tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com— What?s the use of crying when you?re sad? Other animals shed tears, but humans may be unique in shedding tears of grief, and Robert Provine says that he knows why...
Apr 10, 2009View in Crawl 4
Yeah, I actually had a discussion about this with a couple of friends taking an animal behavior class and they said that in most cases that we observe 'altruism' in other animals it is directly related to their highly evolved social behavior and ultimately benefits the colony/family or whatever else. Humans aren't really that old of a species, although we do have pretty specific social structures. But that's not really the point; they learned in class that human altruism is slightly different than we see in other animals. Take it for what you will, I'm not explaining it very scientifically, but I think it's fair to say the levels of altruism that can be seen in humans isn't as explained as it is for other animals.
Saying it's useful to communicate sadness because we cry makes more sense, there's nothing intrinsically sad about crying, it's just how we've come to express it.
I would posit that crying is more useful as an emotional release than as a means of communication. Everyone I've every seen cry instinctively hides their face, so it can't be that useful for communication.
I know that they bleed acid, and not cry it. That was the onlyway that I figured someone would come up with the idea of"crying tears of acid".
shavedbuschApr 11, 2009
Yeah, I actually had a discussion about this with a couple of friends taking an animal behavior class and they said that in most cases that we observe 'altruism' in other animals it is directly related to their highly evolved social behavior and ultimately benefits the colony/family or whatever else. Humans aren't really that old of a species, although we do have pretty specific social structures. But that's not really the point; they learned in class that human altruism is slightly different than we see in other animals. Take it for what you will, I'm not explaining it very scientifically, but I think it's fair to say the levels of altruism that can be seen in humans isn't as explained as it is for other animals.
snyzApr 11, 2009
Saying it's useful to communicate sadness because we cry makes more sense, there's nothing intrinsically sad about crying, it's just how we've come to express it.
bringitontimxApr 11, 2009
BAWWWWWW
Closed AccountApr 12, 2009
I regret that statement, as coke makes one sociable. God is just a D-bag.
Closed AccountApr 12, 2009
I would posit that crying is more useful as an emotional release than as a means of communication. Everyone I've every seen cry instinctively hides their face, so it can't be that useful for communication.
glassagateApr 13, 2009
I know that they bleed acid, and not cry it. That was the onlyway that I figured someone would come up with the idea of"crying tears of acid".