Parrot trainer, falconer, and writer Rebecca O’Connor of Operation Desert Dove gently rebukes me for the “crap” implied in the bbc article below: “Please please remind all to refrain from calling what parrots do language. They are excellent labelers, excelling at using learned noises at appropriate moments. They cannot however, understand the abstract concepts involved …
Month: June 2005
Bird Brains?
I have always been fairly unimpessed with the “linguistic” exploits of our closest genetic relatives, the great apes– the communications chasm seems wider than that between us and our dogs, despite their having been trained to manipulate some symbols. Which is why recent developments in bird speech and cognition are so mind-boggling, especially as the …
Yup!
A good line from contrarian blogger- evolutionist- film critic Steve Sailer: “One conservative element I like about “Lord of the Rings” is Tolkien’s arch-Tory / proto-hippie conservationism. Here in the U.S., conservatives tend to assume that the essence of conservatism is to bulldoze a forest and build a Costco. Tolkien would have shuddered.”
Panther Purity
A cougar, probably of the so- called “Florida panther” race, was hit and killed by a car in northern Florida, far from the usual southern haunts of the subspecies. A story in the St Augustine Record by Peter Guinta– it requires registration so I’ll just quote– records the good news that the cat’s range is …
Decline and Fall
I have a feeling that the decline and fall of Britain may end up a constant theme here. This just in from Jonathan Hanson– emphasis mine: “Official guidelines issued in May by Britain’s Joint Council on Qualifications, directed to agencies that administer high school and junior high standardized tests, call for students to receive extra …
First post…
First mistake! The url for the cave bear DNA is http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=8682314
At Last!
After long planning and infinite patience from web designer Matt Mullenix, my website and blog are up and running. Please look around and, I hope, enjoy. Eventually– like perhaps later this week– I will post longer and even coherent posts, but it has been a long weekend. For now, let me give you a few …