Lauren Daugherty stands Nov. 18 inside the education center in the Eskenazi Museum of Art. Daugherty is the new art therapist at the museum. Izzy Myszak Buy Photos

Lauren Daugherty knew she had a love for art while looking at a painting during a fourth grade field trip to the David Owlsey Museum of Art. Admiring the gigantic double doors, she imagined her own work being hung on the walls.

Yes, Daugherty knows this sounds particularly idyllic. Nonetheless, her work today pushes museum guests to capture their own feelings after looking at artwork through art making.

Lauren Daugherty is an arts based wellness experiences manager at the Sidney & Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art.

I usually just say Im an art therapist. It rolls off the tongue a bit easier, Daugherty said.

Daugherty received her masters degree at the Herron School of Art at Ball State University, writing her thesis on existing museums that collaborate with art therapists and art educators.

Now, she works as an art therapist in the educational center of the Eskenazi.

Daugherty is managing the first ever arts-based wellness center at the Eskenazi. This is a result of the recently finalized $30 million renovation of the museum.

Art therapy is an emerging field. In Indiana, only three universities, Ball State, the University of Indianapolis and St. Mary-of-the-Woods teach arts-based wellness.

Daugherty explained what art therapy looks like at the Eskenazi. She said each practitioner has a different way of providing services.

Were really interested in people finding their own connection with what theyre seeing, Daugherty said. Youre capitalizing on the magical feeling that people have when they come into a museum space.

A wellness-based activity engages guests with art making to relax and use a creative outlet. The next step would be to analyze the art, which then becomes a therapeutic activity.

Daugherty works with elementary-age kids to college students and older community members, looking at art and then returning to the art-making studio to express their feelings through artwork.

Working with such disparate age groups requires her to understand her audience at an individual level. For example, she knows that young children may not necessarily have the same capacities as adults in analyzing and interacting with artwork.

Instead, maintaining consistency from one session to the next is key, especially for kids who have experienced trauma and instability.

For example, she works with Monroe County Career Appointed Special Advocates in helping child survivors of abuse and neglect through art therapy.

Were trying to really know our audience and making sure were using clinical skills to inform what were doing even if it isnt super clinically-based, said Daugherty.

Some of her older clients have depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or psychosis. Other clients simply want to use the resource to destress and take time for themselves.

When Daugherty first began to learn about intersecting therapy with art, she always imagined it would be in a one-on-one, clinical office or at someones bedside.

After a few internships, she realized that she preferred group therapy over personal settings.

It decreases feelings of isolation, Daugherty said. Everything here is community-based.

Daugherty leads three different kinds of programs since the museums reopening in early November: wellness pop-ups, community sessions, and college student sessions.

She organizes wellness pop-ups where she visits different schools on campus, offering wellness activities for students to participate in between classes. They often occur at the Kelley School of Business.

From 1-2:30 p.m. on Thursdays, she opens the art-making room to the Bloomington community. Following that session, from 2:30-4 p.m., she welcomes college students.

When asked about challenges in managing the museums first few months of art therapy, Daugherty was hard-pressed to think of any. She said her director, Heidi Soylu-Davis, had a vision for the education program, and Daugherty has had her support since her hiring.

She identified one challenge.

Its being able to offer the amount of services that people are wanting, Daugherty said.

As an educational museum, the Eskenazi hires interns in many of its departments. Daughertys intern is Katy Bradberry, a graduate student at the Herron School of Art at Ball State.

Bradberry commented on her experiences working with Daugherty.

Its been a great experience here. I love working with Lauren, Bradberry said.

Eryn Ryan, the museums Tour and Docent Experiences Manager also spoke about her coworker. She has worked with Lauren for about six months.

Shes doing a great job forming personal experiences with our guests at our museum, Ryan said. Were very lucky to have her.

Moving forward, Daugherty has plenty of ideas for how the program can develop and serve more people. One idea is to create sensory tours, using 3-D printing technology to make replicas of pieces on display to better engage autistic and seeing-impaired guests.

Ultimately, Daugherty hopes to see art therapy grow as a field across the country.

Working at one of the countrys preeminent university museums as an art therapist offers great opportunity but also demands serious responsibility. Daugherty recognizes this, approaching her guests and activities alike with sensitivity and clinical research.

Daugherty has always been interested in art, art museums, and understanding human behavior. Working at the Eskenazi alongside a team of equally passionate workers has changed how she experiences museums, but nonetheless, her appreciation for her job is apparent.

Ive loved every second of it, Daugherty said.

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Ensembles from the Jacobs School of Music and the folklore and ethnomusicology department performed.

The seminal 2011 album from The Wonder Years is perfect for a gray November.

The featured speaker was IU English professor Ross Gay.

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Eskenazi's Lauren Daugherty integrates art, therapy and education - Indiana Daily Student

There is a scene, an admonition, that I have witnessed on television, in real life and in my head. Do not fetishize your sadness! says some agent of21st-century wisdom. I dont! replies some deviant in denial. It makes sense that we young people would encounter this. Young people, like most people, have sadness, and as a result of our unformed identities, we are faddy, stylish, hip and posturing. We exaggerate for the pleasure, fixate for meaning; In short, we are fetishizers for certain. So as a result, we have this scene, again and again:

Do not fetishize your sadness!

I dont!

Why doesnt the latter simply say So what!? Why is the fetishization of sadness assumed to be so reprehensible? How much of our repulsion to this fetish is based in rhetoric as opposed to substance?

I think that this question often goes unanswered. To fetishize sadness is bad; its simply common knowledge. As we do with so many ideas regarding mental health, we assume this statements truth. Yet, there is hope after all, because there is another assumed truth held in high regard by our socio-psychiatric dogma: Accept yourself. Are these two commonly held beliefs not antithetical? To love your sadness is to accept yourself, but to love your sadness is also to fetishize it.

