I have another short piece commissioned by Forbes magazine in one of their special reports. The section is called “Work Is…”, and there are some provocative ideas in there. My own article is answering the question, “Do Animals Work?” and as you might guess, the answer is yes. I think I got one of the easier topics, actually.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Along Forbes’ line, another question could be whether animals modify their environment. Again, yes, though with fewer examples.
I agree with PZ’s answer, but I would shift the emphasis: of course, some animals work some of the time, but a lot of animals get by fine without working. And humans are almost certainly more dependent on work than any other animal.
I use “work” in the subjective sense of something that you do intentionally when you’d prefer to be doing something else. It’s bound up in the concept of deferred gratification, which is simultaneously one of the most powerful tools and onerous burdens of human existence, doing untold damage by increasing stress and leading to pathological indefinite deferral of any gratification (e.g. workaholism, miserliness, etc.)
I look at work as any activity that you carry out with an understanding of its utility, but which is not backed up by any intrinsic drive that makes it seem enjoyable. In Aesop’s fable about the ant and grasshopper, the ant is a model of industry and illustrates deferred gratification. But real ants aren’t working because they are simply following a drive to collect and store food.
Work serves as a stopgap to allow learned behaviors to supercede instinct. I don’t know as much about chimps as PZ, but clearly they do learn, plan, and solve problems. It stands to reason that they work. Some chimp, somewhere, is thinking he or she would rather be doing something else right now but keeps on working to achieve some other goal.
The crazy thing about subjective work, though, is that it’s not strictly necessary to carry out work in the physical sense, or even the economic sense of productivity. There is no “conservation of work” law. Things that have been done through monotonous soul-crushing labor can often be done without any labor at all. I see the value of technology as the extent to which it frees us from work, but at the same time actually increases our total productive output.
I also value work, and would credit the human ability to work as one of the keys to our success as a species. At the same time, I think it should always be viewed as a temporary solution. Every time you see a goal accomplished by people gritting their teeth and doing things they’d rather not be doing, the question to ask is how to get the same results with less or ideally no work, either by putting the activity more in accord with human drives or adopting labor-saving technology.
Remember some History Channel show about home conveniences, that offerred one idea I found somewhat intuitive: One problem we often face is that when something’s easier, we tend to do it more often.
On the subject of environment modification:
About expending time, effort, and energy to get your needs met from the environment you’re in, I’m reminded of what my vertebrate endocrinology professor said Sapolsky told him once.
Mind you, I’m paraphrasing a second-hand story from memory, so this isn’t an exact quote, but he recounted Sapolsky saying that in the environment they find themselves in, baboons can get their food and other needs met in about half an hour a day, so that leaves them the other 23.5 hours free to spend treating each other badly.
Nice article PJ, covered the subject well.
PZ, you didn’t even mention dogs! Admittedly, they’re a “client species” of humanity, but they certainly do a good bit on our behalf, and they certainly show a sense of purpose at their “business”, whether hunting, herding, guiding, or even pulling loads. I’ve heard there are even some breeds such as border collies, that get neurotic if they don’t have a “job to do”.
I like the article quite a bit. PaulC, I wonder why you say “I use ‘work’ in the subjective sense of something that you do intentionally when you’d prefer to be doing something else.” I certainly think I do work when I make a poem, and that’s something I enjoy immensely and sacrifice a good deal to make time for. Of course, every time I sit down to write there are suddenly a million things that have to be done right now: dishes, weeding, vacuuming the cat …
BTW, I want to correct myself. I don’t agree with PZ’s answer entirely; I hadn’t read far enough.
By my standard (see above) it’s not work. It’s also not “tedious” to the ant. While I haven’t done a Vulcan mindmeld, I feel safe in assuming it comes as natural to the ant as eating. The reason agriculture is work to a human is because it is learned behavior and not something we feel driven to do. Even the things we think of as work can often come naturally–writing, solving problems, walking from one place to another–but what makes it work is the fact that we force ourselves to do it sometimes even when we don’t want to.
By this definition, I really doubt that ants ever work. I think chimps probably work sometimes. Some of the other cases might be anybody’s guess. Which better describes a squirrel’s internal monologue? “Oh man… I can’t wait till I finish collecting all these frickin’ nuts.” or “Oh boy! A nut. Oh boy! Another nut! Oh boy! Another nut! …” I suspect it’s the latter but that’s just a wild guess.
