention there. Its also possible they observe and learn this process from their family members: "When young are born, they spend their first month in the lodge and their mother is the primary caretaker while their father maintains the territory. In the time after they leave the lodge for the first time, yearlings will help their parents build food caches in the fall and repair dams and lodges." (Source: Wikipedia)
      - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Beaver compulsively place sticks in piles near water until they don't hear the water falling any more. Nothing to do with intent.
        increment_i 12y ago
        Can we say compulsion is completely different from intent though? Or are we just arguing over semantics? Can we place an arbitrary intelligence threshold on when compulsion can be inferred as intent? For instance, most spiders build webs, and it would seem they do it by no other mechanism than pure genetic instinct. However, there don't seem to be any external 'cues' as to when the web is finished (in contrast to the water falling cue we assume beavers use). The spider builds the web until it's done building the web. Did the spider intend to build a web, or was it compelled to?
javajosh 12y ago
>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision. One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does. Do humans eat to keep from starving? Do we have sex to have babies? Do we love our babies so that they don't die? I don't think so. We do these things because it's built into us to do them, just like the beaver.
- pm90 12y ago
  Sex seems a lot more simple than building a dam though. I mean, how does the Beaver even know this kind of stuff? Is it in its genetic material, or is it taught by its parents? Either way, fascinating stuff.
  - tomstuart 12y ago
    Just to answer your question: it's in its genetic material. It really is fascinating; it can even make evolutionary sense to think of the dam as an extension of the beaver's physical body, in as much a beaver's dams are "built by" its genes just like the cells of its body are. Google "extended phenotype" if you'd like more detail.
  - Raphmedia 12y ago
    I put a ball in your hands. How do you get the idea to throw it? Who is giving it to you? Your logic work that way, through countless genetic iterations. Now, the fun part, is that dogs, through similar genetic iterations, have evolved to love catching said ball and bringing it back to us. Life is fun.
- senthil_rajasek 12y ago
  The way I like to think about it is ... Birds build nests, Bees build hives and Beavers build dams.
- 12y ago

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

Go further - the beaver doesn't know that its building a dam. It just builds because it feels compelled to. Then when the dam is done (the beaver triggers on the sound of water falling and stops when the sound is gone) the beaver reaps some benefit. Over millions of years, beavers that behaved like this prospered. The beaver doesn't know why or even think about it. No more than you think about your particular cell enzyme reactions.

jarcane 12y ago
They'll also abandon perfectly good dams just to move up stream and build another. They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth; like most creatures if allowed to thrive they'll just keep devouring every tree and damming every river until they starve and die off, only beavers can wind up taking whole ecosystems with them.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Depends on your point of view. North America used to be a festering swamp of mosquito-ridden beaver ponds. Built over millions of years. That WAS the ecology. The landscape we see today is unnatural and temporary. We reformed this continent to suit ourselves. Most attempts to protect some bit of land and trees in the name of preservation is ... shortsighted at the least.
  - jarcane 12y ago
    Eh, I think the more important take from it is that any species is prone to developing an unbalanced advantage that ultimately does them in. We humans just happen to be the ones on top right now doing the unbalanced expansion thing.
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      I don't think the beaver did itself in? It was us (or the Iroquois Confederacy anyway) that hunted them to near extinction. They got along for 10 million years just fine the way they were.
- hereonbusiness 12y ago
  Those sneaky bastards, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that they've also been dumping gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year while no one was looking :)
- fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
  >They're some of the most environmentally destructive critters on earth. That's rich, coming from a human. Also, from Wikipedia: "the beaver have transformed Alhambra Creek from a trickle into multiple dams and beaver ponds, which in turn, led to the return of steelhead and North American river otter in 2008, and mink in 2009.[43][44]"
drzaiusapelord 12y ago
This is also how I see a lot of human behavior. We do things for emotional need or feel compelled to do them, then later justify them logically. I dislike the modern idea that humans are somehow fundamentally different than animals, from a cognition standpoint. It just seems overly self-serving.
hawleyal 12y ago
Go further. All things behave this way. You were compelled to comment given your current circumstance, your particular makeup of cells and electricity sitting in your chair typing, blah blah blah. The beaver knows it's building a dam insasmuch as anyone else knows what they are doing.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  That denies conscious thought to me. You can ask me why I do something. Go ask the beaver, see what it says.
  - increment_i 12y ago
    Is verbally relating the reason why one does something a prerequisite to conscious thought? Dams don't get built by beavers all over the world by sheer random chance - there's obviously some deliberate intention there. Its also possible they observe and learn this process from their family members: "When young are born, they spend their first month in the lodge and their mother is the primary caretaker while their father maintains the territory. In the time after they leave the lodge for the first time, yearlings will help their parents build food caches in the fall and repair dams and lodges." (Source: Wikipedia)
    - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
      Beaver compulsively place sticks in piles near water until they don't hear the water falling any more. Nothing to do with intent.
      - increment_i 12y ago
        Can we say compulsion is completely different from intent though? Or are we just arguing over semantics? Can we place an arbitrary intelligence threshold on when compulsion can be inferred as intent? For instance, most spiders build webs, and it would seem they do it by no other mechanism than pure genetic instinct. However, there don't seem to be any external 'cues' as to when the web is finished (in contrast to the water falling cue we assume beavers use). The spider builds the web until it's done building the web. Did the spider intend to build a web, or was it compelled to?

javajosh 12y ago

>Beavers build these dams to keep the water level at a certain height. My friend, I think you are implying intention where there is none. It's true that the effect of beaver dam-building is advantageous, but there was never any deliberation about it on the beavers part. It's a curious case of effort without decision. One can easily think of a situation where a beaver might actually do better to not build a dam - but a beaver will try to build one anyway. It's just what he does. Do humans eat to keep from starving? Do we have sex to have babies? Do we love our babies so that they don't die? I don't think so. We do these things because it's built into us to do them, just like the beaver.

pm90 12y ago
Sex seems a lot more simple than building a dam though. I mean, how does the Beaver even know this kind of stuff? Is it in its genetic material, or is it taught by its parents? Either way, fascinating stuff.
- tomstuart 12y ago
  Just to answer your question: it's in its genetic material. It really is fascinating; it can even make evolutionary sense to think of the dam as an extension of the beaver's physical body, in as much a beaver's dams are "built by" its genes just like the cells of its body are. Google "extended phenotype" if you'd like more detail.
- Raphmedia 12y ago
  I put a ball in your hands. How do you get the idea to throw it? Who is giving it to you? Your logic work that way, through countless genetic iterations. Now, the fun part, is that dogs, through similar genetic iterations, have evolved to love catching said ball and bringing it back to us. Life is fun.
senthil_rajasek 12y ago
The way I like to think about it is ... Birds build nests, Bees build hives and Beavers build dams.
12y ago