Weve reached an impasse, and since these two beliefs are so commonly held, this impasse would seem almost universal. For all those indoctrinated into the common wisdoms of mob psychiatry, there is an ambitious industrialist, seeking to optimize sadness out of existence, and there is a hopeful determinist, who seeks to accept existence as it is discovered. To accept what degrades us is self-destructive, but to wage war on that which is essential is to erase our humanity. The contradiction is of mythic proportion, and it begs the question: What is essential to the human condition and what can change? What wins out: our acceptance of the self, or our hatred for our sadness?

Of course, this question is too impossible to be solved by an ignorant college student whose navet will be forever immortalized by the Wesleyan Argus archives. Nonetheless, Ill do my best.

It seems to me that acceptance ought to win out because, what is so bad about fetishizing sadness anyway? Well, a lot, I suppose. There is an undeniable toxicity when a person identifies with their misery to such an extent that it becomes their social grounding, when their pleasure of life is resultantly self-denied. But I believe that we can cut around these edges and find an acceptance of sadness that is beautiful. What is this joyful workaround? Masochism!

Masochism! Masochism! Masochism! I think that this word is viewed as meaning something quite specific, perhaps something sexual, definitely something perverse. I disagree. On the contrary, I believe that masochism describes a wide range of essential human behavior. Ambition is masochism. Moral aspirations are masochism. Watching the news nowadays is masochism. (And of course, wanting to get beaten in bed is also masochism.) My point is that so many masochisms are allowed and accepted, if not encouraged, by society. Why should I derive pleasure from my academic drive but not from my sadness, from my sense of civic duty but not from my existential ennui?

I love my sadness. I am fulfilled by it. As a musician, I seek to distill it, to elevate it, to celebrate it in all its glory. There is a masochistic merit to sadness, and this merit doesnt lie within the social performances, postures and fashions of which we are accused. This merit remains when we are alone. It exists in our consumption of sad movies, in the catharsis of a symbiotic and candid heart to heart, in the tears we shed for humankind. Someone might read this, and think,Wait a minute, what youre describing isnt a fetishization of sadness; its something altogether different. If this is the case, then good. I believe it to be a worthy substitute, the quinoa of sulking.

I write this opinion not as a sorry excuse for advice, but as an examination of a contradiction. Sadness, gloominess, misery, self-loathing, despondence [insert more synonyms here]they take many complicated and devastating forms and cannot possibly be holistically understood by the embryo that is mynascent 20-year-old mind. I dont doubt that Ill disagree with myself within five years and quite possibly within five days. Even so, I felt the desire to express these current views of mine; regardless of whether they are right or wrong, I believe that they are not adequately considered. Furthermore, I share because I believe the issue at hand to be all-pervasive in the world of my fellow young people. I hope that readers of this piece will analyze the complexity of their own pleasure in earnest. I hope that they will examine the potential difference between pleasure and happiness. I hope that they will reflect on what this potential difference means for them.

Matthew Rubenstein can be reached at mnrubenstein@wesleyan.edu.Matthew Rubenstein is a member of the class of 2021.

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The Masochistic Merits of Sadness - The Wesleyan Argus

It was a DNR employee, furbearer specialist Adam Bump, who told Michigan Radio in May 2013 of wolf packs terrorizing Ironwood residents.

So you have wolves showing up in backyards, wolves showing up on porches, wolves staring at people through their sliding-glass doors when theyre pounding on it, exhibiting no fear, he said during the interview.

Never happened.

At least not in Michigan, as Bump would later acknowledge in recanting the story on air. He said he had mistakenly recounted an incident from a book he had read about human encounters with mountain lions in Colorado.

Warren, of the National Wolfwatcher Coalition, said she first heard casual talk of wolf attacks at the Dykstra farm in May 2016 as she listened to a country music station at her home in nearby Ewen.

Inquiries to the DNRs Marquette office that May 26 were met with a string of evasive responses, her correspondence shows. Warren persisted.

She filed a formal request for cattle-attack reports the next morning, Friday, May 27, 2016.

Warren didnt know it then, but the first of the three killings of the Ontonagon wolves had already taken place.

Under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act, government agencies are required to respond to public records requests within 5 business days, though a provision allows them a 10-day extension, which they routinely take.

At the end of that period, the agencys only obligation is to give a response, such as by sending a letter saying the records will (or will not) be provided.

Agencies are not required to actually provide the records within that time. In fact, one significant loophole in state law is that it provides no clear guidelines for when the records themselves must be turned over, which means that people seeking records often have to rely on the goodwill of the government worker in that office.

DNR charged Warren $87.50 for the records.

Nine weeks later, the agency turned over 35 pages on cattle attacks to Warren.

But when she looked at the papers sent by Chief Masons office, the names, addresses and contact information were blacked out, making it impossible to determine which farmers lost cattle to wolves. DNR also excluded geographic coordinates township, range and section numbers for farms that suffered livestock attacks.

Its not unusual for government offices to redact parts of a document. Generally, theyre allowed to block information if they can show it falls under one of several exemptions to public records, usually to protect someones privacy. The home address of a judge or police officer, for example, or the Social Security number of a party in a lawsuit are the kinds of information shielded from public release.

DNR sought to extend this same exemption to farms. Victoria Lischalk, Chief Masons executive assistant, wrote Warren that the location of livestock attacks was considered information of a personal nature (and) would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy if released.

Warren found that argument preposterous. As a longtime wolf advocate who had helped the state develop its wolf management plan in 2008, she said there were plenty of times when shed received similar information within days.

So in November 2016 Warren hired an attorney to sue DNR, arguing that the location of reported wolf attacks were germane to the publics understanding of how the DNR handled wolf encounters, and outweighed any privacy concerns of farmers.

DNRs stonewalling, she argued, was an effort to retaliate against her for her outspoken opposition to wolf hunting.

In short, it appears that higher-level DNR officials have ended the friendly and informal relationship [Warren]had previously enjoyed, the suit said, and have instituted a policy of tight lips.