Because that is in fact the way that I use it.
I also realize that my use is not the only way to view work or even an especially common one. In an economic sense, the value of labor is determined by how much the market will pay for it, not how onerous it seems. Some people have jobs they really enjoy and which have high economic value. (Even in this case, there are usually times when you have to force yourself to work on any particular day.) Other people have terrible, backbreaking jobs, but they are paid much less because unfortunately the market value of their output is lower.
However, I think that this way of looking at work is significant because it explains something about the human experience, particularly as distinguished from most other animals. I had the impression that this was what the question was getting at, but who knows.
Thinking about beavers… those in NAmerica instinctively start building a lodge if they hear running water, even though there need be no water. This is learned, because those in Europe appear to have forgotten how. It is what beavers do, if they know how to, but it sure seems like work to me. They are the archetypal ecosystem engineers. This seems to parallel PaulC’s ants quite well.
Male bowerbirds are a good example of work with indirect rewards. They build their structure to attract mates, but the real work of nest building is done by the female, since the bower is not for nesting.
PZ: you think you got assigned one of the easier questions here? “Work” is a pretty subtle concept – didn’t Marx write a bit about it, and a few others – just attempting definitions? (Not that Forbes cites Marx very often.)
As for chimps lacking sophistication in “money” management, it’s also a complex issue. Marc Hauser (whose work I suspect your example is referencing) also cites a colleague Sally Boysen whose work with numeral-competent chimps is provocative. She trained chimps to use numerals up to six or so as numbers in a variety of contexts. Having done this, she gave two such chimps a cooperative dilemma: the two were in adjacent cages, and one chimp was offered a choice of plates holding a large amount or a small amount of treats. The catch: having made the choice, Boysen would give the chosen plate to the other chimp, not to the choosing chimp. So the chooser should just learn to choose the smaller treat first – but this never happened, since chimps can’t ignore what’s in front of them! However, if instead the choice was between plates with placards showing differing numeral-icons, then once the choosing chimp understood that the numerals now represented the amount of treats to come, the correct choice (of the smaller number) was made. Apparently the layer of abstraction with numerals allowed a more judicious choice.
Lots of subtleties here in comparative psychology.
A video of Sally Boysen’s work, via Scientific American Frontiers:
http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous/watchonline205.htm
— it’s the first video, “Chimps Count”
(and of course she has lots of publications too)
I must admit that I think there’s something to PaulC’s definition of work. Or maybe we need an either/or type of definition? Lots of effort for reward is stuff we wouldn’t call ‘work’, after all – sport, for example. Unless you’re getting paid.
How do you know chimps didn’t invent sex-for-hire in 1200 AD? Are you claiming prostitution is a shared characteristic? Wouldn’t that mean that sin is natural? Why do you hate Jesus?
I have three cats. I taught the youngest one to scratch only on her carpeted cat “cave” by giving her a special treat. She quickly learned to ask for a treat by getting my attention first, then going over, scratching, and then standing in front of me expectantly. (I think this is hilarious so I usually do give her one.) She then taught the oldest cat to scratch for treats too (with my enthusiastic cooperation), but he will only do it if she starts first.
The middle cat is not big on treats and would rather sharpen his claws on a pair of recycled-tire flipflops, but he likes to sit on top of the “cave” and bat the other two cats in the face when they scratch for a treat. So the little cat will get my attention, run up, pretend to start scratching, get the big cat started, and run away while the middle cat bats the big cat in the nose. Then the big cat will get mad and chase the middle cat away, the little cat will go scratch to her heart’s content, and then she will come beg for her treat.
Is this work? Well, she works for her treats, at least. Furthermore, I can say it reminds me of the day-to-day politics around my office.
Hey, maybe the white European colonialists taught it to the chimps!
the question isn’t, do animals work, the question is, do they collect unemployment when they stop?
Only someone in Forbes billionaire’s list, whose familiarity with animals stops at manicured poodles and perfumed cats, could ask that question. Of course animals work and exert themselves tirelessly. But that is not the question. Do human beings work?
According to Plato, humans study philosophy, participate in politics, enjoy music and theater, debate how a right life should be lived. They dont work. All the work is done by animals and slaves (la meme chose).
I am glad PZ has been co-opted by Forbes.