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Articles 1 - 30 of 397
Full-Text Articles in Evolution
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient, Lori Marino
Ai Is Not The Kind Of Thing That Can Ever Be Sentient, Lori Marino
Animal Sentience
Sentience evolved to allow organisms to move through their environment avoiding harms and achieving benefits. Sentience did not evolve from computation. It evolved from valenced feelings. AI (even robots) are not embodied and are not the kind of thing that needs to be sentient. There is no way to get from computations to feelings. They are qualitatively different things. We should avoid being lulled into thinking that an inanimate object designed to engage our propensity for anthropomorphism, like AI, is actually a mind.
On The Edge Of Science?, Mark Briffa, Lynne U. Sneddon
On The Edge Of Science?, Mark Briffa, Lynne U. Sneddon
Animal Sentience
In The Edge of Sentience, Jonathan Birch (2024) provides a thought-provoking synthesis of current perspectives on animal (and artificial) sentience. He addresses the question from conceptual, ethical, regulatory and empirical viewpoints. Here we focus on some of the scientific issues raised, including defining and operationalising the concept of sentience and the implications for policy and regulation. Despite unresolved conceptual challenges, the book makes a compelling case for the continued scientific investigation of animal sentience.
From The Edge To The Grounds Of “Sentientism”, David Degrazia
From The Edge To The Grounds Of “Sentientism”, David Degrazia
Animal Sentience
Birch’s book is a remarkable exploration of the nature of sentience, its moral salience, evidence for its presence, and how to arrive at humane policies regarding our treatment of human beings, animals, brain organoids, and AI systems of uncertain sentience. Although Birch endorses the view that sentience is of fundamental moral importance, he endeavors to remain neutral among reasonable moral views and work out how to navigate through uncertainty—both ethical and epistemological—to arrive at defensible policies. While making common cause with Birch’s project, my own recent book advances a developed case in favor of the “sentientism” Birch endorses.
Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield
Natural Behavior Vs. Subjective Experience In Fish Welfare Assessments, Ronald G. Oldfield
Animal Sentience
Several commentaries on the Oldfield & Bonano (2024) target article proposed that natural behavior should play a larger role in assessing the welfare of fishes in zoos and aquariums. However, the natural-behavior concept of animal welfare has been widely criticized because natural behaviors do not necessarily improve welfare, and unnatural behaviors do not necessarily reduce it. I review the three major concepts of animal welfare — physical health, natural behavior, and affect/feelings — and argue that behavior patterns, whether natural or otherwise, should be evaluated according to their effects on health and subjective experience. Using the affect/feelings concept and the …
Aggression And Fish Welfare: Challenges And Opportunities, Christine M. Soper, Peter D. Dijkstra
Aggression And Fish Welfare: Challenges And Opportunities, Christine M. Soper, Peter D. Dijkstra
Animal Sentience
Oldfield & Bonano’s (2024) [O&B] target article discusses the wellbeing and sociality of bony fishes. Many fish species, such as cichlids, are not only social but territorial. Aggression is normal, but territorial aggression in a captive environment can have a negative impact on welfare. Aggression-related injuries and deaths are prevalent in pet stores as well as research settings. We discuss the need to develop effective methods to minimize the negative consequences of aggression.
Both Studying And Protecting Octopuses “On Their Own Terms”, Jennifer Jacquet, Janelle Kaz, Becca Franks, Christine Webb
Both Studying And Protecting Octopuses “On Their Own Terms”, Jennifer Jacquet, Janelle Kaz, Becca Franks, Christine Webb
Animal Sentience
Cephalopods – indeed, all animals – “must be seen on their own terms,” with respect for their autonomy and their ecological imperatives. This will provide greater scientific insight along with a more ethical and accurate understanding of minds beyond our own.
