You can change the situation so that what
would be useful behavior such as would be suggested by the intelligence of the animal becomes stupid behavior in the artificially created situation, and see if the behavior persists. If it does, then it cannot be a product of intelligence, since it is not an intelligent thing to do.
For example, here are a couple of cases in which the celebrated naturalist Fabre teased wasps. His interference makes it clear that what looks superficially like intelligent behavior are just instinct:
Fabre removed from a so-called sphex-wasp a killed grasshopper, which it was conveying to its nest and had momentarily laid down at the mouth of the burrowas these insects always do on returning with prey, in order to see that nothing has intruded into the burrow during their absence. Fabre carried the dead or paralyzed grasshopper to a considerable distance from the hole. On coming out the insect searched about until it found its prey. It then again carTied it to the mouth of its burrow, and again laid it down while it once more went in to see that all was right at home. Again Fabre removed the grasshopper, and so on for forty times in successionthe sphex never omitting to go through its fixed routine of examining the interior of its burrow every time that it brought the prey to its mouth.
And again:
One of the ground diggers of the genus Sphex had completed its hole, placed in it a large locustid (an ephippiger) upon which she had laid her egg in the usual way, and gone through all the preliminaries to sealing up the hole. At this point Fabre interfered by putting the wasp to one side, carefully withdrawing the ephippiger from the hole and taking it away. He then released the wasp which had been watching him rob her nest. She returned to the hole at once, entered and explored it as usual, came out and resumed her work at the point where it had been interrupted, and continued until the hole was sealed with the ordinary elaboration. The fact that the nest contained neither egg nor prey, and that she knew it so far as by her means of acquiring knowledge she knew anything, was no deterrent to her going through the regular routine...
Now this clearly isn't a product of intelligence,
because it's stupid.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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