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2 - Out of the Wild Wood and into our Beds: The Evolutionary History of Teddy Bears and the Natural Selection of Deadly Cuteness
- Edited by Owen T. Nevin, Ian Convery, Peter Davis
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- Book:
- The Bear: Culture, Nature, Heritage
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 21 March 2020
- Print publication:
- 15 November 2019, pp 23-32
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Summary
The teddy bear, Brunus edwardii (Blackmore and Young 1972), has been a toy throughout western Europe and North America since at least 1903. The popularity of teddy bears has ensured their continued survival whilst other cuddly toys have become extinct (eg Billy Possum), or waned in popularity and/or cultural acceptance (eg golliwogs, whose popularity declined sharply from the 1960s onwards because of the perceived racism in the representation, Pilgrim 2012), or have been associated with short-lived fads, including the Tellytubbies. Teddy bears are disproportionately important in North American and European culture; ‘they concern our most intimate and deep-going feelings and experiences’ (Caldas-Coulthard and van Leeuwen 2003, 26). They are intended to be played with and, perhaps even more importantly, cuddled and loved (see Hayes et al, this volume; Jones 2018). Teddy bears are commonly portrayed as very important in the emotional lives of children, both as a significant resource to cuddle but also a consolation when adults do not give children sufficient time: they are seen as ‘commoditised sentimentality’ (Sutton-Smith 1986; Vargas 2009a). Teddies are an important, but poorly researched, signifier in childhood studies (Nieuwenhuys 2011). Given their significance, the ecology of their interaction with humans reveals some remarkable natural history.
A striking feature of teddy bears are the changes to the predominant anatomical characteristics of manufactured bears throughout the roughly 110 years of their existence. The longevity of the teddy taxon, combined with their collectability, has preserved a wealth of detail about teddy bear morphology. There have been recorded changes to diversity and success, based on overall numbers (White 1971; Picot 1988) along with shifts in the frequency of anatomical forms (Picot 1988; Morris et al 1995; Nieuwenhuys 2011). Hinde and Barden (1985) presented evidence of changes in measurable morphology and suggested that these changes mimicked biological evolution. The changes to teddies are primarily a reduction in wild adult bear features (long limbs, long snouts, small heads) and an increase in juvenile bear and human baby characters (eg disproportionately large heads and short limbs), so called neotenic, or infantile, anatomy. Similar evolutionary selection has been described for other children's toys, including Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck (Gould 1980), and action figures where increased muscularity conforms to male body stereotypes (Pope et al 1999).
28 - Out of the Wild Wood and into our Beds: the Evolutionary History of Teddy Bears and the Natural Selection of Deadly Cuteness
- from PEOPLE–NATURE INTERACTIONS
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- By Mike Jeffries, Northumbria University
- Edited by Ian Convery, Professor of Conservation & Forestry, Centre for Wildlife Conservation, University of Cumbria., Peter Davis, Emeritus Professor of Museology, University of Newcastle
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- Book:
- Changing Perceptions of Nature
- Published by:
- Boydell & Brewer
- Published online:
- 26 October 2017
- Print publication:
- 16 June 2016, pp 289-298
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- Chapter
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Summary
The teddy bear, Brunus edwardii (Blackmore and Young 1972), has been a toy throughout Western Europe and North America since at least 1903. The popularity of teddy bears has ensured their continued survival while other cuddly toys have become extinct (eg Billy Possum), or waned in popularity (eg golliwogs, whose popularity declined sharply from the 1960s onwards due to perceived racism in the representation; Pilgrim 2012), or have been associated with short-lived fads, for example the Teletubbies. Teddy bears are disproportionately important in North American and European culture; ‘they concern our most intimate and deep-going feelings and experiences’ (Caldas-Coulthard and Van Leeuwen 2003, 26). They are intended to be played with and, perhaps even more importantly, cuddled and loved. Teddy bears are commonly portrayed as very important in the emotional lives of children, both as a significant resource to cuddle but also a consolation when adults do not give children sufficient time: they are seen as ‘commoditised sentimentality’ (Sutton-Smith 1986; Varga 2009a). Teddies are an important, but poorly researched, signifier in childhood studies (Nieuwenhuys 2011). Given their significance, the ecology of their interaction with humans reveals some remarkable natural history.
