#13363: UrsulaV — 01/15  at  09:36 AM
While I'd love to see abstract reasoning in crows, because I'd love it, I'm doubly suspicious of it--if they've never seen anybody use tools, it seems almost more likely to me that using them would be an instinct. If they spent a lot of time playing with twigs, on the other hand, as they're growing up, and learned "Hey, neat! I can poke stuff with this!" that'd be a good argument for abstract reasoning, but if they just see a hole and start looking around for a stick, I'd have to wonder. So I guess I'd have to know what the crow did growing up.

I am reminded, for no apparent reason, of various cases of feral children who can't use their hands very well, never mind tools, because they never see it happening as they grow up. Obviously we've got so few samples there, and so much is anecdotal, that it's impossible to generalize, but it seems like the things you'd do in the absence of any contact with your own species might be more likely to be instinctive. 'Course, that's kinda had to test, god knows...

#13365: — 01/15  at  10:24 AM
PZ/Ursula (or anyone else), what is an appropriate definition of 'instinct' vs abstract reasoning in a scientific sense? I have always been suspicious that it was used as a catchall for any activity that we couldnt identify as being learned. Casual usage is often seen misapplied due to ignorance, but I am not at all familiar with how scientists view 'instinct'.

#13367: — 01/15  at  12:17 PM
From what I've seen, there's a definite bias against bird intelligence in the science (and media) community. Despite countless anecdotes from various parrot owners that seem to show a great deal of understanding and thinking things through (not to mention Dr. Pepperberg's African grey, who presents more than anecdotal evidence), they often seem to be dismissed.

And yet, when there's evidence of one dog knowing a hundred words or so, it's plastered all over the place as big news.

#13370: coturnix — 01/15  at  01:46 PM
Not just African Greys. Don't forget Niki Clayton's scrub jays and Clark's nutcrackers, or Bernd Heinrich's ravens.

Why is "bird's brain" supposed to denote something stupid? Is it thousands of years of seeing only chicken in the backyard?

#13371: coturnix — 01/15  at  01:48 PM
Hey! My gravatar is working! And it is one of the most stupid species of birds - Coturnix japonica aka Japanese quail!

#13374: — 01/15  at  03:34 PM
Most of the parrot literature I've found is written by and directed towards parrot owners, and is thus biased. Does anyone know of more objective research on them (other than Pepperberg's)?

coturnix,
Noah started the "bird brain" meme because he was pissed at the macaws because they kept chewing holes in the ark, which was a stupid thing to do.

jamie

#13382: Mrs Tilton — 01/15  at  06:02 PM
'Some capacity for abstract reasoning'? Heh! Let me confess at this point that I am myself (pace my gravatar) a corvid, and we are this close to evolving opposable thumbs! And boy howdy, are you monkeys f*cked when we do!

(Apologies to The Onion.)

#13393: — 01/15  at  11:17 PM
Well, Mrs. Tilton, the corvids, and other birds, don't really even need opposable thumbs. My Ara ararauna is quite able, with her four toes per foot and big fat beak, to unlock any contraption I put on her cage door (if a cage that fills the bedroom counts as a "cage").

Birds are probably smarter than us anyway. They have the advantage of flight, plus they have figured out how to manipulate us into giving them free food.

Us primates are f*cked regardless. I just wonder what mammals will take over our niche when we are gone. My money is on the rabbits, but maybe I've just read Watership Down one too many times . . . .

Anyone who thinks birds can't think abstractly hasn't lived with a blue and gold macaw . . .

Jamie

#13397: Matt McIrvin — 01/16  at  12:14 AM
It's the morphic fields, I tell you!

[ducks]

#13401: — 01/16  at  05:25 AM
"While I’d love to see abstract reasoning in crows, because I’d love it, I’m doubly suspicious of it—if they’ve never seen anybody use tools, it seems almost more likely to me that using them would be an instinct."

Our friends the feathered dinosaurs run on much more than instinct alone (though probably not to the same degree as mammals). Corvids in particular have a high brain to body ratio. Evan Mac Phail noted in his review of the literature re: numbers, learning sets, and other measures of animal reasoning ability, that they perform on par with primates.

#13406: Bryson Brown — 01/16  at  10:14 AM
This remark about instinct reminds me of a point Franz de Waal made in a lecture here-- he said that referees never raised a problem when he reported competitive or aggressive behaviour in a paper-- but when he reported cooperative or altruistic behaviour, they often raised doubts about his interpretation. I think there's no doubt that there's a bias when it comes to interpreting behaviour-- positive interpretations (intelligence, altruism) come in for much closer scrutiny. A kind of selective anti-anthropomorphism...

#13420: ajmilne — 01/16  at  01:27 PM
Interesting thought re abstract reasoning... gotta admit, I read that article, and I didn't even think of that possibility (and I quite like crows, and have always thought of them of as one of the brighter bird species, purely on casual observation).

I note, however, that the researchers did, for one of the groups of crows, report they demonstrated the use of the twigs themselves, and say they recorded no difference between the crows that observed this and those that did not in terms of their later use of the tool. Which does suggest to me that if the crows do arrive at the use of the tool by abstract reasoning, if the crows tested were capable of abstracting from 'humans can do this' to 'I can do this', it didn't show up in the observations as greater or earlier ability on the part of the crows that could have used this abstraction.

But then, I guess that doesn't really clinch it either.

#13448: — 01/16  at  07:33 PM
I live in a rather horsey neighborhood where some years ago there used to be a horse--a fine white beast--that I observed use a stick to scratch its rear end. It held the stick in its mouth and was clearly quite proficient at relieving the itch in this manner. Alas, I didn't have my camera on me, and the lot and the horse are now long gone to development. But it led me to suspect that the phenomenon of tool use by animals is perhaps underobserved and underreported.