Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!ncar!boulder!pell
From: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology,rec.birds,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <5305@sigi.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 10 Apr 88 20:02:35 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> <202@aplcomm.UUCP>
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Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!ncar!boulder!pell
From: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Newsgroups: sci.psychology,rec.birds,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Intelligent Parrots, or Self-deception and Gullibility.
Message-ID: <5305@sigi.Colorado.EDU>
Date: 10 Apr 88 20:02:35 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> <202@aplcomm.UUCP>
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Reply-To: pell@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Anthony Pelletier)
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

In article <202@aplcomm.UUCP> jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu.UUCP (James W. Meritt) writes:
>In article <2231@ttidca.TTI.COM> hollombe@ttidcb.tti.com (The Polymath) writes:
>}In article <762@actnyc.UUCP> gcf@actnyc.UUCP (Gordon Fitch) writes:
>}
One of the above writes:
>}New-born chicks will begin to scratch for food almost as soon as they are
>}able to stand.  This looks to be a classic example of instinct -- a
>}behavior hard-wired into the organism.  However, if you take a chick and
>}fit it with a harness that prevents it from pecking at the ground for
>}food, then spoon feed it, the chick will _never_ scratch for food.
>}
one of the others writes:

>I saw a large bell jar put into a tank with a pike (filled with water)
>and a bunch ("a large number") of minnows placed into it.  The pike
>ran into the jar for a long time, trying to get the minnows.  It eventually
>quit.  At that stage they removed the jar and just dumped the minnows
>into the tank.  The pike still would not eat them.  The person in the
>movie said that it starved...... in spite of being surrounded by "food".

This sounds more to me like the pike learned *not* to bother with minnows.
(and the chick, not to bother with scratching to eat)
I don't think it addresses whether the minoow-eating behaviour was "hard wired"
or not.

Along similar lines, there is a fellow named Chip Quinn, formally of Princeton,
now at MIT (I think), who works on learning mutations in flies.  This 
presupposes that you can teach a fly something in the first place.
If you ever have the opportunity to hear him speak, do so.  His science
is sometimes only mediocre, but he is one of the funniest men in science.
His delivery is rather like the comedian Richard Write's.
But I digress, one type of learned beharviour has to do with mating.
Male flies will jump on anything that smells female female, but females
mate only once and dole out the sperm as needed.
If you put a bunch of normal males in a bottle with
a non-vrgin female, they will jump all over her for a bit, then, as Quinn
puts it, eventually get depessed and sulk in the corner
("it happens...to me, sometimes").  Even if one then adds a few virgins,
who are trying to interrest the males, the continue to sulk.
His learning mutants (dunce, rutabega, cabbage etc ("we had to resist
the temptation of naming them after people we don't like...'Gipper-1'"))
will never learn not to bother with the non-virgins and jump on the virgins as
soon as they are added.  (you might imagine this is an easy selection to
do)
Again, this says nothing about whether the initial mating behaviour is
"hard wired", only that they can learn to ignore it, if it is instict.
The learning mutants cannot learn to over-ride this apparent instinct (some
humans seem to be have similar mutations to Quinn's flies).

-tony