A striking feature of teddy bears is the variation in the predominant anatomical characteristics of manufactured bears throughout their roughly 110-year existence. The longevity of the teddy taxon, combined with their collectability, has preserved a wealth of detail about teddy bear morphology. There have been recorded changes to diversity and success, based on overall numbers (White 1971; Picot 1988), along with shifts in the frequency of anatomical forms (Picot 1988; Morris et al 1995; Nieuwenhuys 2011). Hinde and Barden (1985) presented evidence of changes in measurable morphology and suggested that these changes mimicked biological evolution. The changes to teddies are primarily a reduction in wild adult bear features (long limbs, long snouts, small heads) and an increase in juvenile bear and human baby characters (eg disproportionately large heads and short limbs), so-called neotenic – or infantile – anatomy. Similar evolutionary selection has been described for other children's toys, including Micky Mouse and Donald Duck (Gould 1980) and action figures where increased muscularity conforms to male body stereotypes (Pope et al 1999).
Contributors
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- By Mitchell Aboulafia, Frederick Adams, Marilyn McCord Adams, Robert M. Adams, Laird Addis, James W. Allard, David Allison, William P. Alston, Karl Ameriks, C. Anthony Anderson, David Leech Anderson, Lanier Anderson, Roger Ariew, David Armstrong, Denis G. Arnold, E. J. Ashworth, Margaret Atherton, Robin Attfield, Bruce Aune, Edward Wilson Averill, Jody Azzouni, Kent Bach, Andrew Bailey, Lynne Rudder Baker, Thomas R. Baldwin, Jon Barwise, George Bealer, William Bechtel, Lawrence C. Becker, Mark A. Bedau, Ernst Behler, José A. Benardete, Ermanno Bencivenga, Jan Berg, Michael Bergmann, Robert L. Bernasconi, Sven Bernecker, Bernard Berofsky, Rod Bertolet, Charles J. Beyer, Christian Beyer, Joseph Bien, Joseph Bien, Peg Birmingham, Ivan Boh, James Bohman, Daniel Bonevac, Laurence BonJour, William J. Bouwsma, Raymond D. Bradley, Myles Brand, Richard B. Brandt, Michael E. Bratman, Stephen E. Braude, Daniel Breazeale, Angela Breitenbach, Jason Bridges, David O. Brink, Gordon G. Brittan, Justin Broackes, Dan W. Brock, Aaron Bronfman, Jeffrey E. Brower, Bartosz Brozek, Anthony Brueckner, Jeffrey Bub, Lara Buchak, Otavio Bueno, Ann E. Bumpus, Robert W. Burch, John Burgess, Arthur W. Burks, Panayot Butchvarov, Robert E. Butts, Marina Bykova, Patrick Byrne, David Carr, Noël Carroll, Edward S. Casey, Victor Caston, Victor Caston, Albert Casullo, Robert L. Causey, Alan K. L. Chan, Ruth Chang, Deen K. Chatterjee, Andrew Chignell, Roderick M. Chisholm, Kelly J. Clark, E. J. Coffman, Robin Collins, Brian P. Copenhaver, John Corcoran, John Cottingham, Roger Crisp, Frederick J. Crosson, Antonio S. Cua, Phillip D. Cummins, Martin Curd, Adam Cureton, Andrew Cutrofello, Stephen Darwall, Paul Sheldon Davies, Wayne A. Davis, Timothy Joseph Day, Claudio de Almeida, Mario De Caro, Mario De Caro, John Deigh, C. F. Delaney, Daniel C. Dennett, Michael R. DePaul, Michael Detlefsen, Daniel Trent Devereux, Philip