How an experiment with mice may hold a key to our own future

 With regards to the animal kingdom, we often overlook what we can continue to learn, as a species, and as a result, we tend to ignore where we might have taken a wrong turn in our evolution. I’d like to look into a series of experiments on mice which was performed during the the mid 20th Century, which although was used to show the possible effects of overpopulation in large cities, also raises many questions about the slow decline within our family structures, putting our very future in peril.

John.B.Calhoun, and American ethologist, who was actually part of the neo Malthusians movement (a belief that the earth would suffer with an increasing population, and should be controlled due to finite resources) decided to run an experiment in 1947, to try and prove the theory that unchecked population growth would lead to scarce resources, environmental degradation and increasing social issues. Although there is a separate debate on the ethics of such an experiment, as well as the general belief system of such a group, i would prefer to look at other, more pressing insights such an experiment brought up and what it spells out to us.

Called the ‘Mass Utopia Experiment’ Calhoun created a quarter of an acre enclosure, which was affectionately named ‘rat city’ in which he housed 5 pregnant rats in an enclosure with plenty of all the essential resources to keep the rats calm and happy, and with no predators, they waited to see how this community would evolve. Their expectation was that the population would expand to around 5,000, at which point they could gather the data, and present their findings. However, after an initial explosion in numbers, the population suddenly levelled off at just 150. During this initial experiment, many behavioural changes in the rats were observed, including gathering areas, alpha males patrolling and controlling resources, and an extremely high mortality rate for the young....<<<Read More>>>...