The one who lies the most survives

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Scientists have found that animals now and then lie to each other. Experts believe that the ability to deceive a partner plays a large role in the process of natural selection: those who are better at deceiving survive. If the most primitive creatures know how to achieve their own by deceit, then it is difficult to imagine how many people lie with their developed intellectual abilities.

The art of deception is demonstrated by some birds, crustaceans, and frogs, writes The New York Times. This ability is well known in some domestic animals, including dogs.

For example, croaking is the way in which male pond frogs show their size. The larger the male, the lower his voice. Some small males lower their voices to impress the female.

One of the species of non-poisonous butterflies, as a result of evolution, acquired the same wing pattern as that of poisonous butterflies. Now birds do not eat both poisonous and harmless insects.

Within one species, honesty usually prevails. Animals warn each other about the appearance of a predator, males honestly measure their strength in battle, children bother their parents only when they are really hungry. But the family is not without a liar. Shrike birds, for example, regularly warn each other about the approach of predators. But sometimes they raise a false alarm to distract their relatives from food.

This is a great example of how natural selection works. The shrike scares off his friends by raising a false alarm. This means that he eats more, is healthy and produces more offspring than other birds. Natural selection works in favor of those who can deceive, and does not listen to deceivers itself.

"When communicating, humans are constantly deceiving," says Stephen Novicki, a biologist at Duke University and one of the authors of The Evolution of Animal Communication. It is enough to read a couple of Shakespeare's plays to be convinced of this."