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A PhD candidate in biological sciences, who is also pursuing a graduate certificate in women's studies, describes male-centered paradigms in the study of fish coloration that overlook coloration displays in females. As a result, many traits common to both sexes are labeled "male traits," thereby obscuring the actual degree of sexual variation. It is argued that the traditionally male-dominated field of animal behavior has produced many theories that fail to consider female evolution. However, recent work by the growing number of women in the field, as well as some astute male scientists, has focused more on androcentric research that reflects larger cultural shifts in gender roles. Personal experiences as a woman in a male-dominated field are related, along with how childhood socialization served to restrict certain aspirations, & how human gender roles inhibit conceptions of male & female animals. A discussion of the need to challenge science's gender-based representations contends that the insights & methodologies of feminist theory must be applied in order to develop a more flexible view of animal nature. 17 References. J. Lindroth

This book details the results of the authors' research using laboratory animals to investigate individual choice theory in economics-consumer-demand and labour supply behaviour and choice under uncertainty. The use of laboratory animals provides the opportunity to conduct controlled experiments involving precise and demanding tests of economic theory with rewards and punishments of real consequence. Economic models are compared to psychological and biological choice models along with the results of experiments testing between these competing explanations. Results of animal experiments are used to address questions of social policy importance

Since the 1970s, scientists studying animal welfare and philosophers writing about animal ethics have worked toward the common goal of understanding and articulating our proper relationship to animals of other species. However, the two groups approached this task using such different concepts, assumptions, and vocabulary that they functioned as two distinct ''cultures'' with little mutual understanding or communication. Some of the best known ethical writing created barriers for scientists because it tended (1) to focus only on the level of the individual rather than making some decisions at the level of the population, ecosystem or species, (2) to advocate single ethical principles rather than balancing conflicting principles, (3) to ignore or dismiss traditional ethics based on care, responsibility, and community with animals, (4) to seek solutions through ethical theory with little recourse to empirical knowledge, (5) to lump diverse taxonomic groups into single moral categories, and (6) to propose wholesale solutions to diverse animal use practices. Meanwhile, some of the scientists alienated the ethicists by taking the view that suffering and other subjective experiences of animals are not amenable to scientific enquiry, and by the claim that science could ''measure'' animal welfare as if it were a purely empirical concept. However, other (often less well known) work in animal ethics creates links with animal welfare science and looks to empirical research to help resolve animal ethics issues. Some of this work (1) expresses moral concern about animals using concepts that lend themselves to scientific analysis, (2) attaches value to traditional care for and community with animals, (3) recognizes the importance of empirical analysis for discriminating between good and bad animal use practices, and (4) sees different taxonomic groups as meriting different types and levels of ethical concern. At the same time, animal welfare science has grown more compatible with the approaches used by some ethicists. Some ...

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the wild animal story emerged in Canadian literature as a distinct genre, in which animals pursue their own interests--survival for themselves, their offspring, and perhaps a mate, or the pure pleasure of their wildness. Bringing together some of the most celebrated wild animal stories, Ralph H. Lutts places them firmly in the context of heated controversies about animal intelligence and purposeful behavior. Widely regarded as entertaining and educational, the early stories--by Charles G.D. Roberts, Ernest Thompson Seton, John Muir, Jack London and other--had an avid readership among adults and children. But some naturalists and at least one hunter--Theodore Roosevelt--discredited these writers as "nature fakers," accusing them of falsely portraying animal behavior