E. Devine, John M. Dillon, Martin C. Dillon, Robert DiSalle, Mary Domski, Alan Donagan, Paul Draper, Fred Dretske, Mircea Dumitru, Wilhelm Dupré, Gerald Dworkin, John Earman, Ellery Eells, Catherine Z. Elgin, Berent Enç, Ronald P. Endicott, Edward Erwin, John Etchemendy, C. Stephen Evans, Susan L. Feagin, Solomon Feferman, Richard Feldman, Arthur Fine, Maurice A. Finocchiaro, William FitzPatrick, Richard E. Flathman, Gvozden Flego, Richard Foley, Graeme Forbes, Rainer Forst, Malcolm R. Forster, Daniel Fouke, Patrick Francken, Samuel Freeman, Elizabeth Fricker, Miranda Fricker, Michael Friedman, Michael Fuerstein, Richard A. Fumerton, Alan Gabbey, Pieranna Garavaso, Daniel Garber, Jorge L. A. Garcia, Robert K. Garcia, Don Garrett, Philip Gasper, Gerald Gaus, Berys Gaut, Bernard Gert, Roger F. Gibson, Cody Gilmore, Carl Ginet, Alan H. Goldman, Alvin I. Goldman, Alfonso Gömez-Lobo, Lenn E. Goodman, Robert M. Gordon, Stefan Gosepath, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Daniel W. Graham, George A. Graham, Peter J. Graham, Richard E. Grandy, I. Grattan-Guinness, John Greco, Philip T. Grier, Nicholas Griffin, Nicholas Griffin, David A. Griffiths, Paul J. Griffiths, Stephen R. Grimm, Charles L. Griswold, Charles B. Guignon, Pete A. Y. Gunter, Dimitri Gutas, Gary Gutting, Paul Guyer, Kwame Gyekye, Oscar A. Haac, Raul Hakli, Raul Hakli, Michael Hallett, Edward C. Halper, Jean Hampton, R. James Hankinson, K. R. Hanley, Russell Hardin, Robert M. Harnish, William Harper, David Harrah, Kevin Hart, Ali Hasan, William Hasker, John Haugeland, Roger Hausheer, William Heald, Peter Heath, Richard Heck, John F. Heil, Vincent F. Hendricks, Stephen Hetherington, Francis Heylighen, Kathleen Marie Higgins, Risto Hilpinen, Harold T. Hodes, Joshua Hoffman, Alan Holland, Robert L. Holmes, Richard Holton, Brad W. Hooker, Terence E. Horgan, Tamara Horowitz, Paul Horwich, Vittorio Hösle, Paul Hoβfeld, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Frances Howard-Snyder, Anne Hudson, Deal W. Hudson, Carl A. Huffman, David L. Hull, Patricia Huntington, Thomas Hurka, Paul Hurley, Rosalind Hursthouse, Guillermo Hurtado, Ronald E. Hustwit, Sarah Hutton, Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa, Harry A. Ide, David Ingram, Philip J. Ivanhoe, Alfred L. Ivry, Frank Jackson, Dale Jacquette, Joseph Jedwab, Richard Jeffrey, David Alan Johnson, Edward Johnson, Mark D. Jordan, Richard Joyce, Hwa Yol Jung, Robert Hillary Kane, Tomis Kapitan, Jacquelyn Ann K. Kegley, James A. Keller, Ralph Kennedy, Sergei Khoruzhii, Jaegwon Kim, Yersu Kim, Nathan L. King, Patricia Kitcher, Peter D. Klein, E. D. Klemke, Virginia Klenk, George L. Kline, Christian Klotz, Simo Knuuttila, Joseph J. Kockelmans, Konstantin Kolenda, Sebastian Tomasz Kołodziejczyk, Isaac Kramnick, Richard Kraut, Fred Kroon, Manfred Kuehn, Steven T. Kuhn, Henry E. Kyburg, John Lachs, Jennifer Lackey, Stephen E. Lahey, Andrea Lavazza, Thomas H. Leahey, Joo Heung Lee, Keith Lehrer, Dorothy Leland, Noah M. Lemos, Ernest LePore, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Isaac Levi, Andrew Levine, Alan E. Lewis, Daniel