tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post2096393884688650282..comments2024-02-29T03:57:00.088-05:00Comments on The Mermaid's Tale: Bird brained?Anne Buchananhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-35848146290212828882011-04-29T21:32:16.031-04:002011-04-29T21:32:16.031-04:00Anne, you read my mind. I have two roadkill squirr...Anne, you read my mind. I have two roadkill squirrels (skeletonized now, thanks to help from a student) and almost quipped the same thing about intelligence ;).<br /><br />Ken, I just saw a squirrel eating a Big Mac yesterday.Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-22983095548617490582011-04-29T16:14:56.236-04:002011-04-29T16:14:56.236-04:00How about this analogy to humans: urban environmen...How about this analogy to humans: urban environments select for bigger bellies?<br /><br />The answer is because of McFood and McCouchPotatoes.<br /><br />One could go on, and once again (as almost always) it is the problem about weeding out the facile from the substantial.Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-33432085166810366752011-04-29T16:05:42.361-04:002011-04-29T16:05:42.361-04:00Road kill? Though that could be a problem, if the...Road kill? Though that could be a problem, if the probability of getting killed by a car happened to be correlated with intelligence...Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-36888914617714255772011-04-29T16:04:51.128-04:002011-04-29T16:04:51.128-04:00;);)Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-36834143426473783532011-04-29T16:04:42.063-04:002011-04-29T16:04:42.063-04:00Show me how to kill a bunch of squirrels first.Show me how to kill a bunch of squirrels first.Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-59831477940792884042011-04-29T16:00:47.935-04:002011-04-29T16:00:47.935-04:00Ok, so the idea is that the abundant urban diet co...Ok, so the idea is that the abundant urban diet could be the sole reason for increased brain sizes of urban animals. Ok, yes, sounds reasonable. I look forward to your results!Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-54866817278742712732011-04-29T15:55:24.418-04:002011-04-29T15:55:24.418-04:00I'm not kidding, I'll get on it this Fall....I'm not kidding, I'll get on it this Fall.Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-454143460338511562011-04-29T15:53:46.719-04:002011-04-29T15:53:46.719-04:00http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.137...http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0017514Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-29563687475444197102011-04-29T15:48:40.730-04:002011-04-29T15:48:40.730-04:00Clearly someone needs to measure their brains here...Clearly someone needs to measure their brains here and there!Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-38410397873744775582011-04-29T15:47:27.932-04:002011-04-29T15:47:27.932-04:00(because the squirrels I've become familiar wi...(because the squirrels I've become familiar with since moving to Chicago have quite a diverse, protein rich diet compared to the squirrels I know back in Happy Valley)Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-49879064280989426012011-04-29T15:43:22.619-04:002011-04-29T15:43:22.619-04:00Yeah, a possibility that would need to be ruled ou...Yeah, a possibility that would need to be ruled out. Are the brains of city birds bigger than those of birds of the same species in the country?Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-12491497380389359872011-04-29T15:40:58.532-04:002011-04-29T15:40:58.532-04:00I didn't read the study, but what if living in...I didn't read the study, but what if living in the urban environment is simply building slightly bigger brains in the urban birds? Wondering about mice, rats, squirrels, coyotes...Holly Dunsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05260104967932801186noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-51369542509242871832011-04-29T08:56:29.444-04:002011-04-29T08:56:29.444-04:00Hey, and as I write this, the Royal wedding has ju...Hey, and as I write this, the Royal wedding has just been consummated (well, the ceremonial part has, at least). Now, they live in a very complex environment and have garnered inordinate resources. What would one expect intelligence or craniometric studies to show? I'll leave that one to historians or others....Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-65677360007053203732011-04-29T08:54:05.325-04:002011-04-29T08:54:05.325-04:00The question of brain size, as sexual dimorphism i...The question of brain size, as sexual dimorphism indicates, is not simple. If women are as intelligent (or more?) than men, but brain size differences only reflect body size, then how can size be related to intelligence? This is a legitimate question about mechanism.<br /><br />If the general idea is that brain size has to do with communication with the body (muscle control, for example), then the brain-body size correlation makes plausible sense. Or, if it were just allometric, one might expect larger to be smarter because there'd be more in the 'thinking' parts in larger animals.<br /><br />Anyway, while nobody can dismiss the legitimacy of the question, many answers can have comparable plausibility.<br /><br />And, I think, this is not helpful to judging whether the post-hoc 'explanation' that urban life must be more challenging to the IQ has any particular plausibility. We suggested some other explanations and issues. <br /><br />So we're just raising our usual skepticism about too-easily-invoked specific adaptive explanations, not saying that the issue doesn't belong on the agenda of science!Ken Weisshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02049713123559138421noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-21066517091153506442011-04-29T08:51:10.898-04:002011-04-29T08:51:10.898-04:00And Canada Geese that migrate, and don't migra...And Canada Geese that migrate, and don't migrate, and live in urban and non-urban areas should have the biggest brains of all birds.<br /><br />But, I do get the premise about brain size, Occam. My basic problem with this study is that it's based on what I think are rather unfounded assumptions -- what is it about brain size (or brain/body ratio, whichever they actually think is important) that matters, and is urban living really the ultimate challenge to a bird's intelligence?Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-35793381557253220402011-04-29T08:41:34.031-04:002011-04-29T08:41:34.031-04:00Absolute brain size does apparently matter (a lot)...Absolute brain size does apparently matter (a lot)-- in primates too. Marino's comment in PNAS (2006) on "Absolute brain size: Did we throw the baby out with the bathwater" is provocative, and Deaner et al's (2007) paper in Brain Behavior and Evolution ("Overall brain size, not encephalization quotient, best predicts cognitive ability across nonhuman primates) is also worth a read. That's not to say that this new report on bird brains doesn't have some problems, per your comments. Any brain data out there on wildebeasts compared to their nonmigratory relatives?occamserasernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1812431336777691886.post-19796859306558423492011-04-29T07:19:29.633-04:002011-04-29T07:19:29.633-04:00While I love this video, I've been thinking ab...While I love this video, I've been thinking about the assumption that city living is the hardest thing a bird is called upon to adapt to. What about flying half way across the globe two times a year, including all the calorie loading they do in preparation, and then the flying thousands of miles with no food, often with no rest, and then adapting to the new environment, new predators and so forth? Mortality is very high during every migration. If this urban living study means anything at all, shouldn't we expect a correlation between the distance birds migrate and brain/body size ratio? Though, I'm not sure whether flying the furthest would require the most or the least intelligence...Anne Buchananhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09212151396672651221noreply@blogger.com