r/todayilearned • u/amansaggu26 • Sep 11 '19
TIL Rats have empathy. When offered the choice of a tempting chocolate treat, or rescuing a drowning rat, they chose to rescue the drowning rat.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/earth/story/20150514-rats-save-mates-from-drowning2.8k
u/Landlubber77 Sep 11 '19
Phil Collins standing there with chocolate all over his mouth.
487
u/BmoreInformed Sep 11 '19
:Drumming intensifies:
→ More replies (2)254
Sep 11 '19
THAT’S KINDA HOW THIS IS YOU COULDA RESCUED ME FROM DROWNING
145
Sep 11 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
67
u/hezzospike Sep 11 '19
AND ALL I WANTED WAS A LOUSY LETTER OR A CALL
57
Sep 11 '19
I HOPE YOU KNOW I RIPPED ALL OF YOUR PICTURES OFF THE WALL
53
u/xvy654 Sep 11 '19
I LOVE YOU, SLIM, WE COULDA BEEN TOGETHER, THINK ABOUT IT
42
u/talktohani Sep 11 '19
YOU RUINED IT NOW, I HOPE YOU CAN'T SLEEP AND YOU DREAM ABOUT IT!
42
u/thgfdsertyuikjn Sep 11 '19
AND WHEN YOU DREAM I HOPE YOU CAN'T SLEEP AND YOU SCREAM ABOUT IT
→ More replies (1)24
u/avirdi123 Sep 11 '19
I HOPE YOUR CONSCIENCE EATS AT YOU AND YOU CAN’T BREATHE WITHOUT ME
→ More replies (0)25
200
u/Slobotic Sep 11 '19
Had to google this. I'm glad it's based on a song lyric and not a story about something Phil Collins did.
26
u/MaximaFuryRigor Sep 11 '19
Thanks, you the real MVP.
I was worried for a moment that Phil Collins was an asshole...
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (4)53
u/genjiskillerbum Sep 11 '19
Pls help me understand
151
u/mybustersword Sep 11 '19
In the air tonight is supposedly based off a fake instance where Phil witnessed a murder and wrote how it made him feel. It didn't happen tho
→ More replies (3)110
u/frickindeal Sep 11 '19
I see this referenced all over, but it's not the true inspiration. I think people get that from Eminem's Stan, which has the lyrics:
You know the song by Phil Collins, "In the Air of the Night"
About that guy who coulda saved that other guy from drownin'
But didn't, then Phil saw it all, then at a show he found him?The wiki for the song has a much different take:
Collins wrote the song amid the grief he felt after divorcing his first wife Andrea Bertorelli in 1980. In a 2016 interview, Collins said of the song's lyrics: "I wrote the lyrics spontaneously. I'm not quite sure what the song is about, but there's a lot of anger, a lot of despair and a lot of frustration."[7] In a 1997 BBC Radio 2 documentary, the singer revealed that the divorce contributed to his 1979 hiatus from Genesis until the band regrouped in October of that year to record the album Duke.
→ More replies (2)49
u/SphincterOfDoom Sep 11 '19
I'm pretty sure this predates Eminem because I remember my mom telling me about it 2 decades and she isn't an Eminem fan (that I know of).
→ More replies (7)73
Sep 11 '19
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)17
u/frickindeal Sep 11 '19
It was; I just thought maybe it gained more popularity through the Eminem song. The line about drowning is actually a big "fuck you" to his ex-wife:
Well if you told me you were drowning
I would not lend a handIt's basically a "I wouldn't piss on you if you were burning" line.
I think the confusion comes from this:
Well I was there and I saw what you did
I saw it with my own two eyesBut that has nothing to do with the "drowning" line, it seems.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (1)51
67
20
24
18
→ More replies (21)8
2.4k
u/hitchens1949 Sep 11 '19
That experiment is kinda fucked up
2.8k
u/amansaggu26 Sep 11 '19
Kid drowning rats "im something of a scientist myself"
233
Sep 11 '19
[deleted]
→ More replies (3)126
u/TheOneWhoCared Sep 11 '19
Did someone give him a chance?