E. Little, Shu-hsien Liu, Shu-hsien Liu, Alan K. L. Chan, Brian Loar, Lawrence B. Lombard, John Longeway, Dominic McIver Lopes, Michael J. Loux, E. J. Lowe, Steven Luper, Eugene C. Luschei, William G. Lycan, David Lyons, David Macarthur, Danielle Macbeth, Scott MacDonald, Jacob L. Mackey, Louis H. Mackey, Penelope Mackie, Edward H. Madden, Penelope Maddy, G. B. Madison, Bernd Magnus, Pekka Mäkelä, Rudolf A. Makkreel, David Manley, William E. Mann (W.E.M.), Vladimir Marchenkov, Peter Markie, Jean-Pierre Marquis, Ausonio Marras, Mike W. Martin, A. P. Martinich, William L. McBride, David McCabe, Storrs McCall, Hugh J. McCann, Robert N. McCauley, John J. McDermott, Sarah McGrath, Ralph McInerny, Daniel J. McKaughan, Thomas McKay, Michael McKinsey, Brian P. McLaughlin, Ernan McMullin, Anthonie Meijers, Jack W. Meiland, William Jason Melanson, Alfred R. Mele, Joseph R. Mendola, Christopher Menzel, Michael J. Meyer, Christian B. Miller, David W. Miller, Peter Millican, Robert N. Minor, Phillip Mitsis, James A. Montmarquet, Michael S. Moore, Tim Moore, Benjamin Morison, Donald R. Morrison, Stephen J. Morse, Paul K. Moser, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Ian Mueller, James Bernard Murphy, Mark C. Murphy, Steven Nadler, Jan Narveson, Alan Nelson, Jerome Neu, Samuel Newlands, Kai Nielsen, Ilkka Niiniluoto, Carlos G. Noreña, Calvin G. Normore, David Fate Norton, Nikolaj Nottelmann, Donald Nute, David S. Oderberg, Steve Odin, Michael O’Rourke, Willard G. Oxtoby, Heinz Paetzold, George S. Pappas, Anthony J. Parel, Lydia Patton, R. P. Peerenboom, Francis Jeffry Pelletier, Adriaan T. Peperzak, Derk Pereboom, Jaroslav Peregrin, Glen Pettigrove, Philip Pettit, Edmund L. Pincoffs, Andrew Pinsent, Robert B. Pippin, Alvin Plantinga, Louis P. Pojman, Richard H. Popkin, John F. Post, Carl J. Posy, William J. Prior, Richard Purtill, Michael Quante, Philip L. Quinn, Philip L. Quinn, Elizabeth S. Radcliffe, Diana Raffman, Gerard Raulet, Stephen L. Read, Andrews Reath, Andrew Reisner, Nicholas Rescher, Henry S. Richardson, Robert C. Richardson, Thomas Ricketts, Wayne D. Riggs, Mark Roberts, Robert C. Roberts, Luke Robinson, Alexander Rosenberg, Gary Rosenkranz, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, Adina L. Roskies, William L. Rowe, T. M. Rudavsky, Michael Ruse, Bruce Russell, Lilly-Marlene Russow, Dan Ryder, R. M. Sainsbury, Joseph Salerno, Nathan Salmon, Wesley C. Salmon, Constantine Sandis, David H. Sanford, Marco Santambrogio, David Sapire, Ruth A. Saunders, Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, Charles Sayward, James P. Scanlan, Richard Schacht, Tamar Schapiro, Frederick F. Schmitt, Jerome B. Schneewind, Calvin O. Schrag, Alan D. Schrift, George F. Schumm, Jean-Loup Seban, David N. Sedley, Kenneth Seeskin, Krister Segerberg, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Dennis M. Senchuk, James F. Sennett, William Lad Sessions, Stewart Shapiro, Tommie Shelby, Donald W. Sherburne, Christopher Shields, Roger A. Shiner, Sydney Shoemaker, Robert K. Shope, Kwong-loi Shun, Wilfried Sieg, A. John Simmons, Robert L. Simon, Marcus G. Singer, Georgette