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From: cl@lgc.com (Cameron Laird)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Info. on Infanticidal Behavior
Keywords: sociobiology, reproductive energetics
Message-ID: <1991Apr24.132214.19582@lgc.com>
Date: 24 Apr 91 13:22:14 GMT
References: <464@platypus.uofs.edu> <12606@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
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In article <12606@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> davidh@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (David A. Helweg) writes:
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>It seems to me that a definition such as Charnov's could be extended reductio
>ad absurdum to include accidental loss of offspring.
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To some, that's not an approach ad absurdum.  Accidents
also have their reasons, and it's possible that they
admit scientific investigation.

An example:  suppose the broods of first-time vireo
mothers have many more accidents than those of more
experienced birds.  If there's enough other evidence,
we might conclude that the species "practices" with
its first nests, or that those offspring are relatively
expendable, or perhaps something else.  It might turn
out that such mechanisms can be viewed as alternatives
to narrow-sense infanticide.  What's crucial here is
that all these possibilities are susceptible to re-
search; the answers might be either true, or false, and
not just matters of definition.

I've lost track of this thread; maybe your point was
that it's possible to lump so much into a definition
that it loses its usefulness.  With that I certainly
agree.
--

Cameron Laird				+1 713-579-4613
cl@lgc.com (cl%lgc.com@uunet.uu.net)	+1 713-996-8546