On 21 Jul 2009 at 13:03, Jeffrey Nagelbush wrote: > > Behavioral biologists try to define behavior, with interesting results: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/21/science/21angier.html?ref=science
>By this definition, masting oak trees, bacterial colonies > creeping across a sugar gradient, zebra herds fissioning and fusing, > are all displaying behaviors. My two cents. Whatever behaviour is, I'm sure that oak trees don't do it. So any definition which allows oak trees to behave will not do. The same goes for Canadian maple trees. Dogwood--maybe, because of their bark. I have to say I find Dave Palmer's definition (from Paul Brandon's post) that a behaviour is anything sensitive to operant or classical conditioning persuasive. This could even include EEG as a behaviour, assuming it's been shown to be conditionable (which takes us back to the Neal Miller debacle, doesn't it?). Stephen ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: sbl...@ubishops.ca 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Subscribe to discussion list (TIPS) for the teaching of psychology at http://flightline.highline.edu/sfrantz/tips/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
