Natures wonders: plant dead bee scent attracts flies (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, October 07, 2016, 13:22 (2967 days ago) @ David Turell

Thank you for some more superb examples, first of animal intelligence, re apes:.-QUOTES: “This is the first time that any nonhuman animals have passed a version of the false belief test," Krupenye said.
"The findings suggest the ability is not unique to humans, but has existed in the primate family tree for at least 13 to 18 million years, since the last common ancestors of chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans and humans."-David's comment: I'm not surprised. Humans and apes all started at the same place in evolution. But look how far we developed a difference and they are the same. Why? God.-The same ability, but look at the degree to which we have developed it. A natural consequence of our enhanced degree of consciousness. How did the earliest forms of consciousness come into being? Who knows? Maybe God.-Re Capuchin monkeys:
QUOTE: What this meant was that the monkeys were able to keep track of not only where the food would be, but how much to expect at each patch based on how much time had passed. And this means that they possess memory skills that up till now, only humans were believed to have."-David's comment: Squirrels do the same thing in nut storage. I'm not surprised at the findings.-Nor am I. It just goes to show yet again that we have inherited these skills from our fellow animals, but look at the degree to which we have developed them as a result of our enhanced consciousness.-David's comment (on dead bee scent): How did chance evolution make this work? I have no idea, but the arrangement is very complex. Without pollination this plant won't survive. Let's assume this fly was pollinating but not often enough. To make the scent the plant had to know the flies' preferences in meals. How did it learn that? Not trial and error as Darwin might suggest. Saltation.-Saltation does not explain how organisms learn! Learning entails sentience plus intelligence. Even trial and error entails intelligence, but the quicker the organism learns, the greater the intelligence. You are not surprised when monkeys (and squirrels) manifest signs of intelligence once thought to be exclusively the province of humans, and yet when other organisms show signs of intelligence, e.g. weaverbirds tying complicated knots, wasps and flies working out complex methods of surviving, or even plants learning from experience, these are just misleading outward signs - God has to preprogramme them or personally teach them to perform such feats.