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• 1 2022-11-03T05:52:11-07:00 Eating Crow 4 The existential crisis of a simple crow-focused experiment plain 2022-11-20T19:21:28-08:00 In the article, "Anthropomorphomania and the Rise of the Animal Mind: A Conversation", psychologist Daniel Povinelli [DJP] challenges experimental conclusions that crows understand water-displacement (Barker and Povinelli). Under experimental conditions, crows have been observed placing rocks in water-filled tubes to reach floating food pieces (Barker and Povinelli). For DJP, this is explained by an experimental lack of options; quoting DJP, “[W]hen you put an animal in […] that human-like context […] there’s really only three things that can happen: 1) nothing […] 2) the crow can drop the stone outside the test tube […] 3) the crow can drop the stone inside” (79). Here, DJP implies scientists miss human experimental influence as they overlook the fact that experiments are human constructions. Further, DJP points out that surprise at a crow’s ability to put rocks in the top of a tube is based on a (potentially false) belief in human ‘advanced’ cognition: “who thinks birds are so dumb that they don’t realize that they can’t make contact through the glass? (81)
  
  DJP may be leaving out important details, however. As can be observed in this video, crows don’t seem to drop objects into tubes at random (PLOS Media). In order to obtain the floating-food most quickly, crows preference heavier/solid objects, tubes containing more water, and ignore materials which can’t be displaced (PLOS Media). So, do crows understand physics or not? Well, this question perhaps can’t be settled by our current ways of experimentation. Just as we overlook the ‘human-like’ conditions of our ‘neutral’ experimental environments simply because we intended these environments to be neutral, so too may we overlook human interference in our experimental perception/s simply because we attempted to correct for it.
  
  
  Consider the following observations; first, “[crows] can do exactly what the chimps are doing, and maybe even [do] it faster or more accurately” (Barker and Povinelli 82) and, “[experimental] evidence with the chimps [isn’t] diagnostic of higher-order reasoning.” (82). This leads to a question DJP hides within a statement: “what kinds of behaviors could ever really provide evidence of higher-order cognitive abilities[?]” (82). If we can’t objectively measure—or delineate between—levels of cognition then humanity’s entire grounds for delineation between the human and non-human falls to pieces. Further, that, “[such] tests aren't diagnostic for human higher-order abilities any more than they are for […] chimps or crows” (82) identifies a potential reason as to why delineation between human and non-human fails under scrutiny; that we can define the difference between human and non-human is based upon a false assumption, that we have ever had the capacity to define ourselves.
  
  Toby Francis (z5342546)
  
  Works Cited 
  Backpack Full of Questions. “Crow Using Stick as Tool,” Backpack Full of Questions, 20 Sept. 2016, backpackfullofquestions.com/2016/09/20/the-smart-crow-a-true-story/. Accessed 3 Nov. 2022. Image courtesy of Nature.
  Barker, K. Brandon, and Daniel J. Povinelli. “Anthropomorphomania and the Rise of the Animal Mind: A Conversation.” Journal of Folklore Research, vol. 56, no. 2-3, 2019, p. 71, muse-jhu-edu.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/article/735444, 10.2979/jfolkrese.56.2_3.05. Accessed 3 Nov. 2022.
  PLOS Media. “Causal Understanding of Water Displacement by a Crow.” YouTube, 26 Mar. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZerUbHmuY04. Accessed 3 Nov. 2022.