Cephalopod Consciousness On “Their Own Terms”: Who Are “They”?, Willa M. Lane, Victor Ajuwon, Nicola S. Clayton
Cephalopod Consciousness On “Their Own Terms”: Who Are “They”?, Willa M. Lane, Victor Ajuwon, Nicola S. Clayton
Animal Sentience
Mather’s call to consider cephalopods’ consciousness “on their own terms” raises the question of the extent to which cephalopods can be considered a homogenous group. While coloeoid cephalopods share traits that strongly distinguish them from other molluscs and invertebrates, they show vast ecological and morphological diversity, with implications for the design of empirical investigations of consciousness. Extending Mather’s argument, we apply Birch et al.’s (2020) five-dimensional model to compare octopus, cuttlefish, squid, and nautilus. This comparison shows that even within a graded rather than categorical framework, putative consciousness profiles depend on which taxa are included in discussions of “cephalopod consciousness.” …
Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch
Précis Of The Edge Of Sentience: Risk And Precaution In Humans, Other Animals, And Ai, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
We often face grave practical decisions that seem to hinge on whether a system is sentient. This family of cases includes invertebrate animals, people who are unresponsive after brain injury, fetuses, neural organoids, and now AI technologies. We must decide what to do despite ongoing disagreement about the nature of sentience. In our state of uncertainty, we should pragmatically transform the question from “Is it sentient?” to “Is it a sentience candidate, an investigation priority, or neither?”. When a system is a sentience candidate, it is negligent to fail to consider precautions. We should instead evaluate precautions for their proportionality …
Wildlife Conservation: The Importance Of Individual Personality Traits And Sentience, Karen A. Owens, Gosia Bryja, Marc Bekoff
Wildlife Conservation: The Importance Of Individual Personality Traits And Sentience, Karen A. Owens, Gosia Bryja, Marc Bekoff
Animal Sentience
Individual differences in personality types within the same species have been studied much less than differences between species and populations. Personality differences are related to risk-taking and exploration, which in turn correlate with individuals' daily responses, decisions, and fitness. Bold and shy personality types can have different advantages and disadvantages under different social or environmental pressures. Analyzing personality differences has helped clarify how elk habituate to a well-populated area and how management strategies can be adapted to them. For wolves newly repatriated to Colorado, individual personality factors are likely to prove important for adapting to their new homes as well …
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Charles Foster
Donald Griffin: A Visionary In Science And Consciousness, Charles Foster
Animal Sentience
Carolyn Ristau’s (2024) timely biography reviews Donald Griffin’s pioneering ideas with depth and historical perspective, describing Griffin’s approach to science, his openness to interdisciplinary insights, and his bold stance on consciousness. Ristau’s work highlights Griffin’s relevance to contemporary debates on consciousness and natural selection.
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Plant Sentience: Not Now, Maybe Later?, Helen Tiffin
Animal Sentience
Segundo-Ortin’s target article provides compelling evidence for physiological and behavioral complexity in plants, bringing us closer to a recognition of some kind of plant cognition – but it does not as yet offer firm grounds for inferring sentience (feeling) in plants, The recent history of the scientific demonstration and recognition of animalsentience in invertebrates, for example, does not entirely rule out the possibility that further research might provide support for plant sentience. Should this ever turn out to be the case, the ethical problems raised are not insurmountable, and would not threaten the now proven case for animal sentience
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Plants Detect And Adapt, But Do Not Feel, Paul C. Struik
Animal Sentience
Plant sentience is a hot topic in scientific and popular media. There are moral reasons to respect both the service of plants to humanity and their natural integrity as creatures playing their own significant role in a complex ecosystem. However, to infer that plants have certain cognitive capacities that are present also in certain human and nonhuman animals calls for scientific rigor beyond mere analogy. The unique capacities of plants identified by Segundo-Ortin & Calvo are not necessarily linked to sentience. Nor is it likely that sentience is an evolutionary trait that is present to some extent in all living …
Between Choice And Compulsion: An Examination And Critique Of The Evolution Of 'Original Sin', Matthew James Wynn
Between Choice And Compulsion: An Examination And Critique Of The Evolution Of 'Original Sin', Matthew James Wynn
Graduate Theses/Dissertations
“Why are we the way that we are?” is one of the hardest questions to answer because it requires grasping the origin of human beings. This has left philosophers and theologians in century-long debates on forming a “cosmogony of ontology” (i.e., how the origin of the universe informs the human condition). The concept, “original sin” was developed by a North African theologian named Augustine (354 – 430 CE). Augustine’s reading of Genesis 3, and inaccurate translation of Romans 5:12, taught that a person is born morally culpable for a fault antecedent to their existence. This way of thinking about the …
Plant Sentience Revisited: Sifting Through The Thicket Of Perspectives, Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin
Plant Sentience Revisited: Sifting Through The Thicket Of Perspectives, Paco Calvo, Miguel Segundo-Ortin
Animal Sentience
In our target article (Segundo-Ortin & Calvo 2023), we proposed the intriguing possibility of plant sentience, drawing parallels with non-human animal studies. This response aims to sift through the rich thicket of perspectives offered by our commentators. To do so, we assess the risks of employing double standards, as well as the tendencies of anthropomorphizing and zoomorphizing in plant studies. We also emphasize the need for clarity in linguistic and conceptual terms, examine the neurophysiological evidence for plant sentience, and discuss the ethical implications of such recognition.
