Good (and Bad) Words for the Ontological (and Anthropomorphic) Description of Behavior

This work is an effort to philosophize about the scientific words we must use to describe behaviors. It was written as an essay thus it is left here for further development; the issue before us is an ethological one, it addresses the question: which words are the most convenient to use in rigorous behavioral studies in order to produce scientific knowledge? We discuss the historical and philosophical roots of this behavioral-scientific problem. We admit anthropomorphic inference of organisms’ behaviors, as a mean to create scientific-novel knowledge. We present two examples –based on the ethological study of triatomines (vectors of Chagas disease)–, where our anthropomorphic approach resulted in the discovery of novel meanings.