Lawsuits take time. It was not until May 2018, two years after Warren first sought the records, that Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Diane Stephens ruled in Warrens favor and ordered the public records released.

General geographic information describing where a wolf encountered livestock does not fit the definition of personal, Stephens wrote. Even assuming the information were personal, the balancing test would favor disclosure because the information reveals information about [DNRs]wolf-management policies.

The judge ordered DNR to pay $11,000 in fees and costs to Warrens lawyer, Rebecca Millican of Traverse City, to reimburse Warren for the cost of litigating the case.

The DNR documents released to Bridge add to evidence uncovered in earlier reporting I performed for The Detroit News that suggested DNR had bent to pressure from Casperson the pro-business, anti-wolf senator from Escanaba - to have the Ontonagon wolf pack killed.

As cattle losses mounted on the Dykstra farm in the spring of 2016, it was Casperson, the influential chairman of the Senates Natural Resources Committee, who intervened at the request of owner Tom Dykstra.

The senators 38th District covered the western U.P., including Ontonagon County and the Dykstra operation. Casperson who once wore a wolf-skin cap to celebrate a wolf-hunt victory was a strong proponent of reshaping the states conservation laws to make them more friendly to business, hunting and property interests.

Until term limits forced him from office last December, Casperson led the charge to allow the hunting of gray wolves in Michigan should they ever lose federal protection. When I interviewed him last fall, Casperson acknowledged he had called Terry Minzey, DNRs U.P. wildlife supervisor, after getting an earful from Tom Dykstra.

The rancher was angry that state and federal wildlife managers had captured and caged two of the wolves the day before, only to release them. The wildlife managers had hoped that harassing the wolves by caging them would scare them off.

Dykstra had lost like 14 calves and was sending regular pictures and it was just unacceptable, Casperson said of his decision to call DNR. You cant wipe out a guy's herd.

Reimbursing Dykstras farm for livestock losses was adding up, Casperson said, even as he acknowledged the wolves had no history of being aggressive around people.

The question became, Casperson said, who is going to go first? Who wants to take the first shot, so to speak? I think he (Minzey) understood someone had to go first.

Three days later, Minzey put his name to the memo describing the phantom wolf attack in front of Johnson.

Dykstra farm manager Duane Kolpack confirmed Caspersons assessment.

The decision to kill the wolves was kind of thrown together quick because the [animal]activists kind of frown on killing wolves when they are federally protected, Kolpack told me last year.

It was only after Casperson and Kolpack separately disclosed the wolf shootings that DNR acknowledged the killings, 2 years after they happened. Even then, the state still insists the packs aggressiveness in the presence of humans (and not their killing of livestock) prompted the decision.

Federal wildlife law permits the killing of protected gray wolves in defense of human life, or if wolves pose a demonstrable but non-immediate threat to human safety.

In seeking federal permission to shoot the wolves, DNR highlighted Johnsons purported encounter with the aggressive wolf at the Dykstra farm.

In one case, the wolf was sufficiently bold as to enter the pasture and kill a calf at the very moment one of our wildlife technicians was in the same field investigating a previous kill, Minzey, the wildlife supervisor, wrote to the federal government bolding and underlining the passage.

Curiously, in the version of this letter the department provided to me in 2018, DNR removed the bold and underlined emphasis used by Minzey in petitioning the feds.

Likewise, the department also withheld a portion of the U.S. response which indicated just how influential Minzeys account was in the federal governments approval of the wolf kills. That excised paragraph said:

It is clear that the wolves are acting aggressively including in the presence of humans as documented by the attack on livestock while the MDNR technician was in the same field, wrote Scott Hicks, regional U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service supervisor, in approving lethal action.

The emails released to Bridge show DNR pressed the same, discredited account involving Johnson to its own employees. On May 23, 2016, Mason told DNR staff:

This past week, for the first time ever, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorized the lethal removal of three wolves that showed persistently, brazen behavior by killing livestock in the presence of the operator and our staff.

Johnson declined comment for this article. Minzey, the supervisor who wrote the inaccurate report, did not return multiple emails and phone messages and DNR would not make him available for an interview. He remains with the department.

DNR spokesman Ed Golder describes Minzeys account as a communication breakdown. In an email earlier this year, Golder said Minzey had no clear recollection how he got the facts wrong about the 2016 wolf encounter.

But Golder also insists the decision to kill the Ontonagon wolves was not solely based on the Brad Johnson incident.

That single incident was one factor among others involved in drawing the conclusion that the wolves posed a non-immediate threat to human safety, Golder wrote Bridge.

He also noted that non-lethal measures had failed to keep the wolf pack from Dykstras cattle pastures.

Golder declined to elaborate, writing in March: We dont have anything to add to that account.

But Russ Mason did.

Mason was DNR wildlife chief for over a decade and was well known to hunters, with his sprawling command ranging from furry and feathered game to neurological illnesses like chronic wasting disease in zombie whitetails.

Last Nov. 30, Mason told me the Ontonagon wolf shootings were necessary to protect people.

The DNR, Mason said, is just as transparent as we can be with the number of wolves that have been [killed]. He released a three-page timeline purporting to set the record straight.

But Golder, the agency spokesman, acknowledged in an email a few months later that Mason knew the Brad Johnson wolf attack story was false prior to the time of your interview. Brian Roell, a DNR wildlife specialist, had told top officials what really happened two days before the interview. This was apparently the second time Roell had raised questions internally about the agencys description of the incident, email records obtained by Bridge show.

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Michigan DNR said it killed wolves to protect humans. Then we got its emails. - Bridge Michigan

Often mocked by classmates growing up, Tedford was born with brain damage that left him with the intellectual ability of afourth-grader. The damage also left him deaf, legally blind in one eye and with partial paralysis.

With the help of co-author Paul Smith, Tedford recently embarked on his latest book,Four Days With Kenny Tedford: Life Through the Eyes of a Child Trapped in a Partially Blind and Deaf Mans Body. The book, which will be released Nov. 26, discusses what its like to live with disabilities and explores Tedfords experiences with trauma.