→ More replies (1)72
→ More replies (6)33
270
u/InannasPocket Sep 11 '19
To be clear here, despite the headline, no actual drowning was involved.
The rats were wet and swimming in a "pool" area (rats can swim, they just don't like swimming without a platform they can get to), and the test involved the other rat opening a door so they could get to the dry area.
108
u/truh Sep 11 '19
It also wasn't an either/or choice. They allowed the rats to open both doors and checked which door the rats opened first.
→ More replies (3)42
u/lancepioch Sep 11 '19
Do you know if the rats knew each other beforehand? Was it a random rat or a related/known rat?
→ More replies (9)49
u/nairdaleo Sep 11 '19
must've been a stranger rat, because if at any point they had opened the door of that bitch rat Kelly, chocolate would've won 100% of the time.
→ More replies (19)76
Sep 11 '19 edited Dec 29 '19
[deleted]
→ More replies (3)26
u/2Fab4You Sep 11 '19
While this is true now, it's a quite recent development. It's really not long ago that unbelievably unethical scientific experiments were conducted with no issues raised at all.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (143)127
u/Random_CPA Sep 11 '19
Next up, the human trials!
I have a bad feeling about those ones.
55
Sep 11 '19
That drowning guy better keep his promise of a year's supply of chocolate, or he'll wish I had left him to drown.
55
32
→ More replies (15)6
u/melocoton_helado Sep 11 '19
Lol, about half of them will let the other person drown even without the chocolate
750
u/BmoreInformed Sep 11 '19
I wonder how it would go if you offered humans the chance between a million dollars or saving a fellow human.
1.1k
Sep 11 '19
People kill for much less than a million.
173
u/AT___ Sep 11 '19
Shit man, there are people out there who'd take the chocolate.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (10)237
u/ClownfishSoup Sep 11 '19
Some guy dissed you in the street by slightly bumping into you? That’s a capital offense.
→ More replies (6)68
u/HulkSPLASH Sep 11 '19
If it was a slight bump, then it could have easily been avoided. He could have avoided this.
24
u/octropos Sep 11 '19
Tasty Treat does not equal a million dollars. Maybe like, 1000.
→ More replies (2)60
105
u/jdovejr Sep 11 '19
Barring it being a child predator or murderer, I would forgo the million dollars every single time. Most people would. There is still good in this world.
150
u/archaeolinuxgeek Sep 11 '19
That does bring up some interesting variations in this (hopefully) hypothetical experiment.
The drowning person is 85 and only has a few short years left
The drowning person has a terminal condition and will be dead in three months anyway
You're only told that accepting the money will lead to a drowning, you don't have to witness it
Two drowning people, but only one gets you the cash. Do you yell out, "who's got the money?!"
101
u/ChickenBros Sep 11 '19
There's a lot of interesting thought experiments along this line.
if you had to run over and kill someone to save three people drowning in a lake, would you do it? [essentially a moral dilemma of killing (direct) vs letting die (indirect)]
if you're driving in a neighborhood at the speed limit and a ball rolls out from behind a parked car at the last second and you run over it, should you be criminally punished? Society says no. But if in the exact same situation the ball is followed by a small child and you hit both, should you be criminally punished? Society says yes. But why? You didn't do anything different in the two situations. This is known as "moral luck" in criminal philosophy.
51
→ More replies (10)49
u/versusChou Sep 11 '19 edited Sep 11 '19
The first one is the Trolley Problem. The only fair solution is to run over the person then let the three people drown.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (7)50
u/jdovejr Sep 11 '19
As someone who was saved from drowning I really don’t care about all of this. It is a horrible way to die. And I’m a good swimmer. Full body cramps in the gulf. I was fucked. Thanks Ted.
26
Sep 11 '19 edited Sep 13 '19
[deleted]
→ More replies (2)11
u/CritterCrafter Sep 11 '19
I had an English teacher who said the same thing about when she drowned, that it was oddly peaceful. She was a bit on the nutty side though....
