Oct. 26, 2012

The Science of Monsters

by Matt Kaplan

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Recent work in animal behavior has revealed something fascinating: There are personality types in animals. Among fish in a single species, there are adventurous individuals, ready and willing to take risks, and there are more cautious and timid individuals, fearful of doing anything that could put them in danger. Similar variations in personality are starting to be found in birds and mammals too. A recent study led by Kathryn Arnold at the University of York revealed that when greenfinches were presented with brightly colored objects in their food, there was considerable variation in how long it took each bird to eat. When intriguing objects were attached to the birds’ perches, a similar variation was found. Some birds quickly flew to explore the new toy while others stayed away.
Whether some humans are genetically predisposed to be more adventurous than others remains to be determined, but there clearly are some people who ultimately are more willing to take risks. Make no mistake, the instinct to flee from danger is still deeply rooted in every person’s brain, but some of us are more willing than others to go to places associated with danger. Just as with daring animals that find resources by taking risks, it is logical to assume that more adventurous humans have historically made the same sorts of gains. For this reason, monsters may be serving a valuable purpose in society. By representing key fears and allowing these to be discussed and explored in a safe environment, monsters might be making it feasible for these fears to be more effectively prepared for and ultimately faced, so the benefits of being a courageous individual can be more readily reaped. Like lion cubs play-fighting in the safety of their den, monsters may be allowing threats to be toyed with in the safe sandbox of the imagination.
Fears have changed a lot since the dawn of humanity, and with these changes have come alterations in the pantheon of monsters that lurk in our world. The Minotaur is no longer with us, but aliens are. In a sense, monsters, while strictly the stuff of fantasy, experience evolution at a rate that is in stride with the pace of human understanding of the surrounding world. Science, the empirical testing and exploration of the world, which is about as seemingly unrelated to monsters as can be, is both responsible for their birth by discovering new environments where they might be living and the cause of their destruction through the ultimate revelation that they cannot possibly be real.
That many monsters have risen and fallen throughout the ages is clear. What is less clear is which specific fears these monsters stood for and how long these fears actually lasted. An exploration of fear’s mask, the mask of the monster, seems an excellent way to find out.
As it happens, this has really screwed up lots of biological research. We have spent decades “thinking” we could get a reasonable sense of what animals are like by setting traps in the wild and then studying the animals that get caught. But if the animals that get caught are only the most daring individuals (or the most foolish) in a population, they are hardly giving us a reasonable sense of how a species behaves!
Excerpted from Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite:  The Science of Monsters. Copyright © 2012 by Matt Kaplan.  Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Matt Kaplan is a science journalist, and a regular contributor to The Economist. He has also written for National Geographic, New Scientist, Nature, Scientific American, Science, BBC Wildlife and The New York Times. When not chained to a desk, Kaplan travels the wilds of the world as part of a London expedition group. He lives in London.
Author photo by Tristan Horner
About Matt Kaplan

Matt Kaplan is the author of Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite: The Science of Monsters.