I have spoken all around the United States, Canada and Norway. My audience varies, from preschoolers to senior citizens as old as 99 years. I have spoken to high school-age groups, college students, the Veterans Administration, churches and major state and international conventions of different occupations, such as interpreters, teachers, airlines, educators, etc. This experience has led me to write this book, Tedford, who has had to work to overcome difficulties speaking, wrote in an email to the Press.

Tedford who has worked as a counselor and former executive director of the TennesseeCouncil for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing recentlyreached out to the Press to tell us more about his book and himself, starting with some fast facts.

Tedford Briefly:

Hobbies: Hiking, horseback riding and kickboxing.

Favorite musicians: Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra and Susan Boyle

Favorite food: Mexican food

Dogs or cats: Definitely dogs. Yellow Labs!

Ideal vacation: Being in a log cabin in the mountains with my hot tub and a cup of coffee. No one else is around, and spending time with God.

Can you tell our readers a bit more about your book?

My book is a collection of personal stories from my life. In it, I tell about my experiences with trauma and the loss of my family. The stories touch on how I overcame a broken neck, open-heart surgery, stroke, cancer, learning disabilities, and with the physical disability of deafness and depression. Overall, I hope the book will help others to see how they can also overcome any kind of trauma or obstacles. And I want to let them know that a person like me, labeled as mentally retarded, grew up to become a motivational speaker, actor, comedian, storyteller, and, now, a professor at East Tennessee State University. And, as a Christian, I give all the credit to God for everything and for who I am today.

What challenges did you experience growing up and how did you overcome them?

In addition to what I explained above, the biggest challenge that I had to overcome, even to this day, is communication with the hearing public. I overcome all challenges by my faith in God, and by living how Mom and Dad taught me, to just be myself, a loving son and loving to others.

What made you decide to write the book?

I have been told for the past 50 years, since high school, that I was a great storyteller, and a very funny comedian, and encouraged to write a book. It wasn't until I was performing my cancer story in Cincinnati, Ohio, at the National Storytelling Conference, when I was approached by a great writer, another motivational speaker, Paul Smith. He was very impressed and moved by my story, and was surprised that I didn't have a book with that story in it. He had already written four well-known books, and he decided to co-write a book with me. I hope that the audiences that I perform in front of will be able to have hope and never to give up, and to learn to love themselves as they are.

Do you think society is becoming more accommodating to people with disabilities?

I think, because of technology, that people are becoming more aware of those with disabilities around them. As for the deaf, I have seen some improvement, but there is still a long way to go. I say that because it is often difficult to get interpreters for hospital and doctor visits, etc. With technology, including video phones, text messaging, etc., we are being brought closer to access to hearing people. I pray that the book "Four Days with Kenny Tedford" will educate everyone, with or without a disability, and bring us together in unity with respect as individuals.

Who is your biggest inspiration in life?

I have two people that are famous who have been my inspirations, and role models, Abraham Lincoln, and Helen Keller.

Abraham Lincoln overcame a great deal of trauma and the death of loved ones in his life. Many people don't know this, but he was also depressed and suicidal. He ran for so many offices and lost, but this did not stop him from running again and becoming one of the greatest (to me) presidents of all. He shows me that one can overcome anything in life if you just persevere and not give up. He, too, had his personal faith in God that helped him. He was a very faithful man.

Helen Keller watching her life story in movies and reading about it in books, I see that she practically grew up as an animal with no education or any human behavior training. And yet, she became (to me), one of the most amazing motivational speakers I have ever seen, especially for a person who was deaf and blind. She also wrote many books.

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Motivational speaker talks overcoming disabilities in "Four Days with Kenny Tedford" - Johnson City Press (subscription)

Evolutionary scientists have been thinking about same-sex sexual behavior all wrong.

That's the implication of a new study on same-sex behavior in animals. Instead of asking why animals engage in same-sex behavior (SSB), researchers should be asking, "Why not?" the authors said.

If they're right, same-sex sex may not have evolved independently in different animals for adpative reasons. Instead, same-sex sex may have emerged very early in time and could persist simply because engaging in it doesn't cost animals much, evolutionarily speaking.

"Usually, when evolutionary biologists see a trait that's really widespread across evolutionary lineages, we at least consider the idea that the trait is ancestral and was preserved in all those lineages," said Julia Monk, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, who co-authored the new research. "So why hadn't people considered that hypothesis for SSB?"

Related: Alternative Lifestyles in the Wild

In evolutionary science, same-sex sexual behavior has long been viewed as a conundrum: Why would animals spend time and energy doing something sexual that won't pass along their genes to the next generation? And yet, same-sex sexual behavior has been observed in at least 1,500 species, ranging from lowly squash bugs to humans.

(To avoid anthropomorphizing, the researchers don't use the terms "homosexual," "heterosexual," "gay" or "straight" to refer to animal behavior.)

"We can't assign sexuality to animals we're trying our best to learn about them by observing their behaviors," Monk told Live Science. "And those behaviors shouldn't be mapped onto human cultural and societal contexts."

The assumption that there must be an evolutionary reason for all this same-sex sex has led researchers to search for possible benefits to same-sex behavior. For example, in humans, researchers have found that having a gay son or brother seems to be associated with a woman having more offspring in total. Other studies have posited that same-sex sexual behavior is a side effect of other genes that have reproductive benefits.

In evolutionary biology, the ability of an animal to reproduce given its environment is called fitness. It's entirely possible that in some species, same-sex sex could have fitness benefits, Monk and her colleagues wrote in their paper, published Nov. 18 in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. But these evolutionary benefits may not be required for same-sex sexual behavior to exist.

Imagine, instead, that the earliest sexually reproducing animals simply tried to mate with any and all members of their species regardless of sex. This might have been a logical pathway for evolution, because all the bells and whistles that distinguish males from females are energetically costly to evolve. So any effort expended on mating with the same sex would be compensated for by not spending energy evolving and maintaining distinctive secondary sex characteristics, like differing colors, scents and behaviors. Those sex-distinguishing traits may have all come later in the evolutionary chain, the authors argued.

