rising@utzoo.uucp (Jim Rising) (03/02/88)
I think that you misread the intent of Don Jackson's comments on avian
intelligence. He was saying that it simply is not meaningful to compare
the intelligence of a parrot with that of a 3 year old child. It's like
apples and oranges. We may tend to look at the neural capabilities of
individual of other species in terms of human capabilities, but that is
generally not meaningful. In humans, we define "intelligence" in many
different ways (e.g. IQ scores). These describe the relative performance
of an individual with regard to other humans at doing something that humans
generally can do. Naturally, of course, humans are better at being humans
than are individuals of any other species. But by the same token, parrots
are better at being parrots than humans are. If humans were to take an
IQ test devised by the American Redstarts, they would do miserably on those
parts of the test that tested homing and navigating ability, and not so well
on the tests of eye to mouth coordination (ever try to flycatch?). The
redstarts would compare us to a 20-day old redstart.
In the popular literature it is common to characterize some birds are being
particularly smart. Parrots, chickadees, jays
and crows are commonly singled out. In jargon terms, these are all "poly-
phagous" species, i.e. feed on a variety of different foods, often feeding
opportunistically. People are much like that, too, so these birds tend to
resemble humans in their foraging behaviour more than, say, a swallow or
vulture. Does that make them smart? Complex vocalizations, often involving
mimicry of other individuals, are also a part of the territorial defense
and/or species recognition/pair formation of many species, including many
starlings (mynahs and our own European Starling), parrots, mimic thrushes
(mockingbirds and catbirds), etc. Because these birds attempt to communicate
with us, esp. in caged situations, we often think of them as being particularly
cleaver--and perhaps they are.
But the point is, and Don's point was, we simply do not have any objective
ways to assess the "intelligence" of non-human animals.
Speaking for Don, incidentally I know that he doesn't know person #1 at
all and holds no animosity for her, and has nothing against people keeping
birds in cages. Neither do I. I've kept budgies since I was about 10, and
used to raise them. You're reading too much between the lines.
Concerning posting articles about pets, I personally have nothing against
pet postings, esp. thoughtful ones, but the point was made on the net earlier
that there is a rec.pet groups which would be more appropriate for **some**
of these postings. In any event, no single person has the right to dictate
the content of rec.birds.
--Jim Rising
--
Name: Jim Rising
Mail: Dept. Zoology, Univ. Toronto
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 1A1
UUCP: {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!rising