almost dupe of http://videosift.com/video/Testing-Crows-Causal-Understanding-of-Water-Displacement

My head hurts too much to read the paper right now, but I suspect that most of this can be attributed to learning, and that a 'causal understanding' is not being demonstrated here.

The important figure to look at here is Fig 3, specifically the first trial in figure 3, before the crows had a change to learn each particular task. Performance is, slightly, better than chance for each task except tasks D and F. But these are NOT naive birds. There are only 6 crows used in this experiment, and before the experiment they were all trained to perform a water displacement task for food reward. The better than chance performance on the first trial for some of the tasks could, and probably is, a result of the similarity between the 'correct' choice in that task and the training condition.
A: A water filled tube is more like the water filled tube in the training condition, than is a sand filled tube.
B: Heavy blocks are more like the heavy stones used in the training condition than are the light blocks.
C: Solid black weights are more like the black stones used in the training condition than are the hollow cages.
E: A nearly full tube is more similar to the training condition (which took only two stones to reach the food) than a nearly empty tube.
Tasks D and F, where the crows did not perform better than chance, have choices much more difficult to distinguish from the training condition (with both choices in F being nearly identical to the training condition).
What's more, the sample size is tiny, with a max of 6 birds for any task, and only 4 of these same (very experienced) birds for tasks E and F. You cannot do meaningful statistics with a sample size of 4.
If someone who has actually read the whole paper wants to show me how I'm wrong please do. Until then, I think the editors at PLoS ONE need to be more careful with their choice of reviewers. The journal, although noble in it's stated mission, is still young, and its reputation is still fragile.
"Our results indicate that New Caledonian crows possess a sophisticated, but incomplete, understanding of the causal properties of displacement, rivalling that of 5–7 year old children." How on earth did they let that pass! They know the press will have a field-day with misleading statements like that.

Later the crow flew naked through the streets squawking "Eureka!".

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How do they call the last one a 'fail'? The crow got the treat, he just tried both tubes. It seemed to me that once he realized the blue side wasn't the right one (after 2 tries) he moved back to the red side until he could get the treat...to me that's a win!

This is still very impressive, but there's no indication that the crow knew "I need a bigger stick to get this food. There is a bigger stick in that box over there. If I solve that puzzle, I will get the bigger stick to get the food." It could have just known (since it had seen these obstacles before), that if it did all of the things it had done before eventually, somehow, food would be involved.

"How on Earth did that crow do that?"

What!? you weren't watching it?!?

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But who will take away her private property that she apparently loves more than family and friends and leave her in a ditch somewhere to be food for the crows?

I overestimated. The actual stat is that there are more blacks in 'corrections' (including prison, jail, probation, and parole) than there were slaves in 1850.
Phew! Not a problem afterall!

http://www.amazon.com/The-New-Crow-Incarceration-Colorblindness/dp/1595586431

*promote that was excellent, a lot of crow *snuff there though, a moment of silence for the crows, thank you, in lieu of gifts..

OMFG... the threads... First Bob calls liberals two faced, but Conservatives were upset at the Dixie Chicks when they spoke out against Bush and his wars. Many conservatives demanded the Dixie Chips sponsors drop them and had large CD burning events, all over the fact they spoke their mind and their beliefs. Now these same people are upset at A&E for suspending a guy (a rather worthless suspension since the upcoming season is already filmed and he's already in it, and it is making free publicity for a stupid show about rich people).

This isn't a free speech issue. He isn't in jail for espousing anti-gay and racist remarks. He was suspended for saying something that made his part time employer look bad. Food Network fired Paula Dean. There was a PR lady who was going to Africa on a business trip that got fired after she tweeted she hopes she doesn't get AIDS, but no problem since she's white. You represent your company, officially or not, and make them look bad, your employer can fire you. You can say what you want, but sometimes that speech has consequences. A&E created the Duck Dynasty image, he made their network look bad, they have the right to suspend him... suspend, they didn't even fully fire him. Were they really outraged they would have pulled the show or edited him out of the upcoming season, but they didn't do any of that. They made a publicity grabbing move to suspend him.

This video also highlights the one key point I've been saying the whole time. That Jesus Himself said it is impossible for a rich man to get into heaven, doesn't matter if they want to or do follow Him, they have their reward here, and won't have one in Heaven. So Phil goes off on how gays are "full of murder" and how they won't inherit the Kingdom of God, but ignores that part where Jesus Himself said that people like Phil won't go to Heaven.

Then high, blaming it on some Atheist agenda. The same thing would have happened regardless of what religion or lack there of he had. This has nothing to do with Atheist wanting to make Christians look bad, as there is plenty of outrage over what he said in many Christian circles... you do know most liberals are Christian as well. Yes, most Atheist tend to be liberal, but the largest voting block of Democrats and Greens are Christian. People who take the Bible as the literal word of God, and believe Jesus was serious when He said to help the needy and poor, that the rich won't go to Heaven, that blessed are the peacemaker and not the warmongering Republicans, that when you pray, to pray in secret and not make a show of it the way modern Conservatives do, that know the reason for the destruction of Sodom according to the Bible was that "she was a land of plenty and did nothing to help the needy and poor", basically full of modern Conservatives, that the thing with the Angels happened after the city was condemned to be destroyed and they were there to rescue Lot's family, before Lot pulled the father of the year by offering his young daughters (think Olson Twins) over the angelic warriors of God (think Conan the Barbarian and Rambo) with magical powers, rather than just a simple "no". Anyhow, plenty of Christians are upset at what Phil said, because it makes Christians look bad, he not only bashed gays, but thought blacks were fine under the old Jim Crow era laws, thought Nazis were Jesus free, though Jesus and the Bible was their main defense for all they did... He basically made the Conservative Christians look like they ignore the main teaching of Jesus which was to Love one another. Jesus hung out with the sinners and tax collectors and told them of the love of God, not how God is going to condemn them all to Hell. If Jesus was alive in modern day America, he'd be hanging out in San Francisco talking about the love of God, not fighting to deny them equal rights under the law.

And of course Shiny... The controversy with Chick-fil-a isn't so much what some stupid old rich man says, he also made it clear that was the position of the company as a whole. And that anti-gay money was going to organizations that actively campaign not only to make being gay illegal in the US, in other countries where it is gay and punishable by death, they campaign to keep the death penalty attached to it. That said, at least Siny agrees that A&E had no choice... though, based on past posts, I don't think Shiny sees that the whole modern day Conservative movement is driven by the greed factor, that modern Christian Conservatives are willing to toss out every government program to help the needy and the poor so that they can give tax breaks to the rich...

It's all a free publicity stunt. I'm sure A&E will cave in, or Phil will issue some semi apology, "like I still believe it is a sin, but I'm sorry I likened them to murderers and I'm sorry about offending any blacks, I was just noting my personal observations growing up" type thing and he'll continue to rake in millions, going against the very Jesus he claims to follow... and he'll be right back on.

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It's all about the in play! (Subtle Ray Winstone reference).

I would love to have a laugh at this once it's on Netflix. Why does Anthony Hopkins always sound like he's phoning it in? Such an overrated actor.

And where's Ridley Scott? Thought he was married to Crowe?

I wonder if they'll go into the shipbuilding technology required to build a single super large vessel capable of surviving a world-wide flood?

Big Budget Hollywood Movie About Noah's Ark with Russel Crow has been added as a related post - related requested by deathcow on that post.