In this formulation, same-sex and different-sex sexual behavior would have started out on an equal footing, early in animal evolution. This could explain why same-sex sex is so common throughout the animal kingdom: It didn't evolve multiple times independently, but was instead part of the fabric of animal evolution from the start.

The new hypothesis undercuts old assumptions about same-sex behaviors, said Caitlin McDonough, a doctoral candidate at Syracuse University and a study co-author. Much of the research done on these sexual behaviors assumes that same-sex sex is costly for animals and that different-sex sex is not costly, she said.

"You really need to go through those assumptions and test the costs and benefits of both behaviors in a system," McDonough said.

If same-sex behaviors go back to the roots of animal evolution, the fact that these behaviors are so common today makes sense, Monk said.

"If you assume a trait like SSB is a new development and has high costs, it's going to be really hard to understand how it could become more and more common from those low initial frequencies," she said. "It would have to have really large fitness benefits, or be otherwise impervious to natural selection, for that outcome to be probable.

"On the other hand, if you assume a trait is ancestral and was originally common, and it has low costs, it's much more likely that it would remain widespread to this day, even if it doesn't seem to contribute much to fitness."

One piece of evidence supporting this hypothesis is that some echinoderms, including sea stars and sea urchins, engage in same-sex sexual behavior. Echinoderms evolved early in the history of life, likely in the Precambrian period more than 541 million years ago.

But other evidence is slim, largely because scientists haven't systematically studied same-sex sexual behavior in animals. Most observations have been accidental, and biologists have often viewed sex between two animals of the same sex as irrelevant or improper to note, Monk said. Sometimes, researchers automatically assume that same-sex behavior isn't really about sex but instead is about dominance or bonding. And often, if two animals are observed having sex, they're assumed to be male and female without any confirmatory evidence, McDonough said.

"The science that we do is really informed and influenced by cultural biases," she said.

Thinking of same-sex sexual behavior as a standard part of the animal repertoire would change how researchers approach the study of the evolution of these behaviors. The next step, Monk said, would be to gather more data on the prevalence of same-sex behavior in animals. Then, researchers could compare species from across the tree of life to determine if all linages show same-sex behavior. If so, it would strengthen the argument that same-sex sexuality was part of life for the ancestors of all of today's sexually reproducing animals.

Originally published on Live Science.

Read more from the original source:
Was Same-Sex Behavior Hardwired in Animals from the Beginning? - Livescience.com

The evolution of cooperative behavior does not necessarily require that animals develop a sense of fairness

A pair of blue-throated macaws (Ara glaucogularis) at Chester Zoo, England. These birds, like most ... [+] parrot species, form strong life-long monogamous pair bonds.(Credit: David Friel / CC BY 2.0)

As anyone who lives with parrots knows, they are very jealous and protective of their mates whether their mate is another parrot or a human. But parrots are not jealous about food. Basically, if one parrot is given a less desirable food reward than its partner gets, there are no temper tantrums which is the typical response to unequal resource distribution seen in great apes (and even in a large number of humans). Apparently, unlike most primates, parrot couples are quite tolerant of inequality.

This was the conclusion reached recently by a team of scientists from theMax Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour, a newly-independent research institution in Germany formerly known as the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology.

A key feature in the evolution of cooperation is a sense of fairness, where individuals are provided rewards that are fair and equitable to avoid future breakdown in cooperation (ref). Humans, even children, show a clear and consistent preference for equal over unequal outcomes (ref), a trait known as inequity aversion. For example, children as young as six years old refuse a reward that is less valuable than that given to a peer (disadvantageous inequity aversion), whereas older children typically refuse a reward that is more valuable than that provided to a peer (advantageous inequity aversion). Social scientists consider disadvantageous inequity aversion to be a universal feature of human behavior (PDF), whilst advantageous inequity aversion is probably influenced strongly by cultural norms.

Scientists think that sensitivity to inequity evolved in parallel with the ability for individuals to cooperate because it helps sustain benefitting from cooperation. Additionally, it has been proposed that species that rely on cooperating with group members may benefit from evaluating the equality of their cooperative payoffs to assess whether to stay with a certain partner, or mate, or to look for a new one to gain better outcomes.

The token-exchange paradigm is a classic tool in animal behavior studies that is used to study fairness. It tests the willingness of an animal to sacrifice its own material pay-offs for the sake of greater equality. In this test, when an experimenter does not equally distribute rewards of equal value between experimental subjects, the study animals may express their displeasure with a variety of responses, ranging from refusing to participate in further tests, throwing the reward at the experimenter or even with a temper tantrum.

A team of scientists trained four species of parrots held by the Max-Planck Comparative Cognition Research Station at Loro Parque in Spain, to trade tokens for food. The researchers were under the leadership of Anastasia Krasheninnikova, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute whose main research interest is the evolution of cognitive skills, particularly identifying whether these skills may be influenced by different socio-ecological living conditions.

This study was designed to provide data on inequity aversion in species, such as parrots, that are distantly related to primates. It also was designed to provide more data on inequity aversion in long-term monogamous species by testing the reaction to inequity of four parrot species belonging to the Psittacoidea superfamily: blue-throated macaws, Ara glaucogularis; great green macaws, Ara ambiguus; blue-headed macaws, Primolius couloni; and African grey parrots, Psittacus erithacus. These species all form long-term monogamous pair bonds and live in family groups. Both parents provide food to their young and offspring stay with their parents for at least one breeding season.

After the study parrots had been trained to trade tokens (a steel washer) for a food reward (either a sunflower seed or a piece of a walnut), the team of researchers then conducted a series of experiments where two parrots were placed into adjacent compartments and each was asked, in turn, by the experimenter to exchange a token for food. Depending upon the experimental treatment, the parrots were either rewarded unequally (Figure 1A) or equally (Figure1B,C) for their efforts. During the tests, the parrots could easily see each other and the food rewards that each parrot got.

