{"id":13706,"date":"2025-04-05T13:14:52","date_gmt":"2025-04-05T20:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=13706"},"modified":"2025-04-17T13:17:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T20:17:45","slug":"sure-why-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2025\/04\/05\/sure-why-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Sure, why not?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/studyfinds.org\/can-animals-make-art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from StudyFinds<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Can animals make&nbsp;art?<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>Research led by Shawn Simpson, University of Pittsburgh<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Animal Artists at the Smithsonian&#039;s National Zoo\" width=\"1080\" height=\"608\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p8yBu92Y4UE?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In the forests of eastern Australia, satin bowerbirds create structures known as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/australian.museum\/learn\/animals\/birds\/satin-bowerbird\/#:%7E:text=The%20male%20Satin,to%20prospective%20females.\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">bowers<\/a>.\u201d The males gather twigs and place them upright, in two bundles, with a gap in the middle, resulting in what looks like a miniature archway. All around the bower the bird scatters small objects \u2013 shells, pieces of plastic, flower petals \u2013 which all possess the same property: the color blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Studies suggest that the purpose of the bowers\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/S0003-3472(85)80140-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">is to impress and attract females<\/a>. But their beauty and intricacy has left some\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomsbury.com\/us\/adorning-bodies-9781350104259\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">researchers<\/a>\u00a0wondering whether they shouldn\u2019t be considered art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, figuring out whether something is a work of art requires answering some tricky philosophical questions. Are animals even capable of creating art? And how can we tell whether something is a work of art rather than just a coincidentally beautiful object? As a philosopher and artist who\u2019s interested in aesthetics and biology,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/rowman.com\/ISBN\/9781666924367\/Art-as-Communication-Aesthetics-Evolution-and-Signaling\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">I recently wrote about<\/a>\u00a0the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/studyfinds.org\/sea-turtles-nesting-planet-heats-up\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">evolution of behaviors in animals<\/a>\u00a0that could be seen as art.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[ <a href=\"https:\/\/studyfinds.org\/can-animals-make-art\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at StudyFinds<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from StudyFinds Can animals make&nbsp;art? Research led by Shawn Simpson, University of Pittsburgh In the forests of eastern Australia, satin bowerbirds create structures known as \u201cbowers.\u201d The males gather twigs and place them upright, in two bundles, with a gap in the middle, resulting in what looks like a miniature archway. All around the bower [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}