Are learned and innate the only types of behaviors?

That was the intent of the question, to demonstrate the contradiction. I have edited it slightly now, incidentally. You stated that if it were humans we would have said that they 'worked it out'. Therefore, surely it would anthropocentric to conclude that crows 'worked it out'. The more important point to address is the issue that the authors of the paper did not say that humans 'work it out'. I don't see what the difference between 'working it out' and learning is. I consider 'working something out' comes under the heading of learning. They are simply saying that either crows have a learned skill or a natural skill in assessing/calculating/judging/estimating optimum drop heights relative to thieves and surface hardness and walnut type. They do not drop the walnuts at random, they clearly take a number of variables into account (though they ignore the mass of the walnut, even though that is a variable of some note). I don't see what other alternatives that could exist, it is either learned or innate.So I don't see the problem, could you explain the exact anthropocentric gaffe that was actually made in the paper?Another suggestion would be to find a different paper to examine to avoid tooing and froing over this one. Either way works for me.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

Are you saying that all natural skills are evolved?Would you say all human skills are either evolved or learned?

What else do we have? Gifts from a higher being/different dimension?

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If what you saw with your own eyes (or observed directly in any other way) conflicted with a vicarious account from a "highly respected" scientist in a "highly respected" scientific journal, which would you believe? Yourself, or the scientist?

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I would accept the scientific consensus (as opposed to just a single scientist).But even still, the single study by the single scientist in the peer-reviewed journal has an enormous advantage over my eyewitness account, and that is that its methodology was designed to combat all sorts of natural bias that humans have and thought errors that humans naturally make all the time.My direct observation probably lacks this methodology.After all, it is really extremely easy to be mistaken in our perceptions.Example: cargo cults.

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What if you were someone with no scientific background whatsoever. Which should you believe?

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It would be even more likely, in that case, that the person who had the experience should defer to science, since they likely aren't aware of everything I explained above about scientific methodology.

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I would always believe the evidence of my own eyes. Some people would be amazed at how easily experts can misinterpret observations or rely on weak assumptions.

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But if you aren't an expert yourself, then how on earth would you know if they misinterpreted anything, or made weak assumptions?What about memory? Do you trust your own memory in a similar way that you trust your other perceptions?To quote the late Richard Feynman: Edited by nator, : No reason given.Edited by nator, : No reason given.

They sometimes correct their interpretations years later and explain where they went wrong.

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They sometimes correct their interpretations years later and explain where they went wrong.

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Actually, scientists correct their interpretations and explain where they went wrong much more frequently than "years later". It happens on a nearly daily basis on some level, I would guess, though the scientists participating in this thread may correct me.The thing you have to realize is that the way scientists figure out how they "go wrong" is for new evidence to come to light, or better methodology or technology is developed to give a clearer picure.These days, major scientific theories aren't really "overturned" in a dramatic fashion, and researchers who's past work is shown to be in error or inaccurate in some way are probably not completely wrong in everything they concluded. They're just less right as the current data shows.Again, what sort of similar process do individuals submit to to verify and test their conclusions about whatever they perceived that would justify their believing their own eyes if science contradicts them?

Not necessarily. I'd say a fair number of journalists writing for mainstream [read: dumbed down] media know exactly what they are reporting. Hence why spice a lot of it up because if they reported as it was explained, it wouldn't sell. For example, the soft issues dinosaur finds. If that was reported truthfully, most people would be bored. Instead they spiced it up and we got essentially lies.