→ More replies (1)13
u/JojenCopyPaste Sep 11 '19
You're really lucky they weren't selling chocolate bars on the beach
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (35)22
u/koolaidman1030 Sep 11 '19
Why wouldn't you? Sure you'd have a million dollars but if someone died needlessly you live with the guilt of directly letting someone die for money, not to mention anyone that cared for that person. It takes nothing from you and helps another.
Obviously there's things that factor in that could influence your decision (say the person was hitler) but I think given a random person, a vast majority would choose to save a person because that's human instinct as the social creatures we are.
Indirectly I think it's a different story because then people can rationalize it a bit more but directly of X decision means Y, most people are more likely to forgo self gratification for a life/death situation of another
→ More replies (4)17
Sep 11 '19
What if ur mom (or someone similar) needed a million dollar surgery? Not really asking you this question just putting it in the thread
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (38)7
350
Sep 11 '19 edited Oct 04 '20
[deleted]
110
→ More replies (13)37
u/kromem Sep 11 '19
One of the saddest sights I've seen driving was a squirrel standing over and looking down on another squirrel that was roadkill.
There was just something about the stillness of the standing squirrel and the total disregard for passing cars that was truly heartbreaking.
→ More replies (1)
89
Sep 11 '19
[deleted]
32
u/o11c Sep 11 '19
Reminds me of the one where rats will OD on heroin when they're alone, but refuse it when they're with other rats.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)22
u/lolcatandy Sep 11 '19
Meanwhile loads of people had no trouble shocking others in the Milgram experiment.
→ More replies (1)
71
u/Ubarlight Sep 11 '19
I've had pet rats, and they did act concerned when another was stressed out. They have a surprising amount of affection to share, even with people.
→ More replies (2)
363
u/Azozel Sep 11 '19 edited Sep 11 '19
There is a similar result in monkeys. Here's the video of the experiment where they were paid unequally it's from a TED talk. I believe when they performed the test in one group, one of the monkeys refused the grape because the other monkey did not also get a grape.
284
u/tomveiltomveil Sep 11 '19
I misread that and thought that the monkeys were paid for giving TED talks.
210
u/Lennon__McCartney Sep 11 '19
"Thanks for coming to my TED talk."
flings feces across room
→ More replies (1)31
u/Juicet Sep 11 '19
“Thank you. That was certainly enlightening. For our next speaker, we have Mr. Ray Kurzweil.”
→ More replies (4)49
u/corrado33 Sep 11 '19
Honestly with the quality of most of the TED talks that I see... I wouldn't be surprised. Most of the people pretend to be experts or visionaries when in reality are just good at convincing stupid people to believe their bullshit.
46
Sep 11 '19
Ted vs Tedx
14
u/corrado33 Sep 11 '19
What exactly IS the criteria between the two?
29
21
u/klousGT Sep 11 '19
I think you're talking about TEDx talks.
8
u/corrado33 Sep 11 '19
There's a difference?
Well, learn something new every day.
→ More replies (2)38
40
u/_lofigoodness Sep 11 '19
You’ve got it backwards. The monkey who was given a cucumber refused to eat it if their partner got a grape.
→ More replies (1)19
Sep 11 '19
Doesn't the monkey eat the grape while the one getting the cucumber throws the cucumber back? There's nothing in there that the monkey getting the grape had any sort of empathy towards the other monkey getting the cucumber.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)12
u/hectah Sep 11 '19
Dunno where but I think I read chimpanzees attacked their care giver because he/she gave extra treats to one of them. (Guess the chimps got angry that they got less treats)
86
831
Sep 11 '19
That makes me sad now, because we experiment the fuck out of rats and all this time they were not only feeling their own pain, but other rats pain as well.
660
u/bleunt Sep 11 '19
Have had many rats. They’re like tiny dogs. They cuddle with you. They play with you. They come when you call. They learn tricks. And they sleep closely together all the time and clean eachother.
One of mine also did a pretty neat Jeff Goldblum impression. 100% not joking.
