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From man's beginning he has known intuitively that he is a social
animal. The concept of evolution has always been strongly controversial
because no other biological organism is quite like man, although the
behavioral similarities between man and other animals have always been
apparent. Our language is replete with comparisons of man with animal.
For example, we use expressions like sly as a fox, bullheaded, gone to
the dogs, piggish, ravenous, playing possum, snake in the grass,
shedding crocodile tears, and many more in which the attributes of an
animal are assigned to man. The principal difference between man and all
other biological organisms is that man has developed skills of language
and of technology which have set him apart. The growing recognition of
the relationship between the behavior of man the social organism and all
other social organisms has come about not through the study of man's
social behavior but through the study of the social behavior of other
biological organisms. In biomedical research, discoveries related to
physiological and biological disorders in lower animals have for decades
provided clues leading to a better understanding of similar conditions
in man. For example, hundreds of thousands of mice have been sacrificed
for cancer research, and thousands of dogs have given their lives to
advance our knowledge of cardiovascular malfunctions. Animals, such as
gorillas, chimpanzees, and wolves, in their natural setting exhibit
behavioral tendencies analogous to the behavior of man, and the ethology
of man as an emergent science may well be one of the most significant
sciences.
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