Cockatoo Manufactures, Uses Tools 75
grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools to retrieve objects that were outside of his cage. Quoting:
"One day, a student caregiver noticed Figaro pushing a stone pebble through the aviary wire mesh, where it fell on a wood structural beam. Unable to retrieve the stone with his foot, Figaro then fetched a piece of bamboo and again attempted to retrieve the stone using the bamboo stick. ... During the next three days, the researchers ran trials of the original scenario, which was repeated ten times but substituting a cashew nut for the pebble. All trials were captured on video and the process of tool manufacture and use was documented photographically. ... 'Figaro made a new tool for every nut we placed there and each time the bird was successful in obtaining it,' reports cognitive biologist Alice Auersperg of the University of Vienna, who led the study (PDF). During these trials, Figaro used 10 tools, nine of which he manufactured and one of which was ready-made."
Tools reclassified again? (Score:3, Informative)
Many animals use tools. So, I don't really see how this is news worthy other than that the bird learned to build them on its own without help from other birds.
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Funny)
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Shivs are among the first tools produced in prison environments, so I'd watch my back...
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Of course, and if you shower in a prison environment. you're sure to see a cockatoo.
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Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not sure if you realize it, but you just described how science works in general. Especially physics, and to some degree, math. We observe the world around us and come up with a theory that describes it. Then someone makes a discovery that invalidates that theory. Then someone else comes up with a new theory (or expands/modifies the previous one) to make it work with the new discovery. Then someone else makes a new discovery. And so on and so forth, ad infinitum. Sometimes it happens a bit backwards -- someo
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Science works by re-evaluating our world view based on the results of the experiment. Only bad science re-evaluates the definitions of the words in the original hypothesis to cause the desired result instead.
Proper science would have the hypothesis that humans are the only ones who make and use tools, upon seeing another animal make and use tools, we would adjust the hypothesis to say "only humans and _____ make and use tools" or some such. Instead we find people re-defining "tools" so that their original hypothesis remains correct despite evidence to the contrary. This isn't science.
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I agree that we are not trying to explain how a tool works, but we're also not trying to define what it is. That part has to be done outside of experiments about animals using them.
Here we are trying to define what animals do or don't use, to redefine the definition of a tool based on the outcome of the experiment on if animals use them is very bad science.
Unfortunately some bad scientists have already defined tool in their mind as "something only humans use" and therefore keep altering the definition to av
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Not really. What he described is called "goal post moving".
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Not sure if you realize this but you have it Bass Ackwards. An incorrect definition of tool was originally defined on the presumption that only human beings had the mental chops to reorganize their environment using rational capability and tools. With growing research we find that a number of species demonstrate a native and shocking intelligence comparable if not equal to human beings. The late great African Grey Parrot, Alex had the intellectual development of a 5 year child, and could perform simple math
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if there are wiser beings watching us, waiting for us to demonstrate some semblance of social maturity, wouldn't such an act demonstrate our good intentions? Our growing maturity and responsibility? All interesting ideas.
Wot, noticing dolphins and birds are kind of smart and so genetically modifying them to make them people? Any wiser beings would think we're functionally retarded as a species.
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Leave Math out of this.
Math has nothing to do with reality.
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Insightful)
For a substantial subset of the population of a certain worldview, the main dilemma is that they can propose no conceptual differentiator of themselves from animals at all.
This has... implications.
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed... we are animals like all the rest no different than the others save we live in a sea of language and all that entails. Once we expand the ability of these other beings to communicate in a rich language space the differences get shockingly small. Koko loves kitty, want good banana. Koko is beautiful gorilla. Not human, but so close its scary, particularly when uneducated poachers are slaughtering gorillas for trinkets, their hands and feet and sometimes bush meat. In this sitatoin, who is the wild beast and who is the intelligent species indeed?
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Speak for yourself.
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Not human, but so close its scary, particularly when uneducated poachers are slaughtering gorillas for trinkets, their hands and feet and sometimes bush meat. In this sitatoin, who is the wild beast and who is the intelligent species indeed?
Don't forget that humans used to do these same things to other humans, not just other animals, until very recently. Perhaps they even still do, in some places.
