The Washington Post ran a story yesterday that compares some human and animal behavior. That much of human behavior is strongly rooted in our evolutionary heritage seems like a pretty easy conclusion, considering one of the anecdotes mentioned:

When Emory University primatologist Frans de Waal read a news story that said Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, had hurled a chair across the room on hearing an employee was going to work for rival Google, the scientist immediately made a connection with his own research: "When I see such behavior, I think of a chimpanzee."

The story looks at some interesting behavior that some humans and some animals share (like gangsterism and using a "wingman" to get a date). Unfortunately, the reporter searches far and wide for novelty and an inch deep for substance.

 

Let's take the "wingman" example: recently a biologist found that pairs of male lance-tailed manakins often get together to perform "a skilled dance for the benefit of a female bird," despite the fact that one of the birds is sure to be moonwalking alone.* The similarity to the actions of a few people is taken by the reporter to "give us a glimpse into how far back in evolutionary terms complex behaviors that we would normally associate with humans go."

While it is a practice some folks engage in, pointing out a similar behavior in a bird suggests nothing about the biological basis for the behavior of "pickup artists." Birds are very distant relatives to human beings, and (so far as I know) this behavior is not that common in either the human world or larger animal kingdom.

 

The reporter never makes the point that finding two related phenomena is not enough to identify the causes of such behavior. The fact that global temperatures have risen since 1820, while the number of pirates has decreased, does not suggest that pirates prevent global warming (as some Pastafarians suggest).

 

Finally, there is also no evidence to suggest that this mating strategy did not develop recently in this particular species of bird, rather than "far back in evolutionary terms." In fact, I bet it is the more plausible assumption.