Xref: utzoo rec.birds:462 sci.bio:959
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!pyramid!voder!blia!heather
From: heather@blia.BLI.COM (Heather Mackinnon)
Newsgroups: rec.birds,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <4299@blia.BLI.COM>
Date: 7 Mar 88 23:12:58 GMT
References: <1988Mar4.162334.18184@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: Britton Lee, Los Gatos, CA
Lines: 31
Summary: Just one question....

<lots of refutations of the abilities of animals to communicate and 
act intelligently have been deleted>

One of the key points that has returned to me over and over in the study
of biology is that all living things are more similar to all other living
things than they are different.  We are more similar, genetically and
at the cell level, than we are different from garbanzo beans.

Parrots, dolphins and gorillas are all warm blooded animals, much more similar
to us than they are different.  Gorillas resemble us very closely, and
dolphins even have a brain structure which is very similar to ours.

Why, when it comes to cerebral activity, do we assume that other animals
can't communicate and aren't intelligent?  Why do we assume that humans
are the only animals who can think and communicate meaningful concepts?

When a person shows evidence that other animals can communicate intelligently
either to humans or among themselves, that person is often attacked by the
scientific community as being "unscientific" or a "crackpot".  Why?

I remember when pheromone research began that scientists were saying that
only the lower animals were subject to pheromones; that there was no evidence
that humans would be subject to the effects of pheromones.  When I heard
that, I snorted with disbelief that scientists would say such a thing with
a total lack of evidence.  Now, there IS evidence that humans have pheromones
in much the same way other animals do.  Should this surprise us?

Should we be surprised to discover that we are very similar to all of the
other animals who have evolved along with us; that we share their "bestial"
traits and that they share our "human" ones?

Heather Mackinnon