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There's been a lot of back and forth revision of the definition over the years. I remember it was originally something like "Any object used outside of its natural scope to achieve a goal." Then people realized this meant otters used stones as tools to open clams so it became "Any object that has been modified to increase efficiency for a purpose outside of its natural scope." Then we had video of apes stripping leaves from branches to stick them in anthills... and the revision continues on ad infinitum because heaven forbid that humans have to share the title of "Tool-maker/user" with lesser beings.
FYI, it's well-accepted that apes make tools. And not just the well known anthill thingy; 7 or a dozen different things, IIRC.
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember reading an article about how dragonflies were using stones to tap down their nests making it harder for predators to find. The result was a reclassification on what constituted a tool removing the dragonflies from being classified as tool users.
Many animals use tools. So, I don't really see how this is news worthy other than that the bird learned to build them on its own without help from other birds.
I think that that is the noteworthy bit:
In a sufficiently broad sense, every lifeform on earth has been a 'tool user' since the first proto-membrane structure in some billion-year-old primordial ooze first managed to modify the concentration gradients of some useful molecule(tools don't have to be big, do they?) across its membrane. What we are looking for, when classifying 'tool use' is cognitive development of novel uses for environmental objects, because that demonstrates something about mental capacity, rather than execution of uses for environmental objects(however sophisticated and interesting as a different object of study).
Something like a leafcutter ant, say, has an evolved relationship with fungi rather more sophisticated than most human brewers; but we don't see experimentation, learning, cultural transmission, novel improvisation, etc. This bird, on the other hand, apparently came up with some(crude) tools that birds of its kind don't normally use, purely on its own, to deal with local problems.
The extended relationship between organisms and their environment(extending, in many cases, far enough that you really have to consider the organism as being an element of a larger structure) is indeed fascinating; but it doesn't really do conceptual clarity much good to combine complex environmental manipulations that don't show evidence of being cognitively acquired from those that do...
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it doesn't really do conceptual clarity much good to combine complex environmental manipulations that don't show evidence of being cognitively acquired from those that do...
It took some cognitively acquired, complex environmental manipulations to parse that sentence. But in fact, it's actually a well-worded statement and a generally good point. Which leads me to believe that you accidentally posted your response on the wrong site. You do realize this is Slashdot, right?
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"Combining {whole} from {parts}" is an acceptable language construct.
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(b) Irrelevant anyway - that's not the construct we have here, namely *combine {part1} from {part2}.
But after a couple of readings it was clear what was meant, there's no need to attemt to justify the error, mistakes happen.
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Science must discard it's old notions, prejudices and preconceptions, viewing the world through it's own version of rose-coloured glasses. It must stop filtering out, rejecting whatever does not conform to it's prejudices and start observing objectively, fairly.
Science already does. Bad scientists however often do not. The problem isn't science, it's the implementation of science by some specific individuals.
Re:Tools reclassified again? (Score:4, Interesting)
Alex the famous African Grey Parrot would help tutor other Grey Parrots. A chimp can be shown a model of an adjoining room, with a locker containing a nice piece of fruit. When the door opens, it goes straight to the fruit, it groks symbolic reference. Koko the signing gorilla was capable of artwork, word play, and conversations with remarkable sensitivity and insight, all of these traits we take for granted as strictly human, and they are not. These are not anecdotal musings. These are cold hard facts gleaned from test animals in research facilities. The harder we look, the more we see, the more we see how close they are to us and that they deserve to be treated with the respect that sentience or the spark of sentience deserves. Human beings haven't even stopped dehumanizing one another, it is perhaps time that as we protect the human dignity of our own species, that we include all highly intelligent species as well as an expression of that dignity.
Majority may not even have "souls" (Score:1, Troll)
This "Quick-Programmable NPC" is what a lot of spiritualists would term "a soul".
There's a particular line of thought (and scientific study! See: Eric Pepin) that hypothesizes that what pratically every awake, Quick-Programmable NPC people generally reference as their "soul" is really an evolutionary epiphenomenon / emergent property that just started emerging in the species in the last 10,000-50,000 years ago, at least in the genius class.