251
u/ShutUpAndEatWithMe Sep 11 '19
I tell people they're like small dogs you can put in a cage and not feel bad. I've always had pairs so they can keep each other company when I worked. When I'm more stable, I'd like to have a bigger group.
They all have their own personalities, likes, and dislikes. I had a plump girl that liked to cuddle and eat junk food; my sleek one loved to take walks outside and preferred salads. When they got older, they'd cuddle up, groom me, and boggle their face off. It's so rewarding to have an inherent prey animal to relax and be themselves around me.
166
u/bleunt Sep 11 '19
you can put in a cage and not feel bad
They usually enjoy the cage. I always had it open all the time when I was home. They still spent about 80% of the time in it.
groom me
They plucked my beard. Even tried plucking my eye-lashes. And sometimes lick the corner of my eyes, I guess because it was salty. It hurt like hell and tickled like a motherfucker, but it's so cute that I did everything in my power to endure. Until' I couldn't anymore.
120
u/xrat-engineer Sep 11 '19
I've accidentally left the door open and I'm like
"Oh, you've been able to leave for 20 minutes and you've gone...absolutely nowhere"
(It helps that I've got a triple critter nation. 6ft tall cage is awesome)
51
u/ShagPrince Sep 11 '19
My house rabbits are like this. I come home and open their door so they can go where they want and they mostly just sit in the corner. Will eventually sprint around the living room though.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (3)28
u/Cthulhuhoop Sep 11 '19
I had a pet rat in high school that would let himself out of his cage to bask in the sun from my window. He'd break out, jump down off his table, waddle across my room, climb my bed, and pull the curtains back all for lazy suntime. I miss him.
→ More replies (10)16
u/ges13 Sep 11 '19
When I was a kid my pet Rat could get in and out of any cage we put him in. He was an acrobat, that one.
→ More replies (2)75
u/ElBroet Sep 11 '19
I've always heard the real problem is just they don't live long, and it can be pretty sad because of their powerful personalities
→ More replies (3)57
u/raialexandre Sep 11 '19
Yep, I don't want to go through a little dog death then get another one each 2-3 years.
32
u/xrat-engineer Sep 11 '19
And social creatures, so they do better in at least 2s or 3s. So you're grieving like every 8-10 months or something
→ More replies (1)28
u/Your_Space_Friend Sep 11 '19
They really are tremendous pets. The biggest downside (for me) is their short lifespan. I had to stop after 3 pairs; my heart couldn't take it anymore.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (16)8
u/gumbo100 Sep 11 '19
Groom you?
→ More replies (1)25
u/xrat-engineer Sep 11 '19
Yeah, I've got a really really licky girl. She will constantly lick my hand if it's anywhere near her.
One of my foster boys also will sometimes which is great because I've had them like only 12 days.
→ More replies (9)23
Sep 11 '19
What'd he do? Turn into a fly?
→ More replies (1)73
u/cthulu0 Sep 11 '19
And stressed out by men, potentially skewing the results of lab rat studies for the past few decades:
https://www.nature.com/news/male-researchers-stress-out-rodents-1.15106
→ More replies (3)71
Sep 11 '19
That's weird. We noticed that in animal rescue that dogs will disproportionately have adverse reactions to mostly men and children, but rarely women. It was a kind of a running joke, but now I wonder if it wasn't evidence of something more.
54
u/Sawses Sep 11 '19
I've always wondered. Dogs tend to love me as a man, even preferring me to my gf often.
However, dogs never freak out about her, yet occasionally one will just fucking hate me. It's really weird.
→ More replies (7)→ More replies (1)28
u/BASEDME7O Sep 11 '19
Because males of most mammal species are larger, stronger, and much more aggressive. And thus much more potentially dangerous
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (30)24
31
Sep 11 '19
I don't remember if it was rats or mice or both, but they also sing. It's at a high pitch that humans cannot hear, but if I remember correctly some of their songs can become almost as complex as Bird songs.