Figure 1. Experimental design showing the test and control conditions. Sunflower seeds are ... [+] low-quality rewards and walnut seeds are high-quality rewards.(Image courtesy of Anastasia Krasheninnikova and colleagues.)

Dr. Krasheninnikova and her collaborators observed how the study parrots reacted when they received a food reward with a differing quality for the same effort (unequal reward; Figure 1A) or when one parrot was expected to work harder than his or her partner for the same reward (unequal effort; Figure 1E). When the study parrots reactions were compared to what was observed for equal treatment for each species (Figure 1BC), Dr. Krasheninnikova and her collaborators saw no differences and they definitely did not see any temper tantrums (data video and Figure 2).

Of course, the study parrots had their own opinions about the study. For example, in the control test (when the neighboring chamber was empty), the two bigger macaw species refused to exchange tokens if a better reward was delivered to the empty enclosure (Figure 1D), whilst the smaller parrot species did not refuse to exchange tokens but took longer to do so (African grey parrots) or longer to accept rewards (blue-headed macaws).

Dr. Krasheninnikova and her collaborators found that the blue-throated macaws apparently became increasingly frustrated with the test procedure, whereas the African grey parrots showed the opposite pattern and escalated their number of exchanges in all conditions during the course of the study. This response might indicate that the grey parrots became so familiar with the exchange procedure that they stopped caring about the rewards and their distribution.

These distinct responses reveal strong species differences in their innate sensitivity to reward quality and their frustration (or motivation) with the token exchange task itself, making comparative studies very difficult to interpret.

Figure 2. (AD) Exchanges across test conditions separately for each species (all test sessions ... [+] combined; EQUL = equal low, EQUH = equal high, UNEQ = unequal, FC = food control, EC = effort control, UNEF = unequal effort). (Anastasia Krasheninnikova et al. | doi:10.1038/s41598-019-52780-8)

This study raises an important question: why arent parrots jealous when their partner gets a better reward for the same effort or when one parrot must work harder for the same reward? The answer, we think, can be summed up in just one word: monogamy. Unlike most mammals, most parrot species form long-term monogamous pair bonds and both parents care for their nestlings.

In contrast, it turns out that in long-term monogamous species that form pair bonds for life and show biparental care, such as parrots, there is a much higher tolerance of inequity, Dr. von Bayern said. In such species, individuals greatly depend on their functioning pair-bond and consequently, disrupting such a valuable bond in order to look for a fairer partner would simply be too costly.

But not all parrot species are monogamous. For example, Eclectus parrots, Eclectus species, and Vasa parrots, Coracopsis species, are polygynandrous, whilst a number of other species are socially cooperative breeders, including the golden parakeet, Guaruba guarouba, New Caledonian parakeet, Cyanoramphus saisseti, the horned parakeet, Eunymphicus cornutus, and the monk (quaker) parakeet, Myopsitta monachus. Testing these species using the token-exchange paradigm could provide important insights into whether inequity aversion is a general trait amongst all parrots or whether it is linked to social organization and species mating system.

This is an important finding because inequity aversion, also termed sense of fairness has been considered an important mechanism in the evolution of cooperative behaviour, Dr. Krasheninnikova said in a press release.

It enables individuals to detect when their partner cheats upon them, e.g. by not sharing food equally or by avoiding effort, and therefore allows them to decide when it pays off to switch to a new cooperation partner.

It is a good strategy only for animals living in societies in which one can switch between cooperation partners easily, such as those of most primates, agreed senior author, zoologist Auguste von Bayern, in a press release.

Social organization plays a strong role in whether an individual can easily switch to a new mate or cooperation partner but how strong is the effect of social organization upon the evolution of cooperation?

Our study adds to the very recent evidence, that inequity aversion is not a general prerequisite for the evolution of cooperation, Dr. von Bayern said in a press release.

Anastasia Krasheninnikova,Dsire Brucks,Nina Buffenoir,Dniel Rivas Blanco,Delphine Soulet&Auguste von Bayern(2019). Parrots do not show inequity aversion, Scientific Reports9:16416 | doi:10.1038/s41598-019-52780-8

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Parrots Aren't Jealous When Their Mate Gets A Better Reward - Forbes

Enlarge / But what does that car think that the spectator is thinking?

Imagine you're trying to make a left turn onto a busy road. Car after car rolls past, keeping you trapped as your frustration rises. Finally, a generous driver decelerates enough to create a gap. A check of the traffic from the opposite direction, a quick bit of acceleration, and you're successfully merged into traffic.

This same scene plays out across the world countless times a day. And it's a situation where inferring both the physics and the motives of your fellow drivers is difficult, as evidenced by the fact that the United States sees 1.4 million accidents each year from drivers in the process of turning. Now imagine throwing autonomous vehicles into the mix. These are typically limited to evaluating only the physics and to make conservative decisions in situations where information is ambiguous.

Now, a group of computer scientists has figured out how to improve autonomous vehicle (AV) performance in these circumstances. The scientists have essentially given their AVs a limited theory of mind, allowing the vehicles to better interpret what the behaviors of their nearby human drives are telling them.

Theory of mind comes so easily to us that it's difficult to recognize how rare it is outside of our species. We're easily able to recognize that our fellow humans have minds like our own, and we use that recognition to infer things like the state of their knowledge and their likely motivations. These inferences are essential to most of our social activities, driving included. While a friendly wave can make for an unambiguous signal that your fellow driver is offering you space in their lane, we can often make inferences based simply on the behavior of their car.

And, critically, autonomous vehicles aren't especially good at this. In many cases, their own behavior doesn't send signals back to other drivers. A study of accidents involving AVs in California indicated that over half of them involved the AV being rear-ended because a human driver couldn't figure out what in the world it was doing. (Volvo, among others, is working to change that.)

