Disclaimer: I have a bias against language that implies that male animals, birds, frogs, etc., sing because they are of the belief that singing will attract a mate. I do believe that singing does, in fact, often attract mates. But I find it hard to believe that birds or frogs can draw cause and effect conclusions from such a sequence of events. I certainly don’t believe that birds or frogs are raised with that innate knowledge and I don’t believe that they are taught such “facts” of science as they develop. None the less, it’s very common to read such statements, such as this one from a recent BBC on line article: "Scientists found cells near the pituitary gland release a hormone in the spring in readiness for mating. The bird then begins to sing more often to attract potential mating partners, the experts tell the journal Nature. "
In this construction, the bird *decides * to sing more often, thinking that a potential mating partner will be more likely to appear. I couldn’t find the actual language that the scientists used online at Nature.
But I’m also willing to learn, if it turns out that there’s evidence to support the assertion that birds or frogs sing with the express intention of using that song to attract a mate. This seems to indicate a level of contemplation and planning that I think is a beyond the cognitive abilities of those animals.
I think that the hormones that kick in in the spring activate the song singing genes, and that’s a perfect time of year for that to occur in those species. Females of those species are programmed to seek out those songs for some reason. It all works out and the species continues - but through no intention of the males. Colibri, or any other bio scholar?? Any help here?
It’s pure instinct. Darwin takes care of the advantage.
It’s not that the birds and frogs ever decided this. However, at some point many millennia ago, one particular frog had a behavior quirk that made it croak when it was time to mate. And, for some reason, this attracted female frogs more efficiently than the frogs that didn’t croak. Thus, a frog that had this sort of behavior hard-wired in was marginally better at getting a mate, until they overshadowed the male frogs that didn’t croak.
Same with birds. The song announces availability (and can also be used to mark territory). The male bird that did this was more likely to pass his genes along, and thus, eventually, all male birds sang.
So what you are saying is that you don’t know why the caged bird sings?
Chuck, you miss my point and illustrate what it is that is troublesome about the common conceptualization of the event. I am aware that the song serves the function of making known to the females in the area that a presumably fertile male is near. What I object to is the implication that it is the conscious choice of the male to make that announcement. As you say, (as do I in my OP), the genes determine the effectiveness of the system, from some feature(s) that lead to attraction and mating to the tendency of those behaviors to be passed on genetically precisely because they worked. My beef is with the widespread assumption that there is, in fact, some decision making involved on the part of the males. If not a beef, then a question - is there reason to believe that they really do sing with a strategy in mind? I find it hard to believe.
Still waiting.
I think you’re reading too much into this. The quote you gave doesn’t read to me like the author is talking about a deliberate decision.
Perhaps I’m being obtuse, but I don’t interpret the phrasing you cite as describing singing to attract mates as a conscious choice by the bird. Presumably after the “mating readiness hormone” is released, the bird starts performing a whole laundry list of behaviors related to mating without consciously intending to do any of them, or choosing a particular course of action over various alternatives. No?
And I’m far from an expert, but the little I’ve read indicates that there is far from consensus as to any one specific goal or purpose of bird song. Curiously, Bird Song by (from memory) Don Stap is on my nightstand for re-reading, so I expect to know ever-so-slightly more on the subject in a few days or weeks! 
I too would like to see cites that claim that it is anything other than instinct.
Someone just published on this.
Neither thought nor instinct is needed. It’s down to DNA:
Light fantastic: why birds burst into song at dawn as spring arrives
No need for magic either. Rincewind would approve.
Instincts are not down to DNA?
Lemme try again. I understand what the recent study says. It traces some behaviors back through the production of certain hormones, to the stimulus that causes their production and back to the genes that mediate their production. I understand that birdsong is one signal that is part of the mating behavior, and that song attracts fecund mates, facilitating procreation. What I object to is the assumption, sometimes subtle, sometimes explicit, that male animals such as birds, DECIDE to sing, with a specific purpose or goal “in mind.” This can be read into a statement such as “The male bird sings in order to attract a mate.” Yes, the male bird’s song does attract a mate. Yes, that appears to be one of the functions of the sounds he makes at that time of year - when his hormones prepare him for mating. But, no - he doesn’t crave a mate and therefore decide the best way to get one is to sing, because female birds are suckers for such sounds. He’s not slicking his feathers back and oozing into some little bird bar, ordering little bird drinks, and singing his little come-hither bird song KNOWING that that will make him impossible to turn down. He’s singing because light that time of year kicks off a series of hormonal secretions that lead to behaviors which are part of the reason that his species is still around. One of those behaviors is to sing. For the females, one of those behaviors is to move toward the source of that sound. He’s not singing “to attract a mate.” His singing attracts mates.
