Behavioral biologists try to define behavior, with interesting results:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/21angier.html?ref=science
>From the penultimate paragraph:
Despite the overall lack of concordance, the researchers sought to
extract from the results a trial definition for a word their peers
bandy about with abandon. As they pitch it, a behavior is the
internally coordinated response that an individual or a group makes to
a stimulus. The response can be action or lack of action. The stimulus
can come from inside or out. By this definition, masting oak trees,
bacterial colonies creeping across a sugar gradient, zebra herds
fissioning and fusing, are all displaying behaviors. Dogs that bark are
behaving, dogs that obey a trainer’s signal and choose not to bark are
most definitely behaving.
Jeff Nagelbush
nagel...@hotmail.com
Social Sciences Department
Ferris State University
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