It's unrealistic to think that we'll give AVs a full-blown theory of mind any time soon. AIs are simply not that advanced, and it would be excessive for cars, which only have to deal with a limited range of human behaviors. But a group of researchers at MIT and Delft University of Technology has decided that putting an extremely limited theory of mind in place for certain driving decisions, including turns and merges, should be possible.

The idea behind the researchers' work, described in a new paper in PNAS, involves a concept called social value orientation, which is a way of measuring how selfish or community-oriented an individual's actions are. While there are undoubtedly detailed surveys that can provide a meticulous description of a person's social value orientation, autonomous vehicles generally won't have the time to be giving their fellow drivers surveys.

So the researchers distilled social value orientation into four categories: altruists, who try to maximize the enjoyment of their fellow drivers; prosocial drivers, who try to take actions that allow all other drivers to benefit (which may occasionally involve selfishly flooring it); individualists, who maximize their own driving experience; and competitive drivers, who only care about having a better driving experience than those around them.

The researchers developed a formula that would let them calculate the expected driving trajectory for each of these categories given the starting position of other cars. The autonomous vehicle was programmed to compare the trajectories of actual drivers to the calculated version and use that to determine which of the four categories the drivers were likely to be in. Given that classification, the vehicle could then project what their future actions would be. As the researchers wrote, "we extend the ability of AVs' reasoning by incorporating estimates of the other drivers' personality and driving style from social cues."

This is substantially different from some game-theory work that's been done in the area. That work has assumed that every driver is always maximizing their own gain; if altruism emerges, it's only incidental to this maximization. This new work, in contrast, bakes altruistic behavior into its calculations and recognizes that drivers are complicated and may change their tendencies as situations evolve. In fact, previous studies had indicated that in contexts other than driving, about half of the people tested showed prosocial behavior, with another 40% being selfish.

With the system in place, the researchers obtained data on vehicle locations and trajectories as drivers merged onto a highway, a situation that often requires the generosity of fellow drivers. With the social value orientation system in place, the autonomous driver was able make more accurate predictions of its fellow drivers' trajectories than it could withoutprediction errors dropped by 25%. The system also worked on lane changes on crowded freeways, as well as turns into traffic.

Using these evaluations, the researchers could also make some inferences using the traffic patterns they had. For example, they found that a highway driver may start out selfishly following the car in front of them, shift to altruistic as they decelerate to allow a driver to merge, then switch right back to a selfish approach. Similarly, drivers facing a merge onto a freeway typically ended up being competitivesomething you see every time a vehicle pulls out and slows down everyone who was stuck in the lane behind it.

While we're still a long way off from giving autonomous vehicles a general AI or a full theory of mind, the research shows that you can get significant benefits from giving AVs a very limited one. And it's a nice demonstration that if we want any autonomous system to integrate with something that's currently a social activity, then paying attention to what social scientists have figured out about those activities can be incredibly valuable.

PNAS, 2019. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1820676116 (About DOIs).

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Improving autonomous autos by having them guess which humans are selfish - Ars Technica

Balancing out the benefits of artificial intelligence to prevent future pitfalls

Ethics surrounding artificial intelligence and the use of Big Data were among the topics discussed at the GRC Summit in London this week.

Organizations looking to implement data-driven tools and leverage the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) must first understand the risks that these technologies can pose.

That was the consensus held by a panel of industry stakeholders, who cited transparency, standards, and explainability as factors for businesses to consider when creating AI products.

The panel, which took place in London on Monday (November 18), included Laura Turner of the UNs World Food Programme, and Anna Fellnder, co-founder of the AI Sustainability Center.

The reason why ethics is exploding is because AI is different from other data-driven technologies, AI moves faster, Fellnder said.

Theres no transparency and a lack of explainability models.

Machine learning (ML) data trained algorithms that facilitate the automation of tasks and AI human behavior learned in machines are increasingly seen on the marketplace amid confusion of their actual capability.

According to one survey, 40% of European startups are misusing the term AI in their products, The Verge reported in March leading to more funding from investors and a less efficient experience for consumers.

In the security sector, where ML and AI have the potential to identify cyber-threats far faster and more accurately, a quarter of organizations told the Ponemon Institute that they had been using some form of the technologies in their defense solutions.

Organizations supply this seductive technology into their business models and push down costs, nudging their customers to behaviors that could be unethical, Fellnder said.

Regardless of the amount of snake oil out there, the amount of data now available allows for the algorithmic maturity needed to build products and services and equally made ethics surrounding ML and AI a more pressing concern.

Global governments, most notably in the European Union, have even made calls to regulate the use of AI so to prevent potential societal issues such as bias within algorithmic decision-making, violations of user privacy, and dangers in line with cyber-offensive firepower.

When we enter AI you get no control of it, Fellnder said.

Its about having a goal to market readiness in your AI applications, so you dont lead to the [possible] pitfalls, and making sure your values are sustained.

Sir Nigel Shadbolt, chairman and co-founder of the Open Data Institute, who closed the first day of the conference, agreed that more literacy and communication was needed, not only around ML and AI, but the wider data ecosystem.

Were seeing people starting to really worry about the idea of the balance, the interests that they have, the rights that they have, in this data, is somehow way out of whack, he said.

Its not about owning the data, but having some agency on whats being done with it.

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Calls for AI regulation heard at London summit - The Daily Swig

You finish that last sip of morning coffee and stare at the empty paper cup in your hand. Should it go into the recycling bin, compost, or be landfilled or incinerated?

You are not alone. Most Americans are confused about recycling, and the crisis driven by Chinas decision to stop accepting most foreign scrap material is worsening the problem. At this point its hard to be sure that items put in the recycling bin are recycled.

Research shows that more often than not, Americans give up trying to sort their recyclables. Or they engage in wishful recycling, tossing nonrecyclables into the bin. Even so, most waste never gets that far. People feel intimidated by the task.