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Plant Sentience? Between Romanticism And Denial: Science, Miguel Segundo-Ortin, Paco Calvo
Animal Sentience
A growing number of non-human animal species are being seriously considered as candidates for sentience, but plants are either forgotten or explicitly excluded from these debates. In our view, this is based on the belief that plant behavior is hardwired and inflexible and on an underestimation of the role of plant electrophysiology. We weigh such assumptions against the evidence to suggest that it is time to take seriously the hypothesis that plants, too, might be sentient. We hope this target article will serve as an invitation to investigate sentience in plants with the same rigor as in non-human animals.
Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg
Pain Sentience Criteria And Their Grading, Eva Jablonka, Simona Ginsburg
Animal Sentience
On the basis of the target article by Crump and colleagues, we suggest a more parsimonious scheme for evaluating the evidence for sentience. Since some of the criteria used by Crump et al. are not independent and some are uninformative we exclude some criteria and amalgamate others. We propose that evidence of flexible learning and prioritization, in conjunction with relevant data on brain organization, is sufficient for assigning pain-sentience to an animal and we suggest a scoring scheme based on four criteria.
Truly Minimal Criteria For Animal Sentience, Mark Solms
Truly Minimal Criteria For Animal Sentience, Mark Solms
Animal Sentience
The criteria for determining animal sentience proposed in the target article are sensible but they lack an explicit functional justification for the focus on pain. This commentary provides an abbreviated account of the most basic functional principles that underpin animal sentience and articulates some minimal criteria for determining its presence.
Generalizing Frameworks For Sentience Beyond Natural Species, Michael Levin
Generalizing Frameworks For Sentience Beyond Natural Species, Michael Levin
Animal Sentience
Crump et al. (2022) offer a well-argued example of an essential development: a rigorous framework for assessing sentience from the perspective of moral concern over an agent’s welfare. Current and forthcoming developments in bioengineering, synthetic morphology, artificial intelligence, biorobotics, and exobiology necessitate an expansion and generalization of this effort. Verbal reports (the Turing Test) and homology to human brains are utterly inadequate criteria for assessing the status of novel, unconventional agents that offer no familiar touchstone of phylogeny or anatomy. We must develop principled approaches to evaluating the sentience of (and thus, our responsibility to) beings of unfamiliar provenance and …
Sentience In Decapods: An Open Question, Mark Briffa
Sentience In Decapods: An Open Question, Mark Briffa
Animal Sentience
Crump et al.’s framework is a powerful tool designed to assist decisions on the ethical treatment of decapod crustaceans. However, the question of whether decapods are sentient (i.e., whether they feel), remains open, perhaps indefinitely. More optimistically, we might design experiments that distinguish among different levels of awareness, sometimes viewed as components of sentience. We should strike a balance between assuming that all organisms are sentient and making unnecessary anatomical assumptions about sentience. Refining current experiments may provide concrete insights about awareness in Decapoda and other taxa.
Does The Sentience Framework Imply All Animals Are Sentient?, Kristin Andrews
Does The Sentience Framework Imply All Animals Are Sentient?, Kristin Andrews
Animal Sentience
The eight criteria proposed in Crump et al.’s framework for evaluating pain sentience in decapod crustaceans are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to markers that could increase confidence in an animal’s sentience more generally. Some of the commentaries have already pointed out that pain is only one kind of sentience (Souza Valente). It has also already been pointed out that there are other criteria for pain that could be usefully added to the framework’s eight (Burrell). This expansive thinking about criteria that can be used to increase confidence in sentience raisess the question: in an expansive …
Distinguishing Epistemic And Moral Grounds For Legal Protection, Carlos Montemayor
Distinguishing Epistemic And Moral Grounds For Legal Protection, Carlos Montemayor
Animal Sentience
The criteria proposed by Crump et al. are based on various cognitive roles associated with sentience. A subset of them may be sufficient for certain kinds of welfare, but the presence of all of them should be considered as clearly sufficient for substantial kinds of legal protection based on their relation to capacities that we consider essential for moral standing in human beings.
