Sunday, February 10, 2013
Birdbrain not an insult
A fantastically beautiful experiment shows that birds and humans have the same kind of empathy. The experimenter worked with a pair of jays, who mate for life. Apparently jays really love certain types of insect larvae, viewing them as preferred treats. The experimenter fed the wife-jay one type of larva until she seemed to be satisfied. Husband-jay was watching the process through a window. After the husband and wife were reunited, husband offered the wife the other type of tasty larva.
His thoughts are easy to read: "Hmm. Big critter is trying to grab my wife's affection by feeding her one type of candy. I can see that she's had enough of this type, so I'd better give her some candy from the other box, to remind her that I know how to please her."
We can see this form of empathy among humans (well, in theory anyway) and certainly between dogs and humans. But it took an elegant bit of trickery to show for sure that it happens in birds.
These experimenters clearly had more empathy than the usual human scientist: they had to put their minds inside bird minds to design the setup. I don't have that kind of empathy. In building the picture, I had to use jellybeans instead of mealworm grubs. I couldn't wrap my own imagination around grubs-as-treats.
We can see this form of empathy among humans (well, in theory anyway) and certainly between dogs and humans. But it took an elegant bit of trickery to show for sure that it happens in birds.
These experimenters clearly had more empathy than the usual human scientist: they had to put their minds inside bird minds to design the setup. I don't have that kind of empathy. In building the picture, I had to use jellybeans instead of mealworm grubs. I couldn't wrap my own imagination around grubs-as-treats.Labels: Grand Blueprint
¶ 6:32 AM
