Talk:Ritual behavior in animals

Question about a couple of sentences
" This casts doubt on the co-development of morality and proto-religion" - there's a cite to a book but no page number - User:J.A.W.Abrams, could you please provide the page number and perhaps the quote that states this explicitly?

"If this is true then the behaviour of chimpanzees witnessed by Goodall may be interpreted as similar to pre-Upper Palaeolithic Human religion." I can't see any source for this - WP:VERIFY states that disputed material needs to be sourced, and I think this needs a source stating this explicitly. Our articles can't draw conclusions that aren't sourced, see no original research. Doug Weller talk 17:03, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

I am guessing this is a paraphrase of the concluding sentence in the abstract for Harrod, JB (2014). The Case for Chimpanzee Religion. There it is stated "These findings support hypotheses that propose religious behaviors for other species, including hominins prior to Homo sapiens sapiens." I think the paraphrase is a bit too strong; the article does not state what human religious behavior prior to the Upper Paleolithic might look like. The article is in part intended to set a context for how we might make hypotheses about human religious behaviors from the Oldowan through the Acheulian and Middle Paleolithic prior to the Upper Paleolithic.Harrodjb (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm trying to remove this sentence "Ronald K. Siegel has studied the precursors of religious faith in African elephants and concludes that "elephants are aware of natural cycles, as they practice "moon worship," waving branches at the waxing moon and engaging in ritual bathing when the moon is full."[6]" because the reference [6] points to another paper of Siegel's where he's actually just quoting Pliny. Suggesting that he did original research is 100% wrong. Only the Pliny reference in this section is relevant. The 1977 Siegel paper cited by the 1980 Siegel paper was hard to find. Here it is [original, paywall: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002204267700700302], [Google Drive link copy: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1bpjImbBWYQ6j1pqMKRlMg8FB1lkdsbIj/view?usp=sharing]. talk 22:04, 04 Feb 2021

Problems with the title
I think "animal faith" is wrong for several reasons. We have a policy for titles at WP:COMMONNAME. Most mentions of the phrase are discussing the book Scepticism and Animal Faith by George Santayana or his philosophy. This source doesn't mention him but uses the phrase to discuss human beliefs. Looking at Google scholar I see the same thing. The phrase "animal religion" is also used in relationship to humans.

Not really important as we go by what sources say, but de Waal makes a mistake when he equates faith and religion - or perhaps I should say he makes an assumption about religion. There's a school of thought that says you can't have religion without a concept of the secular as something separate, and that if you go back far enough our ancestors the term "religion" really isn't applible. I'd say that's the same thing for animals. "Faith" doesn't apply. Is it really faith to just accept that a rock will fall?

An appropriate title would probably be either "Animals and religion" or "Animals and ritual" - I'd prefer the latter as it doesn't make assumptions in the title. User:Harrodjb what say you? Doug Weller talk 17:54, 29 May 2016 (UTC)

This Wiki entry is highly important for public readers and academics. The reason we are having title trouble is because this is a novel and breakthrough area of evolution research. Finding an appropriate title is not easy. The phrase 'animal faith' gives me a smile, but, as you say, if I google 'animal faith' what comes up is the Santayana book. I think an earlier version the entry title was 'proto-religion'. "Animals and religion" is not suitable since in the academic field of the study of religion that title refers to the way ancient and recent religions use animals in sacrificial rituals or as symbols, usually signifying something bad or good (for humans). "Animals and ritual" overlaps with a whole area of animal ethology that addresses the topic of the ritualization of instincts, as in bowerbirds collecting shiny objects in courtship rituals. After years at this topic, I suggest that rather than "religion" the wiki should refer to "religious behaviors", which is more like what a primatologist might say. "Animal" has also become a loaded and weird term. I find that some recent palaeoanthropology and religious studies articles use the term 'nonhuman animals'. A bit awkward but more accurate. "Proto-religion" has the same nomenclature problem as "protolanguage". Once I would have agreed that "you can't have religion without a concept of the secular" but after pondering, writing and publishing my article "A Trans-species Definition of Religion" I would say that the sacred/secular distinction only applies to human religion. It does not appear to apply, for example, to chimpanzee or elephant religious behaviors. How about "Animal Religious Behaviors"? Harrodjb (talk) 01:40, 30 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. To comply with our mos it would be Animal religious behaviors although I'm not sure about the plural. Thanks. Doug Weller  talk 06:35, 30 May 2016 (UTC)
 * I agree with your observations regarding the current title, but the page was never moved following the discussion. I'd personally suggest Religious behavior in animals as it sounds more natural to me, but I'm not sure if it follows the en-wp naming conventions. Sincerely, InsaneHacker (💬) 20:05, 16 February 2018 (UTC)
 * A quick GBooks and GScholar search suggests your title is better. Harrodjb isn't around anymore. I'm going to change it, but if you want to make any changes to the article that would be great. Doug Weller  talk 12:54, 19 February 2018 (UTC)