Some, instead go to The Megalopolis of Mice. A cruel, behavioral sink where their fate is one of alienation, hostility, sexual perversion and parental incompetence. In Calhoun's mind, a mirror for the first world's human condition.
At the center of this bedlam, John B. Calhoun. A man who believed studying mice would shed light on the inevitable overcrowding of the planet by man . (1972)
Before we dig too deep into this topic I would first like to say happy new years to everyone! After an extended hiatus, I will finally be returning in the new year. This means more posts from me and more upvotes for you guys! Hope everyone had a good 2017 and is ready to get back at it this year.
Megalopolis of Mice
Getting back on topic, this week in the first of two parts, I'll be talking about "the rat experiment". Conducted in the late 1950s until the early 1970s, the experiment is concerned with Population Density and Social Pathology, as once described by Calhoun himself. I find it to be a particularly insightful piece of research that offers up a simple, analogous model for the degradation of social behaviors caused by an overcrowded population while also indicating the stressors that directly influence the social pathologies.
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Modern Misfortunes
In modern times our population has become an increasing worry in conversations concerning the dwindling of resources on an increasingly overcrowded planet. This issue is often only discussed in terms of the effect on global economics, and social hierarchy but rarely in terms of social behaviors and pathological behaviors that are imbued into people as a result of such an environment. Thankfully, in Biology, we are able to take advantage of model organisms. That is, organisms that are extensively studied to understand different biological phenomenon while observing their processes in relation to another.
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Models of Man
Organisms that are expected to yield insight into the workings of a biological phenomenon in other organisms have been utilized for decades now in Biology as with more common model organisms such as chimpanzees, flies, and mice. The common descent of all living organisms, the conservation of metabolic and developmental pathways along with the commonalities in genetic material allow this to be possible across a range of different organisms. However, some model organisms, such as mice, have become superstars in the field of biology due to their ability to repeatedly mirror the behavioral and physical attributes of different biological phenomenon in human.
Many, Many, Mice
This is what brings us to the subject of our discussion. See, mice as it so happens are a great model for the behavioral habits of large populations. Because of this they are often used as a subject to observe behavioral phenomenon in complex populations with the additional benefit being the ability for us to observe a longer lineage of generations in smaller time frames and spaces. This is in contrast to many larger organisms, such as chimps, who have a longer time span in between generations and a requirement for a much larger environment if confined.
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Misbehavior and Mortality
John Calhoun surmised that if he were to create an environment similar in concept to a modern Megalopolis with mice, he could observe the behaviors which might evolve in such an environment for man. This meant creating an enclosure for an indefinite population of mice that would provide all their lifestyle necessities and none of the natural dangers. By giving them ample food, nesting materials, and adequate spatial separation, he meant to mirror the eventual expansion of man in the first world. He believed by doing this the population of mice would eventually grow outwards until it reached a point of overcrowding that would yield insight into social pathologies that developed out of these conditions. As it so happens, Calhoun was rightly justified in his belief, observing towards the end of his experiments the complete collapse of the mice colony due to infant mortality rates spiking above 90% which would have lead to an inevitable extinction if prolonged. Calhoun would eventually go on to coin the term behavioral sink in order to describe the eventual collapse in social behaviors that arise from overcrowding.
An informative depiction of the normal and abnormal maternal behaviors of the female mice, provided by Calhoun. A small preview of some of the behaviors to be discussed in the next part.
In order to properly cover this topic, I will stop here. I believe this to be enough information on the ideology and relevance of the study to serve as a defense for the significance of the observations and I plan to address the entirety of the experiments and results in a second part. I wanted to focus solely on the experiments and behaviors of the mice, but there is a huge amount of interesting habits that the mice developed, so I hoped to cover all the possible background information that could serve as valuable for interpreting the tests beforehand in this part.
Links
[1] Letting the rat out of the bag
[2] How Mice Turned Their Private Paradise Into A Terrifying Dystopia
[3] Why do scientists use mice in medical research?
[4] Behavioral Sink
Thank you for reading everyone, and sorry to disappoint if I didn't cover as much of the experiments as you had hoped, I promise the second part will be detailed enough to make up for that!
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Can't wait to read more, seems a little bit of a cruel experiment but I'm sure it yielded some interesting results!
Thanks!
Agreed! Not the most humane of experiments, but as is with science. Unfortunately, we must smear the line of ethics to yield insight on crucial theories. Thanks for the view!