Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 20:58:09 -0500
From: Karthik Swaminathan <karthik@echonyc.com>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Milk Bottles & Animal IQ
>
> This may seem an overly simplistic question considering the erudite
> nature of this debate, but how come birds can count at all when humans
> have to be taught this skill?
I don't know if birds can count but rather have a measure of size and
distribution and so may have trouble with exact numbers. Comparable to
having a glass of water and if you pour some of it out you can be
possitive that there is less water in the glass and if you pour a lot of
it out you can guess that it could be empty. But then again, I don't
know any of the actuall studies, I'm just guessing from what I have read
in this newsletter (I think it might be called Heuristic Strategy).
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