Xref: utzoo sci.psychology:191 rec.birds:519 sci.bio:1061
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!actnyc!gcf
From: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology,rec.birds,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <777@actnyc.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 88 16:40:15 GMT
References: <1988Mar4.162334.18184@utzoo.uucp> <4299@blia.BLI.COM> <1988Mar9.132722.3364@mntgfx.mentor.com> <2495@geac.UUCP> <2535@saturn.ucsc.edu> <762@actnyc.UUCP> <2231@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Reply-To: gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch)
Organization: InterACT Corporation
Lines: 19

In article <2231@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>In article <762@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>>... What do we call behavior which is apparently programmed
>>into the behaving organism?  It used to be called instinct.
>
>There's some question whether _any_ behavior is hard-wired in any creature
>above the level of insect...[example of chick scratching for food,
>but not when restrained by harness, etc.]..

I've read about this and similar experiments.  I would say, going from
simpler to more complex organisms, that the hardwiring is first for
explicit behaviors, and gradually shifts over toward learning mechanisms.
So with birds it seems that something is programmed in which has to be 
filled out by experience -- learning.  Often, it's by imitating an parent.
I take it you're saying that the chick sort of behaves at random and 
finds some behaviors rewarded, and its "programming" is no more complex 
than to remember which behaviors were rewarded.  It's hard for me to
see how a behavior as complex as human language can be learned by a
randomly-behaving infant in two or three years.