The Human Animal (Humans)

by xeno6696 , Sonoran Desert, Sunday, August 09, 2009, 20:22 (5583 days ago) @ dhw

Regardless of the discrepancies, I'd like to raise another point. ScienceDaily goes on to report: "Painstaking analysis of tool choice, tool swapping and improvement over time allowed the team to conclude that successful crows did not probe for tools at random." However, with regard to the question whether crows plan ahead, NewScientist says the experiments "cast doubt on that conclusion", and one of the researchers says: "The fact that an animal is statistically better than random should not be confused with the animal being perfect." I don't know what "perfection" has to do with it, but the same cautionary note is sounded in ScienceDaily: the team "could find no firm evidence to support previous claims that sequential tool use demonstrates analogical reasoning or human-like planning."
> - Sciencedaily is reported by journalists who may not have the technical knowledge to make the same claims as New Scientist. (I think that one is like SciAm where the articles are written by scientists.) I'd err towards that one. - - > No-one is suggesting that crows are as intelligent as human beings, but I can't see how one can escape the conclusion that these birds have the ability to work out a problem which entails reasoning and planning. Clearly four of the crows were more intelligent than the other three ... but you'll get similar variations if you test the intelligence of human beings. I wonder what was the point of the experiment in the first place, if the researchers are not prepared to accept the results as proof of what they were testing. But I also wonder why it is that even today humans are often reluctant to acknowledge the fact that we share so many features with other animals. If we accept physiological evolution, why can't we accept similar lines of descent in other areas? Since the name Adler is now prominent in our forum, perhaps we should switch from Mortimer to Alfred: could it be that we need to assert our superiority in this way because of some almighty inferiority complex? Or is it a hangover from religion? - The difference that Adler cites as crucial is that to explain human thought we *must* resort to an immaterial power to explain what we do, but we don't need to do that for other animals. I'm still grappling with the latter argument, as bears and crows seem to have impressive problem-solving abilities, but lacking a propositional language there is no evidence to suggest anything beyond perceptual intelligence. Some animals have rudiments of cultures for example, but none anywhere close to man. His argument is deceptively simple. This doesn't break us away from nature in lineage, only in capability. - 
Alfred, as in Whitehead?

--
\"Why is it, Master, that ascetics fight with ascetics?\"

\"It is, brahmin, because of attachment to views, adherence to views, fixation on views, addiction to views, obsession with views, holding firmly to views that ascetics fight with ascetics.\"