Ravens can deceive

David Barash recently wrote in the Chronicle of Higher Education that humans are not alone in the capacity for violence against their own kind. He was arguing against the kind of thinking that claims that humans are uniquely depraved and the rest of nature is much kinder. The other side of the coin is the people who think that we humans are uniquely mentally sophisticated compared to the rest of the animals. It’s slowly becoming plain that other animals can learn new things and teach them to others, and also can understand to some degree what’s in another’s mind. Here’s an article from the New York Times that describes recent work with ravens that shows that they understand what other ravens are thinking well enough to practice deception. There’s some other raven research results here and also a discussion of how humans are not so mentally special after all, both in comparison to other animals and also in comparison to artificially “intelligent” devices. I’m more easily convinced on the former than the latter, but it’s all interesting reading. Site requires free registration.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/04/magazine/04IDEA.html?pagewanted=all