The body senses that it's cold, and the brain thinks how is it going to make the body warmer?
Keith S. Taber
Bert was a participant in the Understanding Science Project. In Y11 he reported that he had been studying about the environment in biology, and done some work on adaptation. he gave a number of examples of how animals were adapted to their environment. One of these examples was the polar bear.
…our homework we did about adapting, like how polar bears adapt to their environments, and camels….
And so a polar bear has adapted to the environment?
Yeah.
So how has a polar bear adapted to the environment?
Erm, things like it has white fur for camouflage so the prey don't see it coming up. Large feet to spread out its weight when it's going over like ice. Yeah, thick fur to keep the body heat insulated.
Bert gave a number of other examples, including dogs that were bred with particular characteristics, although he explained this in terms of inheritance of acquired characteristics: suggesting that dogs that have been taught over and over to retrieve have puppies that automatically have already got that sense. Bert realised that this example was due to the work of human breeders, and took the polar bear as an example of a creature that had adapted to its environment.
Yeah, so how does adaption take place then? You've got a number of examples there, bears and dogs and camels and people. So how does adaption take place?
I don't know. It may have something to do with negative feedback.
That's impressive.
Like you have like, you always get like, you always get feedback, like in the body to release less insulin and stuff like that. So in time people like or whatever, organisms, learn to adapt to that. Because if it happens a lot that makes a feedback then it comes, yeah then they just learn to do that.
Okay. Give me an example of that. I'm trying to link it up in my head.
Okay, like the polar bear, like I don't know. It may have started off just like every other bear, but because it was put in that environment, like all the time the body was telling it to grow more fur and things like that, because it was so cold. So after a while it just adapted to, you know, always having fur instead of, you know, like dogs shed hair in the summer and stuff. But like if it was always then they'd just learn to keep shedding that hair.
So if it was an ordinary bear, not a polar bear, and you stuck it in the Arctic, it would get cold?
Yeah.
But you say the body tells it to grow more fur?
Erm, yeah.
How does that work?
I'm not sure, it just … I don't know. Like, erm, like the body senses that it's cold, it goes to the brain, and the brain thinks, well how is it going to go against that, you know, make the body warmer. And so it kind of, you know, it gives these things.
Is that an example of feedback?
Yes.
So Bert seemed to have notion of (it not the term) homoeostasis, that allowed control of such things as levels of insulin. He recognised thus was based on negative feedback – when some problematic condition was recognised (e.g. being too cold) this would trigger a response (e.g., more insulation)to bring about a countering change.
However, in Bert's model, the mechanism was not automatic. Rather it depended upon conscious deliberation: "the brain thinks, well how is it going to …make the body warmer". Bert thought that this process which initially was based on deliberation then became automatic over many generations.
This seems to assume that bears think in similar terms to humans, that they identify a problem and reason a way through. This might be considered an example of anthropomorphism, something that is very common in student (indeed human) thinking. To what extent it may be reasonable to assign this kind of conscious reasoning to bears is an open question.
However there was a flaws in the process described by Bert that he might have spotted himself. This model suggested that once the bear had become aware of the issue, and the needs to address, it would be able to grow its fur accordingly. That is, as a matter of will. Bert would have been aware that he is able to control some aspects of his body voluntarily (e.g., to raise his arm), but he cannot will his hair to grow at a different rate.
Of course, it may be countered that I am guilty of a kind of anthropomorphism-in-reverse: Bert is not a bear, but rather a human who does not need to control hair growth according to environment. So, just because Bert cannot consciously control his own hair growth, this need not imply the same is true for a bear. However, Bert also used the example of insulin levels, very relevant to humans, and he would presumably be aware that insulin release is controlled in his own body without his conscious intervention.
As often happens in interviewing students (or human conversations more generally) time to reflect on the exchange raises ideas one did not consider at the time, that one would like to be able to to text out by asking further questions. If things that were once deliberate become instinctive over time, then it is not unreasonable in principle to suggest things that are automatic now (adjusting insulin levels to control blood glucose levels) may have once been deliberate.