The average American generates about 4.5 pounds of waste each day. Only 1.5 pounds of it is recycled or composted. This means that over an average lifetime of 78.7 years, one American would send 67,000 pounds of waste to landfills. Thats more than twice the weight of a cruise ship anchor.

Although many communities and advocates have adopted regulations and action plans centered on moving toward a circular economy, major barriers still make it hard for individuals to reduce, reuse and recycle. Existing policies have been developed based on insights from engineering and economics, and give little consideration of how human behavior at the individual level fits into the system.

My colleagues and I use behavior science to foster goals ranging from energy conservation to community solidarity. In a recent paper, economist Marieke Huysentruyt, Ph.D. candidate Emma Barnosky and I uncovered promising solutions to the recycling crisis driven by personal benefits and social connections.

Why recycling is so hard

Why is getting Americans to recycle more so challenging? First, many of them dont understand waste problems and recycling strategies. Few are aware of the environmental problems waste causes, and most have a hard time connecting individual actions to those problems.

Most people dont know where their waste goes, whether it includes recyclables or what can be made from them. They may know what day to put out curbside trash and recycling, but are unsure which materials the companies accept. In a 2019 survey of 2,000 Americans, 53% erroneously believed greasy pizza boxes could be recycled, and 68% thought the same for used plastic utensils.

Another 39% of respondents cited inconvenience and poor access to recycling facilities as major barriers. California pays a 5- to 10-cent redemption fee for each beverage container, but the facilities often are inconvenient to reach. For example, the closest to my home in Los Angeles is eight miles away, which can involve driving for an hour or more. Thats not worth it for the few cans my family produces.

Most U.S. consumers are opposed to pollution, of course, but research shows that they seldom view themselves as significant contributors. As taxpayers, they hold local governments responsible for recycling. Many are not sure what happens next, or whether their actions make a difference.

Motivation matters

What can be done to address these barriers? Better messaging, such as emphasizing how waste can be transformed into new objects, can make a difference.

But as I argue in my 2018 book, The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market With the Planet, information alone cant drive sustainable behavior. People must feel motivated, and the best motivations bundle environmental benefits with personal benefits, such as economic rewards, increased status or social connections.

In a 2014 survey, 41% of respondents said that money or rewards were the most effective way to get them to recycle. Take-back systems, such as deposits on cans and bottles, have proven effective in some contexts. Such systems need to be more convenient, however.

Returning bottles directly to stores is one possibility, but novel strategies are being deployed across the country. Pay-as-you-throw policies charge customers based on how much solid waste they discard, thus incentivizing waste reduction, reuse and more sustainable purchasing behavior. Recyclebank, a New York company, rewards people for recycling with discounts and deals from local and national businesses.

Status and support

Social status also motivates people. The zero-waste lifestyle has become a sensation on social media, driving the rise of Instagram influencers such as Bea Johnson, Lauren Singer and Kathryn Kellogg, who are competing to leave behind the smallest quantity of waste. Visibility of conservation behavior matters, and could be a powerful component in pay-as-you-throw schemes.

Its also nice to have support. Mutual help organizations, or community-led groups, trigger behavioral change through social connections and face-to-face interactions. They have the potential to transfer empowering information and sustain long-term commitment.

One famous example is Alcoholics Anonymous, which relies on member expertise instead of instructions from health care specialists. Similarly, Weight Watchers focuses on open communication, group celebration of weight loss progress and supportive relationships among members.

French startup Yoyo, founded in 2017, is applying this strategy to recycling. Yoyo connects participants with coaches, who can be individuals or businesses, to help them sort recyclables into orange bags. Coaches train and encourage sorters, who earn points and rewards such as movie tickets for collecting and storing full Yoyo bags.

The process also confers status, giving sorters positive social visibility for work that is ordinarily considered thankless. And because rewards tend to be local, Yoyos infrastructure has the potential to improve members community connections, strengthening the perceived and actual social power of the group.

This system offers a convenient, social, incentive-based approach. In two years the community has grown to 450 coaches and 14,500 sorters and collected almost 4.3 million plastic bottles.

Such novel behavior-based programs alone cannot solve back-end aspects of the global waste crisis, such as recycling capacity and fluctuating scrap material prices. But our research has shown that by leveraging technology and human behavior, behavioral science can encourage people to recycle much more effectively than simplistic campaigns or slogans.

[ Insight, in your inbox each day. You can get it with The Conversations email newsletter. ]

Magali (Maggie) Delmas, Professor of Management Institute of the Environment & Sustainability, Anderson School of Management, University of California, Los Angeles

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

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Major Barriers Still Make It Hard for Individuals to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle - The National Interest Online

Since the election of President Trump in 2016 psychiatrists have come forward violating The Goldwater Rule, not personally interviewing the president, and diagnosing him as having a mental disorder. Given this, the first question an intelligent, free-thinking individual must ask himself/herself is, "Is psychiatry really science?"

The problem psychiatry suffers from is it relies on subjective views of psychology to make a diagnosis. There are 300 mental disorders outlined in the Psychiatric Association's Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These disorders are based on subjective opinions and none are based on objective data drawn from double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. There are no biological tests substantiating that these so-called conditions exist. Lacking independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for mental disorder; psychiatrists cannot accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behavior. In the absence of biological test, psychiatrists have proclaimed themselves "expert witnesses" in this pseudo-science. Conspiring with the media, they push the myth of the "dangerous mental patient" stereotype.

Because they voted for the president, a psychiatrist has determined that 63 million voters have a mental disorder. Think about that for a moment; Americans are mentally disturbed for exercising their civic duty?

Earnest Rutherford, a renowned British physicist, stated that "all science is physics or stamp collecting. Psychiatry seems is at best a stamp-collecting activity. ... Any attempt to manipulate behavior seems about as far from applied science as breeding plants with no concept of genetics."

ELVIS DUNN, Jackson

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Letter to the Editor: The mental disorder theory (11/21/19) - Southeast Missourian