It further states that while it has a very real biological component
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I forgot to add, that current estimates suggest that somewhere between 2 to 15 percent (no more than 20%) of the American population are completely self-autonomous, soulful entities who have largely superceded biological programming and have become what we idealize as "sovereign humans", living mostly in the noetic sphere of mentalism.
Due to selection and fitness pressures, since noetic individuals trend to fair poorly in high-crime, war-torn areas, the concentration of noetic beings has actually been decli
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You have interesting ideas and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
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Don't listen to Mogusha! He's a cuckatoo, just trying to avoid suspicion!
Manufacturing industry (Score:2)
grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools
That's just epic. When the economy doesn't support the First World manufacturing industry, you can rely on parrots take over. I think I'll sleep much better now. :-)
Re:Manufacturing industry (Score:4, Funny)
grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools
That's just epic. When the economy doesn't support the First World manufacturing industry, you can rely on parrots take over. I think I'll sleep much better now. :-)
Just you wait: Next week, I hear that a team will be publishing their work on a vulture who established a shell company, oversaw a hostile buyout of Figaro's Tools, and then outsourced production to China while exploiting the artisinal brand appeal of Figaro's lovingly handcrafted tradition... That's the bird you want to watch out for...
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grrlscientist writes with news of a cockatoo named Figaro, who was observed to construct and use his own tools
That's just epic. When the economy doesn't support the First World manufacturing industry, you can rely on parrots take over. I think I'll sleep much better now. :-)
I've seen a video of a manufacturer using birds trained to identify defective plastic screws as they passed by a little window on a conveyer.
People replaced with machines, machines replaced with birds... what's the world coming to?
Is Cockatoo a new tech startup? (Score:1)
With the names of some recent start-ups, I at first thought there was a new company named Cockatoo that was getting into the manufacturing biz and they use the open-source app called "tools".
Hey, there are lots of weird names out there.
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Nah, the web startup would've used "koccaTwo" and "toolr" respectively.
Not the first bird documented ... (Score:2, Informative)
Of course, this is how science is done - repetition!
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Re:Not the first bird documented ... (Score:5, Interesting)
There's long been a bit of an argument over which is smarter: The Parrots, or the Corvids. Naturally, I support the latter team.
And I the former.
But I have to admit, one of my favorite animal movies is where the guy leaves a baited hook dangling through a hole in the ice, and while he's away a corvid lands on the cross-beam that the line is tied too and pulls the fish up, an inch or two at a time, by pulling up some line and then standing on it while reaching for another pull.
Raven thief (Score:1)
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My dad rescued a baby crow when he was a kid. He always said that it was smarter than their dogs.
Stupid bird (Score:2)
A smart bird would have made a tool that could do the job ten times, and not a new tool each time. I have seen docos showing mainly birds using tools to get grubs out of holes or use stones to crack nuts, I think that we under- estimate how smart animals can be.
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Well, he's probably a bit bored in there. And the yard is a bit grubby. Might have been hard to find the sticks again.
But if you watch the video, it shows him picking up a stick again that he dropped when the cashew wasn't close enough.
It also shows him picking up a random stick in the yard, and resizing a stick that was too large to manipulate the cashew.
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A smart bird would have made a tool that could do the job ten times, and not a new tool each time.
A smart bird would have picked the lock on the cage and shived the person with the can of cashews when their back was turned.
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My wife's parents used to have two Cockatoos. (Only one now - the other passed away.) Both birds figured out how to pick a Master key lock to get out of their cages. And forget the shiv. Their beaks are strong enough to crack right through the bone in your finger if they want to. (Luckily, I don't know this from personal experience.) Do NOT attempt to pet them if they're in a bad mood!
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You never worked with cats?
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I'd pit my in-laws' cockatoo against a cat any day.... except it wouldn't be fair to the cat. Cats can be aggressive, but cockatoos are mini-raptors. Their claws and beaks can be deadly if they decide they don't like you.
Still No. 1 ! (Score:1)
Crows do this too (Score:2)
If they get any smarter... (Score:1)
...we'll have a problem on our hands. Imagine a new breed of intelligent flying creatures. They'd swoop down, grab our food and just fly away. They'd fly to some remote mountain top to breed, then create their own civilization and eventually.. they'll come for us :)