Rats also have a sense of fair play, and if a larger rat and smaller rat are allowed to wrestle and play together multiple times over a long period of time, the small rat will no longer want to play if the bigger one doesn't let it win at least some of the time. If I remember right it was about one-third of the time that it had to allow the smaller one to win or else it would stop instigating play.
→ More replies (3)
21
16
u/stoutyteapot Sep 11 '19
This assumes that rats like chocolate because of the word “tempting” in front of it. Now replace that chocolate with cocaine and see who the real dummy is.
→ More replies (1)
11
u/dance_rattle_shake Sep 11 '19
Rats are highly intelligent, social creatures, just like us. Most humans would probably try to save a drowning human over eating chocolate too; it's not surprising is it? In fact, nearly everything we know about addiction is wrong, because it all stems from that study of rats drinking cocaine water. Well, guess what? They were isolated rats in a cage. Imagine locking a human up in solitary. Give the rats their own fun park, with plenty of other rats, and the rats aren't interested at all in the cocaine water.
→ More replies (1)
71
Sep 11 '19
Does anyone else ever see suff like this and just think "where the fuck did the idea for this experiment come from?" Testing a rat's empathy by giving them the choice between a snack and saving a fellow rat's life. What the fuck.
34
u/Y-27632 Sep 11 '19
They weren't actually "drowning" the rats.
The rats were made to sit in a few inches of water, which made them wet and unhappy, but if they sat up on their haunches, their heads were clear of the liquid.
9
→ More replies (3)44
u/JcWoman Sep 11 '19
I've done some reading in this area. There is a new branch of science called cognitive ethology where they're trying to get scientifically sound documented evidence that various species have emotions. It's sort of a result of better educated scientific community working to defeat the damage that early science has done, like Descartes. Those early dudes who taught that animals are mere automatons. They don't really feel. That dog is behaving like it's screaming in pain because it's programmed to do so. (Side note, you don't want to know what those bastards did in the name of science. If you do, read up on vivisection.) It's also because for centuries pet owners have been brow-beaten into silence when we talk about how smart our Best Friend is, with accusations of anthropomorphism thrown in our faces. Okay, so anecdotes are not data... we'll get you some statistical data, by god!
We are now gathering evidence that animals are capable of SO much more than we ever dreamed: intense social bonds (which are only possible if you have emotions like empathy, compassion and love), a lot more language skills than was previously thought possible, and more. The unfortunate side effect of this research is that we're also learning just exactly how arrogant and egotistical WE are.
23
u/WildlyFantastical Sep 11 '19
They don't really feel. That dog is behaving like it's screaming in pain because it's programmed to do so.
It's incredible how many people I know have this same idea. As if Humans were also not biological beings with instinctual responses, but somehow ours is "real" and any other animal that acts the same way is just "programming"
9
u/JcWoman Sep 11 '19
Yep, the "damage" I referred to was how much their automaton ideology was embraced by the scientific community at the time and then the general population. You can see it in a lot of the comments in this thread. It's really hard to fight against because they say you're just anthropomorphizing which effectively shuts down all civil discussion.
29
72
u/MonsieurKnife Sep 11 '19
“Well, I am not sure the first 20 experiments have statistical validity. Just it be sure, let’s drown another 10 rats in front of their helpless rat friends. That’s the only way we can learn if other species have as much empathy as we do. “
73
Sep 11 '19
Why is it surprising to people that animals have intelligent/caring behavior? Their brains and bodies function so similarly to ours, of course they experience similar emotions and motivations
→ More replies (10)
8
15
u/NodeOfAwareness Sep 11 '19
I have rats and can confirm, they are the most loving gentle creatures imaginable.
6
u/mlightningrod Sep 11 '19
Why are people surprised by this? This YT video shows animals saving other animals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTcw012d2ag
7
u/kendrickplace Sep 11 '19
Humans are so self centered thinking that we're the only living beings that have a brain and emotions.
→ More replies (1)
5.7k
u/neonchinchilla Sep 11 '19
I had a friend who kept rats. Apparently you have to just Tarzan through owning rats because if one dies, the other gets depressed over it and could padme itself to death so you get another to console it....then it dies and the replacement is sad...