Convergence or divergence? (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, September 15, 2013, 17:13 (4087 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have dismissed that example [the mantis attack] as one of Nature's inexplicable wonders. You prefer to draw on an obvious example of instinctive use of information (the foal suckling). [...]For further examples of ant intelligence, please read:-http://quotations.hubpages.com/hub/Intelligent_Ants-DAVID: I've seen most of this ant work in action, and I still think it is all instinct.-dhw: Won't you at least adopt an agnostic stance on the subject rather than keep repeating baseless assumptions?-DAVID: Not baseless. you are ignoring my example of the newborn foal. No thought involved in suckling.-Not ignored (see above). I simply cannot see how a newborn foal instinctively standing and sucking its mother's teat proves that despite their plans and strategies, their engineering skills, their inventions, their meaningful communications etc., ants are not intelligent. There's no connection! Human babies also act instinctively (and a lot of our adult actions remain instinctive), so does this prove that human plans and strategies, engineering skills, inventions and meaningful communications are "all instinct"?