Stephen Jones wrote:
SEJ>[...] Alex, an African gray parrot, is unlike any other
SEJ>animal: he can talk. When he says, "come here!" he really
SEJ>wants his owner to come here. That is remarkable to the
SEJ>scientist studying him, Irene Pepperberg of the University
SEJ>of Arizona. She says Alex understands that words have
SEJ>meaning and he does not just mimic random sounds he has
SEJ>been taught. "These birds have the emotional and social
SEJ>skills of about a 2-and-a-half year-old, 3- year-old
SEJ>child, says Pepperberg. "Their intellectual skills are
SEJ>more like a 5 or 6 year old in some cases."
SEJ>Differentiating Objects' Characteristics Alex can identify
SEJ>about 50 different objects, can name seven colors, and
SEJ>knows numbers up to six. "You can ask him what color, what
SEJ>shape, what material," says Pepperberg, "and he knows what
SEJ>set of answers belong in those categories."... Once again,
SEJ>the line blurs between humans and animals. The one
SEJ>remaining distinction, in the end, may be that humans are
SEJ>better at things, but it is still surprising what a bird
SEJ>with a walnut-sized brain can learn. ... [This is a big
SEJ>problem for those who claim that chimps and gorillas can
SEJ>talk. If the claim is that chimps can really use sign
SEJ>language because they are closest to humans, then what is
SEJ>the explanation for a *parrot* who talk as well, if not
SEJ>better? I saw a parrot sing "Happy Birthday" in an
SEJ>opera-singer voice at the Singapore bird park but I no one
SEJ>claimed that it knew what it was singing. Parrots are just
SEJ>very clever mimics and human beings are very good at
SEJ>training them and reading into their pets' behaviour their
SEJ>own human feelings. Maybe this exposes as an
SEJ>anthropomorphic delusion the whole field of talking apes?]
Stephen says that a parrot that can communicate is a problem
for ape communication studies. His conclusion does not follow
from his premises, but this is not unusual in these little
bits of commentary. It is obvious that other support than
close phylogenetic ties have to be made for the reasons that a
parrot can handle interspecies communication showing concept
understanding. Why this might impact ape communication
studies is something Stephen does not explicate.
Why should a parrot be able to handle concept understanding
and interspecies communication? The interspecies
communication part is made possible via mimicry, but mimicry
alone does not explain the whole set of phenomena. For
explaining that, more needs to be known about African grey
parrot ecology and social interactions. One of Pepperberg's
graduate students, Spencer Lynn, was recently in the field in
Africa with a research team looking into the ecology and
behavior of African grey parrots in the wild.
I've met Pepperberg and Alex, and spent some time at the lab
in Tucson watching the research going on. Irene Pepperberg is
a careful researcher whose methods include extensive
documentation and analysis of all interactions when Alex is at
his "work" station (the back of a lab chair). Alex scores
about 80% correct on various types of questions put to him.
This level of performance is far above chance. I knew Spencer
Lynn from his time at Texas A&M University at Galveston, where
he took part in the large-scale assessment of sperm whale
abundance and distribution in the northwestern region of the
Gulf of Mexico (the GulfCet project, funded through Minerals
Management Service). These people are very capable
researchers, and I find Stephen's flippant assessment of their
activities to be close to libelous.
If Stephen thinks that he can form a novel cogent and valid
critique of Pepperberg's work, I encourage him to pick up some
of her publications and try it out. Otherwise, Stephen is
(as usual) blowing smoke.
Wesley
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