h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm suggesting that animals are, projection from us or otherwise, seen to be augmenting thir own noises with those they can make elsewhere in a reasonably conscious and unusual manner (i.e. not woodpeckers pecking trees).

slamming a door or banging a tree to make a noise that is specifically used at a certain point in a call or such seems to me an awful lot like the beginnings of things like music. After all, isn't that what music *is* at a very basic level? Augmentation of the noises we ourselves can make? Augmentation to punctuate, enhance or define what comes naturally.

In the caledonian crows (I think?) they were'nt just poking things with sticks, they were creating a tool of the right shape and size from the job, sometimes choosing a straight piece of wire instead of a pre-formed hook so that they could get *just* the right shape.

That seems to me to be a form of reasoning beyond what 'people' have previously expected animals to be capable of.

If you want I will explain:

'people' - average attitude of the populace that animals are lesser beings, incapable of showing intelligence.

'intelligence' - previously it has been considered that speech etc shows intelligence. We are starting to realise that our yardstick of intelligence is not necessarily a universal one.

It would seem, however, that animals showing reasoning, various stages of tool use (beyond dropping stones on shells or shells onto roads etc.) that involve assessing a problem and the best or easiest way to solve the problem, then creating a tool or system to neutralise the problem, is a reasonably good example of a level of intelligence previously thought unlikely in animals.

Is that what you wanted?

It has been reliably reported by a professor that a visiting starling had shocked and amazed him by repeating, ad nauseam, "I want a sabbatical, I want a sabbatical".

More recently, it's become known that this behaviour has spread. Furthermore, the flock now teach their young each season to sh1t on cars.

Even more recently it's been noted that some among them are learning how to gauge the wind in order to sh1t on newly washed windows.

Our days are drawing to a close.

There is a new theory that Theodore Roosevelt, the father of modern conservation, was a bird. His appearance suggests something avian but his behavior was definitely birdlike. He was neurotically active and hyper.

He spent much of his presidency creating bird sanctuaries and state parks to preserve habitat. And he got in a lot of trouble with the milliners and fashion folks for trying to stop the feather industry by having the coast guard arrest those who wiped out entire rookeries of semi-tropical species on islands off Florida and other offshore areas of American influence.

Now I am not suggesting we should also consider what species other US Presidents might have been in other lives. Obviously a lot of them were pigs, a few horses (at least the rear bit) an elephant or two and a pack of jackasses. The current one is clearly a hyena. Or a lion.


~jwf~

Speaking of bird brained ideas:

http://www.rocketboom.com/senegal-recycled-art/


~jwf~

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1206608/Birds-feather-drink-The-pigeons-help-sup-water-fountain.html

and this link as well.

Sorry, the last paragraph on this made me giggle. It basically says that if men want to get laid, they need to use their brains

Ok, it *doesn't* say that, it says that if the males of certain breeds of bird want to mate then they have to display their mental agility and intelligence... Same difference

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8205000/8205088.stm

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I 'll start training up my brain then

No good jsut training it, you have to know how to show you can use it!

Hmm, that may take a little longer.

Off to talk to the birds

so this thread is now about the birds 'and the bees'