But attempting an explanation of why Joe Average's common sense often yields the wrong answer doesn't change the fact that his common sense is usually useless. In other words, arguments by laypeople that begin, "Common sense tells us..." aren't worth much.--Percy

Now, you're just nitpicking the semantics. Are you seriously saying that Joe Blow's common sense puts fluid dynamics into account everytime he is asked about projectile motion?Hypothetical situations are what sent us to the moon and beyond. We've sent probes to every planet using these hypothetical mind experiments to slingshoot the probes there (no, Pluto ain't a planet anymore... and even then we'll have a probe orbiting Pluto in a few short years).Last time I brought this up, everyone around me assumed that the probes that we have sent to the planets went in a straight line there. It took me a while to explain that the probes had to gather energy from the various planets before there was enough for them to go to their final destinations. Forgive me for sounding condescending, but I would trust these hypothetical mind experiments over Joe Average's common sense any day.

I'm saying, given the scope of the paper, this is a fairly safe assumption. Pretty much.Would you consider this paper to be a strong example of the gaffe you mentioned? If it is, I don't see it. If I assume it exists for the sake of argument, I can't see how it leads to any particular problems. Perhaps you are able to find a more obvious example to work with?

I have similar regard for my memory. Talking about 'trust' may raise philosophical questions about truth on which I think we would substantially differ. 'Comes to light', is scientific rhetoric for 'I now recognise'. But phrased in the former pompous way the scientist is able to include everyone in his original blindness. When I learn something new I say just that, I never say that something new has 'come to light'. I am the one looking. I see the evidence or I fail to see it. The evidence isn't looking for me and 'coming to light'. That would depend on the individual. But you seem to beg the question. Similarity to scientific method is not in my opinion a basis for 'validity'. Usefulness of outcome is.

I agree. I don't really value 'common sense'. But I do value the evidence of my own eyes.Joe Blow usually does not analyse a problem in the way a scientist would. He may not analyse at all. His approach is different. He cannot be expected to give answers to the interim steps of a scientific model as if that were the only route to a useful answer.If Joe Blow phoned in and said he'd seen with his own eyes a bullet in a vacuum falling in a particular way, I would indeed be sceptical. The evidence Joe Blow sees would have, at least, to be something I could imagine doing.I wonder who you would call if you were learning to pitch a baseball. A trainer or an expert in fluid dynamics? In football who would you get to train the quarter back or the field punter (if that's the correct term) to optimise the flight of the ball?

No. You misunderstand because you relegate evidence to 'common sense'. In the UK what we call football is not so popular in the US. But a football striker can send the ball fifty yards with great accuracy. He can answer the question of distance better than you or I could, and in various weather conditions. He learns to do it, not by fluid dynamics, but by the evidence of his own senses. Quite often he has to get the ball to swerve. For a long time models in fluid dynamics predicted the wrong direction of swerve. That didn't bother footballers, they used the evidence of their own eyes. How many probes were lost in the process? The hypotheses give general guidance for direction of research, but the most important thing is testing the hypotheses by studying actual behaviour. And if they could have actually seen with their own eyes one go to the moon, they would have know otherwise. Which is more to the point.

Cool. I note your personal opinion. But there is no evidence in the paper that it is safe. Again, I expect to find conclusive points in the conclusion. Otherwise the heading should read "Pretty much what we found". I see this as worse than a gaffe. It looks like it could be a systematic type of error. When the single obvious word 'know' should have been used, why introduce evolved/learned and all that uncertainty into your conclusion.

Well, that's by the by. A paper which reaches the conclusion that crows drop prey from an approximate optimum height isn't required to establish all other knowledge that it relies upon. For example, it wouldn't be required to prove the mathematical techniques they used. It is not required to prove that evolution is true, or that it is possible to acquire knowledge through learning. You were asking me a question. It isn't a conclusion of the paper so it wouldn't be in there would it? And then the philosophers will turn up and say 'what do you mean 'know'' and we'd have an epistemological gaffe. That's why context matters. In the context it is pretty clear what it means and I don't see any confusion. I fail to see what is wrong with stating that the evidence they present suggests that the crows have evolved or learned the optimum dropping height of prey. You have still not mentioned a third possibility - what is it?You may freely consider this as bad as you like - but if this is as bad as it gets, then I think we're OK. Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.