Or - is there reason to believe that I’m wrong? That he is actually scheming to get laid?
The very idea of instincts may be nothing more than a misguided human attempt to impose some sort of order on the emergent properties of a complex chemical system. AFAIK, no one has ever located an instinct reader/interpreter. Show us the coding, and then we can decide if something is ‘instinctual’, or if it’s even useful to talk about instincts as a class of behaviors.
Yes, there is reason to believe that you are wrong. That there is some widely-understood assumption that birds know what they are doing when they sing and thus it is their “purpose” to sing in order to attract mates.
There is no such assumption.
There is, however, sometimes a shorthand where, for instance, it is said that the birds sing “in order to” attract mates, but it is NOT IMPLIED that this is the birds’ purpose of singing, or at least it was not its intention. Sometimes it IS intended to imply that it is the “purpose” of the instinct, which is also incorrect in that evolution doesn’t have a purpose. But that is separate from the issue of claiming that they are trying to imply that birds have an intelligent purpose in their mind when singing.
The emergent properies of a complex chemical system inducing certain types of behaviors in certain situations is instinct, insomuch as a certain action or inaction can be classified as a “behavior”. And if you can’t, there isn’t much use for using language to describe anything.
Now, it’s relatively easy to separate instinctual behavior from purposeful behavior, once you answer the epistemological question of knowing when someone “knows” something. If an entity knows that an outcome is likely to occur given that entity’s proposed behavior and they do that behavior in order to bring about that sequence of events, that’s clearly non instinctual in the plain English meaning of the word (despite the fact that chemical and electrical brain interactions are behind this though.)
Learned behavior without thought behind it is more difficult to separate from instinct, but thankfully, the OP did not specify this type of behavior.
Yep - I undertand that shorthand and that meaning of that phrase. I grant that for some people, “they sing to attract mates” means that the function of their song is to attract mates. I do think, however, that many people would assert that the bird is singing for a purpose - to attract a mate. I think if you asked X number of people, “Why is that bird singing?” that many would say, “He’s trying to attract a mate,” or “It’s his mating call,” or some such, indicating some intentionality. In fact, in my own experience as a professor in a college of education, I come across people all the time who appear to believe this is so. I believe that it is, indeed, a wide-spread assumption.
Well, I wouldn’t say it’s ruled out in all circumstances but that it would need some compelling evidence for it.
Why is it not TOTALLY ruled out, but rather remains unlikely? Because there are situations where songs are determined partly by communication (exchange of information,) most famously in the evolution (change through time) of whalesong, but perhaps in birds as well.
If a bird were to have success with a certain type of song, and keeps singing that way as a learned behavior rather than an intentional method, would that satisfy your criteria? I am genuinely asking about whether you would regard learned behavior as sufficiently intentional, and I do not know whether birdsong can be influenced by past successes or not.
I don’t see anything in this phrasing (or the phrasing you first cited) that requires the interpretation that birds have the intention of attracting a mate. I also don’t see that your phrasing necessarily implies it either. Before you protest, I will concede that that your quote above is open to that interpretation if you really wanted to interpret it that way, but it’s not the first interpretation I would make.
Basically what I’m getting at is that there are much more egregious examples of the problem you complain of. Certainly you might prefer that the quote be something like “the male bird sings because hormone x is released in his brain”, which would be a perfectly reasonable sentence, but that would be leaving out an interesting part of the singing, which is that it tends to attract mates.
And you know what? I think that it’s a little funny to assign intention to human actions if you aren’t going to assign them to birds. Yes, things are more complicated in the human brain, but there is an equally valid mechanistic explanation for the things we do. We don’t have the entire explanation, but it surely exists. We also don’t have the entire mechanistic explanation for bird song either. Sometimes a you have to use shorthand when describing complicated processes.
I guess you could read that into such a sentence, but I don’t know why you would. I think these people aren’t assuming what you assume they’re assuming.
So I’m with John Mace on this one.
-FrL-
Disagree. Natural selection is genuine selection. Selection involves purpose. But neither selection nor purpose require mind.
Carry on.
-FrL-
No, both those responses are ambiguous. Neither necessary implies conscious purpose any more than does “the bird sings in order to…”
What you need is people who, when you ask questions like “Is the bird actually thinking about the attraction of mates?”, answer in the affirmative.
-FrL-
Although this is just arguing over a definition, I disagree. Purpose requires intention, and intention implies sapience. If evolution were directed by a sapient computer I would agree that evolution has a “purpose” if the computer so chooses, even if others would claim that the computer is just a “machine”.