RE: from 6 billion to 500 million: how?

From: Terry Donaghe (Terry@Donaghe.com)
Date: Tue Feb 06 2001 - 15:31:18 MST


My wife has a pet umbrella cockatoo at home and I can clearly state that she
is much more intelligent than our dog. I have noticed Kaelin (the bird) use
one of her toys as a lever to aid her in attempting to pull the bars out on
her cage (the tops of the vertical bars aren't welded). She actually
succeeded at getting one bar pulled out (the top of it anyway) and was
working on another one. My wife and I sat there and watched her work her
little lever - she'd drop it every once and a while, but she did manage to
get it into position again - but we decided to take it away - escaped
cockatoo is a recipe for disaster.

There is one particular African Grey parrot which can count and add and
recognize colors and materials, all out loud - I saw a show about it on the
Discovery Channel a while back. That particular breed is known to be
extremely intelligent - some bird lovers claim that Greys are as smart as a
3 or 4 year old child. Our cockatoo is probably just a level or two smarter
than our dog.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Chuck Kuecker
> Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 2:05 PM
> To: extropians@extropy.org
> Subject: Re: from 6 billion to 500 million: how?
>
>
>
> Is the intelligence of the parrot real, or because it can
> talk? I have
> heard varying opinions on "birdbrains"...
>
> Chuck Kuecker
>
>



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