Pain In Pleocyemata, But Not In Dendrobranchiata?, Gary Comstock
Pain In Pleocyemata, But Not In Dendrobranchiata?, Gary Comstock
Animal Sentience
Crump et al.’s contribution to assessing whether decapods feel pain raises an important question: Is pain distributed unevenly across the order? The case for pain appears stronger in Pleocyemata than in Dendrobranchiata. Some studies report pain avoidance behaviors in Dendrobranchiata (Penaeidae) shrimp, but further studies are needed to determine whether the chemicals used are acting as analgesics to relieve pain, or as soporifics to reduce overall alertness. If the latter, the most farmed shrimp species may not require the same level of protection as crabs, crayfish, and lobsters.
Sentience As Part Of Emotional Lives, Frans B. M. De Waal
Sentience As Part Of Emotional Lives, Frans B. M. De Waal
Animal Sentience
It is high time to explore the sentience of invertebrate animals, but this topic cannot be discussed without also exploring their emotional lives, including positive emotions. Sentience probably evolved to allow the regulation of emotions by endowing them with feelings.
Decapod Sentience: Promising Framework And Evidence, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg Md
Decapod Sentience: Promising Framework And Evidence, Jon Mallatt, Todd E. Feinberg Md
Animal Sentience
Strong points of the target article by Crump et al. are that it offers clear criteria for judging whether decapods are sentient, an effective semi-quantitative grading system for this purpose, and an astute, critical review of the literature. It concludes plausibly that major subgroups of decapods are sentient. A minor problem is that it includes classical, Pavlovian learning as a marker of sentience along with the more valid marker of complex (e.g., operant) learning. Another minor problem is that it does not distinguish results that are negative because of likely absence of sentience from results that are negative because they …
Integrating Evolution Into The Study Of Animal Sentience, Walter Veit
Integrating Evolution Into The Study Of Animal Sentience, Walter Veit
Animal Sentience
Like many others, I see Crump et al. (2022) as a milestone for improving upon previous guidelines and for extending their framework to decapod crustaceans. Their proposal would benefit from a firm evolutionary foundation by adding the comparative measurement of life-history complexity as a ninth criterion for attributing sentience to nonhuman animals.
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience Research: Synthesis And Proposals, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
Most commentaries on our target article broadly support our approach to evaluating evidence of animal sentience. In this Response, we clarify the framework’s purpose and address criticisms of our criteria. A recurring theme is that a framework to synthesise current evidence of sentience is not the same as an agenda for future directions in animal sentience research. Although future directions are valuable, our framework aims to evaluate existing evidence and inform animal welfare legislation.
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Time To Stop Pretending We Don’T Know Other Animals Are Sentient Beings, Marc Bekoff
Animal Sentience
Rowan et al.’s target article is an outstanding review of some of the history of the science of sentience, but one would have liked to see a much stronger “call to action.” We don’t need any more data to know that many other animals are sentient beings whose lives must be protected from harm in a wide variety of contexts. It is not anti-science to want more action on behalf of other animals right now.
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Sentience In Decapod Crustaceans: A General Framework And Review Of The Evidence, Andrew Crump, Heather Browning, Alex Schnell, Charlotte Burn, Jonathan Birch
Animal Sentience
We outline a framework for evaluating scientific evidence of sentience, focusing on pain experience. It includes eight neural and cognitive-behavioural criteria, with confidence levels for each criterion reflecting the reliability and quality of the evidence. We outline the rationale for each criterion and apply our framework to a controversial sentience candidate: decapod crustaceans. We have either high or very high confidence that true crabs (infraorder Brachyura) satisfy five criteria, amounting to strong evidence of sentience. Moreover, we have high confidence that both anomuran crabs (infraorder Anomura) and astacid lobsters/crayfish (infraorder Astacidea) meet three criteria—substantial evidence of sentience. The case is, …
Of Course Crustaceans Are Sentient: But There's More To The Story, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Of Course Crustaceans Are Sentient: But There's More To The Story, Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska, William B. Miller Jr.
Animal Sentience
We are in basic agreement with Crump et al. that animal welfare, particularly with regard to the experience of pain, is a topic of importance. However, we come to the issue from a different perspective, one in which all species are sentient and can feel pain. The implications of this theory are discussed.
Defending Human Difference By Raising The Bar, Joe Gough
Defending Human Difference By Raising The Bar, Joe Gough
Animal Sentience
Chapman & Huffman (C&H) offer a theory of why we humans want to believe that we are different: to justify our cruelty to animals. This commentary offers further supporting evidence of this and examines more closely what the claim that humans are ‘different’ amounts to. It also considers some methodological issues in animal psychology closely related to C&H ‘s theory. These problems result from a common strategy for defending hypotheses about human difference.