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Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

bbc.com

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Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#171

Post by hchasestevens »

jdck1326 wrote: post #152
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract communication. Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and abstractions. That's the real game changer. But it took a surp…

It seems like you're suggesting that there aren't massive biological differences between a wild human and a crow. This is false. Humans have many biological faculties that crows simply do not have. For example, the wild, untrained human still has the biological faculty of language. That is, there is a reason why no animal other than a human has been shown to be able to learn a language. The reason is that they do not…

That's a little misleading. An individual child will not be able to fluently acquire language if not exposed during the so-called "critical period"; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child for plenty of examples.

_Groups_ of humans with no common means of communication will form pidgins ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin ) as an (essentially grammarless) means of communication; children then raised in an environment where they are exposed to this pidgin will transform it into a true language. Nicaraguan Sign Language has actually proven to be a fascinating example of this in action; many of the first speakers of the original pidgin are, now that successive generations have learned and adapted it, unable to competently produce utterances in the now-language.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#172

Post by lyrr »

l33tbro wrote: post #126
emptyfile wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not funny.

Irish and found funny. Relax people.

Irish-American or actually Irish?

I'm Irish and I don't really get it. The statement sounded pretty ignorant and typically American.

(I wonder if people will spot the irony).

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#174

Post by lyrr »

coldtea wrote: post #163
boomboomsubban wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Irish are an ethnicity, not a race. Racism is often considered antagonism based on race or ethnicity. The terms are very closely linked, though it may have been better for me to say "ethnicity." >Not in the "X are inferior/KKK/etc" sense, which is what we should be concerned with So what grudges do you think the Irish held leading to this stereotype? I don't get the rest of your argument. It seems to be "my country…

> I don't get the rest of your argument. It seems to be "my country doesn't have a problem with racism so racist comments are fine." It's more "A culture that has historically had heavy racism problems should not export their overcompensating hysteria that everything touching on ethnicity/race is racism and consider its own preoccupations universally applicable". > So what grudges do you think the Irish held leading…

My god, all those links refer to Irish Americans. If anything, it shows that Americans hold grudges throughout generations. It's quite telling that an American conflates Irish-Americanism with being 'Irish'. The hyphen is there for a reason.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#175

Post by DagAgren »

classified wrote: post #82
seszett wrote: 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.

Are you forgetting the birds of prey?

Where I live, an island right by the mainland, birds of prey are not allowed. If one shows up, the crows will all take to the air, maybe fifty to a hundred of them, and will yell and chase the bird of prey until it leaves the island. Once it is over water, they will give a few last screams and turn around and go back to their business.

I've seen a bird of prey try to dive and swoop low over the land to evade them. They'll follow, some diving down low after it and some at a distance to keep an eye on it, until it's gone.

We basically have a crow air force keeping all the other birds and little mammals safe.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#176

Post by gullywhumper »

Here's another article about crow intelligence and crows in Seattle [1]. Some interesting topics from the article include crows have 'funerals', they can recognize individual humans, individual crows commute to the same specific areas during the day to forage and return to concentrated roosts with other crows at end of the day.

Living in Minneapolis with a home office overlooking the Mississippi River, I've noticed crows commuting in the darker, colder months. Hundreds of them at a time go up river in the morning, just as it's getting light, and then return down river before the sun sets. It's fun to watch.

[1] https://www.seattlemet.com/articles/2017/5/17/the-secret-lif...

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#177

Post by technothrasher »

blattimwind wrote: post #162
User23 wrote: post #39

Country folk assure me that crows can also not only tell the difference between a gun and a stick, but they also have a pretty good idea of what the effective range of the gun is.

"What are you gonna do with that .22 pistol, human? Shoot me? At 40 yards? kra-kra-kra!"

That crow is a little over confident. 40 yards isn't all that hard on a crow size target with at .22 pistol, with practice. Back up about another 20 yards and the crow is probably pretty safe.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#178

Post by DagAgren »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #148
netcan wrote: post #111

It's fascinating that intelligence exists in different clades & phylum of animals: crows, octopus, apes etc. It suggests intelligence is not very progressive, in evolution. It advances & recedes, and evolution can find multiple paths to it from various starting point. It doesn't take a mammalian brain. Who know what other animal intelligence exists today, or in the past. The current crop of species (us excepted) may…

A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract communication. Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and abstractions. That's the real game changer. But it took a surp…

Crows do this to some extent. They gather collective knowledge and pass it on to their offspring. If you act maliciously towards a crow, it will teach its friends that you are dangerous, and they will all warn each other if you approach. This will keep happening even after the original crows are dead, because they will teach their children that you are an asshole, too, even though those children may never have seen you do anything wrong.

Re: Crows could be the smartest animal other than primates

#179

Post by rolltiide »

jdck1326 wrote: post #152
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. What makes us special is persistent collective learning and abstract communication. Unlike animals, generations of humans don't have to keep re-solving the same problems. As a species we have cumulative persistent memory for techniques and abstractions. That's the real game changer. But it took a surp…

It seems like you're suggesting that there aren't massive biological differences between a wild human and a crow. This is false. Humans have many biological faculties that crows simply do not have. For example, the wild, untrained human still has the biological faculty of language. That is, there is a reason why no animal other than a human has been shown to be able to learn a language. The reason is that they do not…

Many Bird species have a language that is both taught and spontaneously created

It would be an aberration for a crow’s calls to be arbitrary

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