Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes. I'm a bird-lover and although ducks are not my specialty I have no problems understanding this phenomenon in terms of learned social behaviour. Birds are fucking smart, and they have a complex language, so that such a behaviour could spread through an entire population is something which I don't find in the least bit remarkable. My own special interest in ornithology is focused on the corvids, which are regarded as second only to homo in terms of intelligence, which makes them even smarter than the great apes and the cetaceans. I've studied their behaviour for many years and although I'm not qualified to judge the merit of such a precise claim about their intelligence I'm not willing to declare it bullshit either. They have a truly astonishing capacity for social learning, as indeed do the parrots.

Obvious Leo wrote:Hobbes. I'm a bird-lover and although ducks are not my specialty I have no problems understanding this phenomenon in terms of learned social behaviour. Birds are fucking smart, and they have a complex language, so that such a behaviour could spread through an entire population is something which I don't find in the least bit remarkable. My own special interest in ornithology is focused on the corvids, which are regarded as second only to homo in terms of intelligence, which makes them even smarter than the great apes and the cetaceans. I've studied their behaviour for many years and although I'm not qualified to judge the merit of such a precise claim about their intelligence I'm not willing to declare it bullshit either. They have a truly astonishing capacity for social learning, as indeed do the parrots.

I believe that what I suggested for this phenomenon complies exactly with Ockham's razor and do not think we have to imply that ducks would consciously try to tell other ducks to congregate at the no-shoot areas, for their own safety.

In fact I would suggest that it would be a significant disadvantage to the no-shoot area ducks to let their strategy be more widely known as that would encourage greater competition on the resources in the no-shoot areas.

Do you have a better explanation? Please bear in mind that this behaviour became manifest within a very few years after an official duck-shooting season was announced.

It's long been known that crows are among the most intelligent creatures on the planet but sometimes it takes a good documentary to enhance that conclusion. Sometimes we're still in the dark as to what we're surrounded by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFiTp8mtuI

Obvious Leo wrote:Do you have a better explanation? Please bear in mind that this behaviour became manifest within a very few years after an official duck-shooting season was announced.

I doubt you have any reliable data on it.
And I'm not going to comment on a phenomenon where you are the only sources of information.
But I don't do spooky. - Try Spheres of Bullshit, whatever he calls himself.

If you are suggesting that ducks are capable of knowing the geographical areas where the government has designated and safe and unsafe for ducks and has the capability and, what is more, the interest, to be able to communicate that information to other ducks who can act in their own interests and against the interest of the ducks with the information, to gather in safe areas; then you have a lot of work still to do.
You also need to own the fact that duck generations are annual and the solution I have already offered would be effective after one or two generations.

Dubious wrote:It's long been known that crows are among the most intelligent creatures on the planet but sometimes it takes a good documentary to enhance that conclusion. Sometimes we're still in the dark as to what we're surrounded by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFiTp8mtuI

Cleverness, and with such a small brain!
"intelligence" is not the word I'd use though.
Depending on how you define and measure intelligence, Chimps are well ahead of us, as this Youtube will show you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkNV0rSndJ0

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I doubt you have any reliable data on it.

Practically any biology book you care to pick up is full of reliable data on this subject. Are you seriously suggesting that birds are incapable of interactive learning? Interactive learning is ubiquitous amongst all social animals and I'm utterly astonished that you would attempt to deny this. Even fucking bees do interactive learning and they're hardly renowned for their intellectual prowess. When my ceanothus comes into flower in the spring it needs only a single bee to find it and within half an hour the entire tree is covered with thousands of bees. The word gets out very quickly, believe me, and how the word is spread is very well known to science. Whether you choose to believe me or call me a liar is up to you.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I doubt you have any reliable data on it.

Practically any biology book you care to pick up is full of reliable data on this subject. Are you seriously suggesting that birds are incapable of interactive learning? Interactive learning is ubiquitous amongst all social animals and I'm utterly astonished that you would attempt to deny this. Even fucking bees do interactive learning and they're hardly renowned for their intellectual prowess. When my ceanothus comes into flower in the spring it needs only a single bee to find it and within half an hour the entire tree is covered with thousands of bees. The word gets out very quickly, believe me, and how the word is spread is very well known to science. Whether you choose to believe me or call me a liar is up to you.