After all, people can control insulin levels to some extent by choosing to eat a different diet. And indeed people can learn biofeedback relaxation techniques that can have an effect on such variables as blood pressure, and some diabetics have used such techniques to reduce their need for medical insulin. So, did Bert think that people had once consciously controlled insulin levels, but over generations this has become automatic?
In some ways this does not seem a very likely or promising idea – but that is a judgement made from a reasonably high level of science knowledge. It is important to encourage students to use their imaginations and suggest ideas as that is an important aspect of how science woks. Most scientific conjectures are ultimately wrong, but they may still be useful tools for moving science on. In the same way, learners' flawed ideas, if explored carefully, may often be useful tools for learning. At the time of the interview, I felt Bert had not really thought his scheme through. That may well have been so, but there may have been more coherence and reflection behind his comments than I realised at the time.
Thanks for these insights (and website in general!). I am interested in your thoughts on anthropomorphising animals in science lessons. How appropriate is it to use the understanding children have of themselves (their minds and bodies) to BEGIN exploring animals? Linking animals subjective traits and internal states to how the children themselves experience the world can be viewed as 'flawed' and potentially lead to 'strong anthropomorphism' (i.e. if we were to consider the a reptile as depressed as it's habitat has been destroyed and to leave it there) , but would you consider this to still be a useful tool, if explored carefully, for moving on the understanding of nonhuman animals?
Dear Jo
Thank you for this important question. I am happy to offer some points on which I am fairly confident, but probably this is an areas where more research would be useful.
Generally (and a point I often make here), in teaching people about abstract ideas in unfamiliar areas it is useful (indeed, I suspect often necessary) to draw parallels with things/ideas/experiences the learners are already familiar and comfortable with – to 'make the unfamiliar familiar' – as a starting point for developing an understanding of the scientific account. As you recognise, this is not seen as target understanding, but a necessary way station or stepping stone towards a more sophisticated understanding.
Against this, I think this is one area where learners often already have very strong intuitions (perhaps partially an evolved aspect of human thinking, because it has proved useful to survival – assuming an animal is human-like may help a hunter predict its actions, for example?); perhaps partially because of the propensity of children's stories and folk tales and cartoons, etc., that feature characters that are in effect human personalities in an animal body. Animals that talk and have human emotions and behaviours are ubiquitous in common culture.) Therefore, it is difficult to shift these ideas on. (In my own work I've seen this where the foci are {incredibly} atoms and molecules, so I would imagine it is much more so in the case of animals which clearly do share many anatomical, physiological, biochemical, etc., even behavioural, similarities with humans.)
So, I would be wary. It seems reasonable to assume that many animals experience pain somewhat like us (even if, strictly, we cannot even know to what extent other human beings experience pain subjectively in similar ways – ditto other qualia such as experiencing the colour blue or the smell of rosemary).
From observations of animal behaviour, I personally would be confident that some animals (mostly mammals, perhaps sometimes birds?) experience something akin to what I experience as excitement, as joy, as loss, as calm, perhaps even as love. But I am extrapolating and would not want to push this too far.
When it comes to explaining animal behaviour in terms of cognition I think we are on much shakier grounds. As an example, I recall some work where I asked secondary children to offer explanations of a range of phenomena. One example included an animal that consumed its young – a student rationalised this as being cruel to be kind, so to speak, "not wanting to make them suffer". That would require the parent to not only be able to imagine what life would be like for their newborn, but also to rationalise this as an unrewarding and better aborted live, and to carry out a deliberate act based on this evaluation.
So, my best guess would be that the kind of approach you refer to might be useful as long as there is an immediate focus on both the potential similarities and also the likely differences (e.g., animals generally do not consciously reflect on and plan out their lives). Otherwise, the anthropomorphism is likely to fit with existing unhelpful intuitions and become firmly accepted as an explanation (especially if 'taught' this in a science class).
But, I am not aware (anyone?) of research to test and explore this, and I think that would be useful to inform and guide teachers.