24 May
2008
Parrot Prodigies
Language Log’s ongoing ridicule of the BBC’s science reporting continues with Parrots and children: still silly season at the BBC:
There are people writing purportedly serious stories for the British Broadcasting Corporation who think that a grey parrot has the cognitive ability of a normal six year old human child. Have these people never met a normal six-year-old human child?
Hmmm. Maybe the parrots just seem intelligent because they’re telepathic!
image: Melanie Phung, Sunconurepuzzle.jpg, Wikipedia Commons
I generally think it’s kind of silly to compare animal intelligence to that of human children. They are way too different — with brains specialized for doing certain things relevant to their species. Not even sure what purpose it serves to say that X animal is equivalent in intelligence to a Y-year old child… parrots are NOT little humans, they shouldn’t be thought of as such.
p.s. Gorgeous bird :)
July 13th, 2008 at 19:13:08