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Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

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121–130 of 443 posts

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#121
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there's no need for this comment, the mock-indignation on behalf of others. A funny aside is always welcome in an otherwise substantial comment, and no, this is not considered racism or offending by 99% of Earth's population, including most Irish.

Saying something displaying a certain behavior makes them seem like a certain race is racism, even if you don't find it offensive.

No, that's stereotyping. Racism is systematic denial of opportunity to people on the basis of their ancestry.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying something displaying a certain behavior makes them seem like a certain race is racism, even if you don't find it offensive.

Irish are an ethnicity, not a race. They're the same race as I am (and probably the grandparent). And they make the same kind of jokes themselves all the time, like my people do the same kind of stereotype jokes for our own kind. It's only "racism" in the provincial US preoccupation that "everything said that touches on a population/ethnicity/race is racism". Not in the "X are inferior/KKK/etc" sense, which is what w…

Hush now, you ignorant white RACIST asshole.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying something displaying a certain behavior makes them seem like a certain race is racism, even if you don't find it offensive.

No, that's stereotyping. Racism is systematic denial of opportunity to people on the basis of their ancestry.

You don't get to decide what racism is, you ignorant prick

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#125
post #18

They also like to annoy other animals. I have seen it now a few times that a crow or a group of crows would approach a dog from behind and nip their tail or butt. When the dog turns around the crow will jump back a little and pretend it has nothing to do with this. When the dog looks away they will do it again. I have seen similar behavior with swans. When my dog chases they get out of the way but only the minimum ne…

They also do this to cats, which is much more dangerous. There's a video with a cat catching a bird (not a crow) that did this: https://youtube.com/watch?v=nfIQifAcm0g

I think that's different. I'd guess the cat was unknowningly getting near the bird's nest + kids so mother was panicking.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#126
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually there's no need for this comment, the mock-indignation on behalf of others. A funny aside is always welcome in an otherwise substantial comment, and no, this is not considered racism or offending by 99% of Earth's population, including most Irish.

It's not funny.

Irish and found funny. Relax people.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#127
What amazes me about crows is the intelligence they achieve with such a small brain. That elephants and whales are highly intelligent is perhaps less impressive.

I can't think of any reasonable way to compare the intelligence of a whale with the intelligence of a crow. It's hard enough to compare the intelligence of two humans when they have different personalities and interests.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#128
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair though, birds have had to adapt long ago to evaluating the movement of very fast moving objects, while rabbits and most mammals have not really had to cope with fast speeds until humans invented cars just a century ago.

But to be fairer (to crows), I've witnessed crows just cross the yellow painted lines in a road to get to safety. They've adapted to our traffic rules.

They 'bomb' the street with walnuts where i live to open them. That's smart but not that impressive. What's impressive is - they don't do it on the parking lots where cars rarely drive, nor on the main road where cars drive constantly. They target pedestrian crossing near the main road, wait for cars to crack the walnut, then eat it.

They understand where the perfect number of cars is gonna be.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#129
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Early humans didn't have poetry. [Citation Needed]

OK so speech has begun 100,000 years ago (perhaps earlier). My point stands: Would humans without poetry not be considered intelligent? Hardly.

I didn't know we had any idea when speech started or even what form of proto-speech preceded and when it could be said it evolved to speech.

Homo Erectus emerged 2 millions years ago, I'm not aware of anything that says speech couldn't have started during his reign.

Do you have any source for that 100,000 years figure?

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rabbits are prey animals. I don't think(?) crows are. Prey animals are wary and startle easily to reduce their chance of becoming lunch.

By that logic, they shouldn't be running towards the car that's gonna eat them.

They try to be stealthy and when the car is still going at them they run diagonally towards it, to make it turn and lose momentum. It's a good strategy vs bigger heavy predators, just not vs cars.
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