Can fish be racist? haha

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Either that, racism and colorism have same meaning.
 
MN_Rebel said:
In reality, racists do existed in animal world. I raised a herd of Black Angus cattle and the cows always have black calves. Many years ago, one of our cows had a red calf. The mother tried to reject her calf and that red calf got the whole herd upset that they abandoned the mother and the red calf. The red calf is 100% perfect and healthy. That calf ended up as a member of the herd when she was a yearling and the herd is no longer as racists. Same thing happens to chickens as well. I raised white broilers for meat and I gets a black chicken occasionally and the white chickens often gang on and pick on the black chickens. It occurs in many species. It is not uncommon for a group reject a member because its not colored same to their group members. Like how the baboons abandoned their albino member by not grooming him or how the hippo pod push out a white hippo of the pod so he cannot socialize with the herd members.
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You ran a little too far with this one for it to be accepted as science.

First, black cows having black calves just means that they pass those genes on due to the parents' combination of dominant or recessive traits.

Second, just because the calf was red doesn't mean that the mother rejected it for that reason. This happens across many species of higher vertebrates (birds, mammals) for a variety of reasons, and sometimes it's more about the parent than the offspring. I'm not going to go into statistics but you can't isolate the cause with just 1 example. Every scientist can tell you that correlation is not the same as causation.

When referring to albinism in the wild, it is well-documented that albinos stand out from the crowd (and likely the surroundings) and rarely survive as long as their normally-colored counterparts. A rejection by the community could be an act of inclusive fitness by preventing their group from being as noticeable. Albinism is also sometimes associated with a number of other genetically-related health concerns, such as vision problems. Also, when color is used as a signal, albinos are at a distinct disadvantage.

I'm not gonna weigh in on the chickens though. It's a bit tougher to say when you're dealing with a domesticated animal whether such a behavior originates from instinct (like the aforementioned possibility) or from something else.

Edit: In case I wasn't clear, I also can't say that your hypothesis is incorrect. No conclusions can be drawn with a lack of "evidence"
 
Pomatomus said:
You ran a little too far with this one for it to be accepted as science.

First, black cows having black calves just means that they pass those genes on due to the parents' combination of dominant or recessive traits.

Second, just because the calf was red doesn't mean that the mother rejected it for that reason. This happens across many species of higher vertebrates (birds, mammals) for a variety of reasons, and sometimes it's more about the parent than the offspring. I'm not going to go into statistics but you can't isolate the cause with just 1 example. Every scientist can tell you that correlation is not the same as causation.

When referring to albinism in the wild, it is well-documented that albinos stand out from the crowd (and likely the surroundings) and rarely survive as long as their normally-colored counterparts. A rejection by the community could be an act of inclusive fitness by preventing their group from being as noticeable. Albinism is also sometimes associated with a number of other genetically-related health concerns, such as vision problems. Also, when color is used as a signal, albinos are at a distinct disadvantage.

I'm not gonna weigh in on the chickens though. It's a bit tougher to say when you're dealing with a domesticated animal whether such a behavior originates from instinct (like the aforementioned possibility) or from something else.

Edit: In case I wasn't clear, I also can't say that your hypothesis is incorrect. No conclusions can be drawn with a lack of "evidence"
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first thing, I don't think I went too far. Racism or colorism happens in the animal world. That cow had a red calf, had many black calves in the past and she's excellent mother to all calves she had in the past. In fact that red calf was our first time to have a red calf for 20 years on the farm. There was nothing wrong with the red calf, its just the herd reacted to it badly that they don't want her in the herd. In fact the herd ran away from her every time her or her mother tries to join up the herd. It happened same thing to my buds Hereford cattle and he bred their Hereford cows to a black Angus bull. When one of her Hereford cows gave birth to a black calf, the whole herd got upset and avoid the black calf at all costs or even attacks the black calf. That goes going on for few days till all cows gave birth to the black calves. Racism/colorism happens in domestication often.

Yes animals try to avoid their own species of another color if it's going attracted some unwanted attention but its not only albinism. It applies to any colors as well such as melanistic and piebaldism, even if the individuals are just perfectly healthy, they just choose to not socialize. That happens in captivity as well, not just wild anymore.

So no I don't think I am going too far. Maybe you should just go out and observe some animal behavior instead of reading a book or a computer told me so.
 
to be racist they would have to be aware of them selves, so no. we own the market on that.
 
Most 'like minded' women tend to like one color (here in the US at least) and its green! :D. Emphasis on 'like minded' haha :).
 
MN_Rebel said:
first thing, I don't think I went too far. Racism or colorism happens in the animal world. That cow had a red calf, had many black calves in the past and she's excellent mother to all calves she had in the past. In fact that red calf was our first time to have a red calf for 20 years on the farm. There was nothing wrong with the red calf, its just the herd reacted to it badly that they don't want her in the herd. In fact the herd ran away from her every time her or her mother tries to join up the herd. It happened same thing to my buds Hereford cattle and he bred their Hereford cows to a black Angus bull. When one of her Hereford cows gave birth to a black calf, the whole herd got upset and avoid the black calf at all costs or even attacks the black calf. That goes going on for few days till all cows gave birth to the black calves. Racism/colorism happens in domestication often.

Yes animals try to avoid their own species of another color if it's going attracted some unwanted attention but its not only albinism. It applies to any colors as well such as melanistic and piebaldism, even if the individuals are just perfectly healthy, they just choose to not socialize. That happens in captivity as well, not just wild anymore.

So no I don't think I am going too far. Maybe you should just go out and observe some animal behavior instead of reading a book or a computer told me so.
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I'm an aquaculture biologist working on a farm with 60,000 fish and 400 cows. I also have years of professional experience in the aquarium trade and working at marine labs. It's my job to observe animals. I took animal behavior, biopsych, and a few other psych courses in college. I'm not debating whether it's possible that you're right, but in science you can't state a hypothesis as fact unless it's proven in some manner. I'm sure you will understand my skepticism if you read through your post, as the information in the second paragraph stands to refute your "facts" from the first paragraph.

I believed you observed what you observed, but from the information given no conclusion can be drawn whether this is a conscious belief of the animal. (Let's not forget that fish are lower vertebrates!) The answer given to this yahoo question explains it pretty well:

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100929074537AAAHpzt

And you should know that racism is not the same as colorism. Do your research instead of saying I should do less of it.
 
this kind of a goofy question. answer is no. and for the record, racism as a whole has nothing to do with color. 90 percent of racism in the world is about religious be leaf, I have yet to meet a christian, Jewish muslum buda or any other fish. Again we own the market on that.
 
African ciclids hate every thing, including African cichlids.
 
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