Animals are like humans in their social habits: some like lots of company, others do not. Birds fly in flocks, fish swim in unison, and packs of dogs roam the hills together. And yet animals, as well as humans, have their loners among their packs. Some groups especially seem to realize there is safety in numbers, so say the professionals who carefully observe the lifestyles of animals. It is not true, as some humans believe, that only they have foresight and intelligence and have no way of warding off danger. They have decisions to make, whether to go it alone or stay with the herd.
A Canadian web site alerted me to the importance of a Guelph University study about how animals copy other animals in order to make decisions. They called this a quorum decision. What they wanted to know was how animals, all animals from the tiniest to the largest, know when to follow the leader. The study showed that the group was less likely to follow a lone leader than they were when there were two or three leaders.
The reasoning here being that they would be less likely to follow a lone lead animal, a bug, a flea, gnat, or an elephant since that lone one could be erratic and lost and not knowing where in the world he was going. If, however, there were two or more with him they might be persuaded to join in and follow. This they called a quoram leader group.
After visiting the site I applied the information to the one animal group that I belong to and came to some conclusions on my own. The species of course is homosapiens, better known as humans. The answers and the conclusion they came to did not seem too far-fetched from the way humans react to the herding instinct. But what I came away with from their site was many questions and many more possibilities of interpretations. The questions I have are:
How is the leader selected? Who determines which one has the intelligence to stand out front and direct the traffic flow? Which one among the gathering has the foresight to gauge the distance between here and there and determine whether or not there are hidden dangers along the way? Who has the courage to say enough is enough and is tough and can suffer the consequences of his actions?
The conclusions I reached are: In every animal group there is a blueprint of a perfect ant, a perfect horse, a perfect man, but somewhere between the drawing up of the blueprint and the hatched out or born model a few aberrant things happened that somehow smudged the original intent of the creator. These misnomers could have happened haphazardly or could have been made because of environmental causes.
The ones with the perfect diet that fed their priorities in the exact way they were programmed to be fed and whose ancestors followed the dictates of their elders in procreation naturally would be the most intelligent; or according to the lesser one with less ability to think, the lone dissenters of the group. These would be the leaders. In time they would gradually lead the group in other directions. If the leaders were forthright and listened to their creator as to directions and were good leaders then they would follow the right way; if on the other hand they had followed those that indeed were a little wacky and delusional they would be led down the road of despair and regret.
What I am saying is that within each social group, humans, monkeys, chickens, tigers, grasshoppers, etc., there are a wide range of perfection, imperfection, dissenters, intelligence, and leadership qualities. Lumping them all together and assuming since most in a given group do this; it must be the thing to do. While it is true that some characteristics are inborn in certain animal species and are more likely to be the near norm behavior for that group, it may not be exactly so for the others.
That reasoning is why animals are classified as to their traits and to their adaptive ability – inherent capacity – to do this or that. Chickens are known for their pecking order, or their ability to shun those unlike themselves. So are humans, but to say all do this or that is not right. I suppose it all comes down to coming to terms with one inherited qualities and adding or taking away when ever it gets in the way of progress or survival.
Social skills tend to be those that are acquired more than they are inherited. And that is my final conclusion and it concerns the whole animal kingdom. I thank the authors of the website that added momentum and insight and turned my attention to the topic in discussion.