You are just leading this into absurdity.

You shoot duck in area A, and leave ducks in area B

Next year there are more ducks in area B

Learning is irrelevant for dead ducks.

Ducks in B are ducks in B or ducks from A that have fled shooting.

Interactive learning is not relevant.

Obvious Leo wrote: When my ceanothus comes into flower in the spring it needs only a single bee to find it and within half an hour the entire tree is covered with thousands of bees. The word gets out very quickly, believe me, and how the word is spread is very well known to science. Whether you choose to believe me or call me a liar is up to you.

The waggledance is well documented.

A duck is a bird, and a bee is an insect.

Dubious wrote:It's long been known that crows are among the most intelligent creatures on the planet but sometimes it takes a good documentary to enhance that conclusion. Sometimes we're still in the dark as to what we're surrounded by.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OFiTp8mtuI

The notion that humans are the only animals on the planet with higher-order cognitive function and the complex language which goes with it has its origins in biblical theology. It has no basis in science, as I'm sure you'll agree.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:A duck is a bird, and a bee is an insect.

And a recalcitrant dogmatist who refuses to acknowledge his own error is a fuckwit.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:A duck is a bird, and a bee is an insect.

And a recalcitrant dogmatist who refuses to acknowledge his own error is a fuckwit.

If I tell you I can calculate Pythagoras because an eagle can spot a mouse I'll tell you that you are an idiot.
Bees locating and communicating the location of sources of food, as evolved over millions of years.
When, exactly did the government designate no-shoot zones?

Have you heard about the fallacy of false analogy?

So please acknowledge your own error...

Instead of acting like a petulant child, try and imagine how this looks from my POV.

You are telling me that ducks are able to avoid designated shooing zones because bees have the ability to communicate the location of flowers to their hive.
And you think I am being ridiculous?

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Depending on how you define and measure intelligence, Chimps are well ahead of us, as this Youtube will show you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkNV0rSndJ0

No doubt this is true often enough and it doesn't only include the chimps. Animal have senses and responses that we can't even hope to emulate.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:When, exactly did the government designate no-shoot zones?

I don't know, but I'd guess it was some time in the post WWII era. However I grew up in NZ in the sixties and this was already a well-known phenomenon back then. You're surely not suggesting that this behaviour evolved by Darwinian natural selection? Would this also explain why humans live in houses rather than sleeping under the stars? All the star-sleepers became extinct because the house-builders outbred them.

My analogy was simply to illustrate the point that interactive learning is ubiquitous in the animal world. The eastern king parrot is one of the most endangered birds in Australia and yet every year a sizable flock of them arrive in my garden to feed on the blossom of my plum tree. They are very fussy about what they eat it and this is not a food source which they have evolved to exploit because it is not an indigenous tree. Not only have they learned that this is good tucker but they've also learned when to come and get it and to suggest that this behaviour is something other than what it appears to be makes no sense at all. They figured it out and spread the word amongst their brethren. If I put my mind to it I could find you literally hundreds of similar examples and I'm quite certain that a proper animal behaviourist could probably list thousands more. That this is common knowledge is not a phrase I particularly like using but in this case there is no better one. This is fucking common knowledge, Hobbes.

Obvious Leo wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I doubt you have any reliable data on it.

Practically any biology book you care to pick up is full of reliable data on this subject. Are you seriously suggesting that birds are incapable of interactive learning? Interactive learning is ubiquitous amongst all social animals and I'm utterly astonished that you would attempt to deny this. Even fucking bees do interactive learning and they're hardly renowned for their intellectual prowess. When my ceanothus comes into flower in the spring it needs only a single bee to find it and within half an hour the entire tree is covered with thousands of bees. The word gets out very quickly, believe me, and how the word is spread is very well known to science. Whether you choose to believe me or call me a liar is up to you.

Yeah, I watched a documentary on them, they do a little dance to tell the other bees where to go, quite amazing.