Teleology and a Newborn Calf

Sometimes you really have to hunt to find them -- those newly born calves.  There's a lot going on in this photo -- like the spider web, the cow's nose almost touching it, some serious thorns and the calf's ears back, listening to my approach.  If the cow had acted normally I would never have guessed there was a new baby hidden in the tangle.  As I approached the calf, she move aggressively toward me rather than moving off in another direction.  She was ready to go into protection mode.

Animal behavior intrigues me.  I've been reading (just like a few pages to finish) "The Foundations of Ethology" by Konrad Lorenz.  It has been around awhile; it was one of my better-half's college textbooks.  It probably seems like a strange thing to be reading but, it's about the study of animal behavior.

Some of it is a bit of a struggle simply because Dr. Lorenz was German and his thinking/writing reflects that.  It's a style thing.  He uses plenty of big words that sometimes drive me to Google in a search for meaning -- words like "teleology" which is "the explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve rather than of the cause by which they arise."  I would explain it as "why do they do what they do?"

When you really think about behavior there is a dawning realization that much of it is based on genetic programming.  The baby in the photo above is "programmed" to stand at his mother's urging and lift its nose to her while moving its untested legs in a fashion that propels it along her side to the source of its first nourishment.  The cow isn't "telling" the calf what to do although she sometimes will urge it in the right direction by moving slightly or nudging it with her nose, the calf "knows" what to do the moment it is born.  It runs its nose along her side until it finds the hairless faucet that is likely dripping enticement.

If you begin to break that behavior down into parts it becomes even more interesting.  How does the leg know how to move?  It takes a series of signals that must be transmitted through the nerves to the muscles and tendons to cause it to function properly.  It is born with that ability already there.  Expand that to the fact it must coordinate the movement of all four legs as well as the head and neck for balance simply to stand before it can begin to walk.  It is born with that ability programmed into its makeup. 

Back up even further.  How do the cells know to differentiate so that what begins as a mass of sameness divides into different types of cells that grow into different types of organs that perform very different functions which are all part of a connected and coordinated system that is the animal?  Some, such as Lorenz, attribute it totally to evolutionary processes that began millions of years ago in a single-celled organism; others to a Creator.  Whatever your belief system, it is amazing.  Hmmm...the fact that you are able to develop a belief system is amazing.

I think most of us have some level of curiosity about the world around us simply because we want to better understand ourselves.  Why do we do what we do?  What are the teleological aspects of our presence here on earth?  I guess that word is stuck in my head now....