Sinkler, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Matti T. Sintonen, Lawrence Sklar, Brian Skyrms, Robert C. Sleigh, Michael Anthony Slote, Hans Sluga, Barry Smith, Michael Smith, Robin Smith, Robert Sokolowski, Robert C. Solomon, Marta Soniewicka, Philip Soper, Ernest Sosa, Nicholas Southwood, Paul Vincent Spade, T. L. S. Sprigge, Eric O. Springsted, George J. Stack, Rebecca Stangl, Jason Stanley, Florian Steinberger, Sören Stenlund, Christopher Stephens, James P. Sterba, Josef Stern, Matthias Steup, M. A. Stewart, Leopold Stubenberg, Edith Dudley Sulla, Frederick Suppe, Jere Paul Surber, David George Sussman, Sigrún Svavarsdóttir, Zeno G. Swijtink, Richard Swinburne, Charles C. Taliaferro, Robert B. Talisse, John Tasioulas, Paul Teller, Larry S. Temkin, Mark Textor, H. S. Thayer, Peter Thielke, Alan Thomas, Amie L. Thomasson, Katherine Thomson-Jones, Joshua C. Thurow, Vzalerie Tiberius, Terrence N. Tice, Paul Tidman, Mark C. Timmons, William Tolhurst, James E. Tomberlin, Rosemarie Tong, Lawrence Torcello, Kelly Trogdon, J. D. Trout, Robert E. Tully, Raimo Tuomela, John Turri, Martin M. Tweedale, Thomas Uebel, Jennifer Uleman, James Van Cleve, Harry van der Linden, Peter van Inwagen, Bryan W. Van Norden, René van Woudenberg, Donald Phillip Verene, Samantha Vice, Thomas Vinci, Donald Wayne Viney, Barbara Von Eckardt, Peter B. M. Vranas, Steven J. Wagner, William J. Wainwright, Paul E. Walker, Robert E. Wall, Craig Walton, Douglas Walton, Eric Watkins, Richard A. Watson, Michael V. Wedin, Rudolph H. Weingartner, Paul Weirich, Paul J. Weithman, Carl Wellman, Howard Wettstein, Samuel C. Wheeler, Stephen A. White, Jennifer Whiting, Edward R. Wierenga, Michael Williams, Fred Wilson, W. Kent Wilson, Kenneth P. Winkler, John F. Wippel, Jan Woleński, Allan B. Wolter, Nicholas P. Wolterstorff, Rega Wood, W. Jay Wood, Paul Woodruff, Alison Wylie, Gideon Yaffe, Takashi Yagisawa, Yutaka Yamamoto, Keith E. Yandell, Xiaomei Yang, Dean Zimmerman, Günter Zoller, Catherine Zuckert, Michael Zuckert, Jack A. Zupko (J.A.Z.)
- Edited by Robert Audi, University of Notre Dame, Indiana
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy
- Published online:
- 05 August 2015
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2015, pp ix-xxx
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Contributors
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- By Kyle Adams, Regina N. Bradley, Richard Bramwell, Brenna Reinhart Byrd, Christopher Deis, Mike D’Errico, Sujatha Fernandes, Travis L. Gosa, Kjetil Falkenberg Hansen, Geoff Harkness, Anthony Kwame Harrison, Adam Haupt, Michael P. Jeffries, Imani Kai Johnson, Loren Kajikawa, Oliver Kautny, Noriko Manabe, Ivor Miller, Ali Colleen Neff, Nicole Hodges Persley, Alice Price-Styles, Amanda Sewell, Chris Tabron, Justin A. Williams, Christina Zanfagna
- Edited by Justin A. Williams, University of Bristol
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- Book:
- The Cambridge Companion to Hip-Hop
- Published online:
- 05 February 2015
- Print publication:
- 12 February 2015, pp xii-xiv
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