Fish use logic. There, I managed to type it. Not with a straight face, but still, there it is in print I created. The implications for this are so vast I don't know where to begin. Probably I should begin with something that helps you believe me.
The January 25, 2007, issue of the journal Nature has a paper by Stanford scientists Logan Grosenick, Tricia Clement, and Russell Fernald entitled, "Fish can infer social rank by observation alone."
The researchers had a swell time setting up a system of rigged fights that was viewed by "bystander" fish who were later tested on what they'd grasped from watching the series of encounters.
All of the fish involved were male fish of the Astatotilapia burtoni variety, which are ferociously territorial. In Lake Tanganyika, home turf for the species, the fish "engage in regular aggressive bouts that determine their access to territory and resources."
But they do not engage in fights just for the heck of it, because if they lose more than they win they end up "losing their bright coloration and becoming reproductively dormant." Which is even less fun than it sounds like. Eager to keep their colors and their virility, each fish - similar to a drunk cowboy with a chip on his shoulder but not a death wish - prefers to fight someone they think they can whip.
The experiment was designed to see if fish could put two and two together successfully. Five fighters, A, B, C, D, and E, were paired in matches in which Fish A beat Fish B, Fish B beat Fish C, Fish C beat Fish D, and Fish D beat fish E.
The bystander fish never saw Fish A fight Fish E. Therefore, if a bystander fish preferred fighting Fish E instead of Fish A, it would mean the bystander had used logic to make this choice.
The bystanders made the right choice.
To make sure there wasn't something specific about a particular fish that helped with the selection, the fish labeled "Fish A" for half of the bystanders was given the role of "Fish E" for each of the other bystanders. Who also made the right choice.
How do you rig a fish fight? Well, the scientists knew a fish in his home area had an advantage because of Astatotilapia burtoni's natural tendency to "vigorously defend their territory against intruding rivals." So they moved the fish designated to lose into the tank of the fish designated to win. And, prior to doing that, the designated loser was "stressed twice by suspension out of water for 30 [seconds]" with a one-minute reprieve in between.
The little fellahs had all the hope of a baseball team in the Super Bowl. But their losses were all in the name of science, and I for one am grateful. Because of these fish, I'm more optimistic about elected officials.
It wasn't just that the bystanders had the intellect to figure out fighting Fish E would be wiser than fighting Fish A - they even deduced that fighting fish D was smarter than fighting Fish B, even though B and D both won and lost the same number of bouts.
Like it had been with A and E, the bystander fish never saw B and D fight each other. And since the bystanders saw D win just as many fights as B, their preference for D could only come from the fish figuring out the ranking system.
Initially, it was impossible to contain my joy. If these fish have a basic grasp of logic, surely there's hope for Congress. If fish can correctly manage their way through an "if this, then that" situation, certainly human beings in Congress have the skill, even if it's buried way deep under apathy, greed, and the over-riding desire to get re-elected even at the cost of a future for the world. ...Then I remembered a basic difference between the fish and Congress. The fish were motivated.
The fish needed to figure out the ranking in order to remain ongoing participants in the life of their species. Currently Congress is not motivated to use their intellect to forge a better future through an honest assessment of facts and open debate of diverse ideas. Evidence has shown them the best route to survival is pandering to huge corporations and lying to voters.
It is up to us to make it so members of Congress lose color and become "reproductively dormant" when they repeatedly are visionless and self-centered.
Elected o-fish-cials should be required to get a clue.
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