Indeed, I haven't kept chickens! I bow to your better experience. My comment was, however, by way of illustration rather than evidence. As such it was really the least important part of my post. It is interesting that it was the only bit that drew comment.
Regards Dawie Coetzee ________________________________ From: Keith Addison <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org Sent: Sat, 21 May, 2011 22:52:06 Subject: Re: [Biofuel] Human Intelligence and the Environment Hi Dawie Very interesting, food for thought, thankyou. I don't agree with this though: >Our relationship to those non-human >beings with which we have a long-standing symbiosis rests on may factors, not >least of which is that our canine and feline companions have the knack of >looking at the bit where our eyes are when trying to communicate with us. They >literally face us, as we face one another when speaking to one >another; and that >makes them intelligible to us. Birds, even very bright ones, don't do that, >because their use of vision is different. Hence our relationship to them is >slightly different - however that does not preclude meaningful engagement with >various sorts of birds. Clearly you haven't kept chickens, A newly hatched chick will look you in the eye when it emerges from the egg. It's unmistakeable. So too will its mum, and the same applies to ducks and geese, and indeed to all birds. Not only birds - a lizard will look you in the eye too. Ethological studies have advanced quite a lot in the last decade or so. It emerges for instance that birds are smarter than dogs, they're about as smart as monkeys. That's what the science says, though maybe my attitude to it helps (or doesn't help, whichever). I had to come off the idea quite a long time ago that I'm any smarter than they are, if as smart. I don't think I've ever seen a dumb animal, apart from some people's pets (rendered dumb). They all seem to go about their daily business on the face of this fair planet with at least as much good sense as I can muster going about mine. <snip> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: /pipermail/attachments/20110522/6b29cf2b/attachment.html _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
