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Alex, The Brainy Parrot Who Knows About Zero
Roland Piquepaille writes "Alex is a 28-year-old grey parrot who lives in a lab at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., and can count, identify objects, shapes, colors and materials. And now, Alex has grasped the concept of zero, according to World Science. In fact, Alex can describe the absence of a numerical quantity on a tray containing colored cubes. When a color is missing, Alex consistently identified this 'zero quantity' by saying the label 'none.' You might think that this is just a parrot trick, but this research about 'bird intelligence' might also help autistic and other learning-disabled children 'who have trouble learning language and counting skills.' This overview contains other details, references and a picture of Alex counting his colored cubes."
> Alex has grasped the concept of zero
Oh, Alex again. Been a while now.
What does it mean to grasp a concept? How much do you need to know about it and how it is applied? Does a vending machine master the concept of "money"? Does an infant master the concept of "milk" or a one-year old the concept of "mother"? Probably not. Neither is it reasonable to assign concept mastery to Alex, neither with regards to colours or numbers. He (like the kids mentioned) simply doesn't know enough about either of these things.
It is nice that research is being done on how we can interact with animals, and if funding runs out, there is always the circus for Alex. That is not the case with autists - so please, please, lay low with that until there is something tenable. The shortened quote "...a training method called the model-rival technique, also holds promise for teaching autistic [snip] children [snip] empathy" is quite a mouthful. If this is empathy Alex-style, it might have something going for it. If it is meant to give hope of an ill defined group children being able to participate in the human games which they are now completely unable to play, I doubt that very, very much and find the claim slightly distasteful.
Hope you get your funding.
best,
--Inge
why the fuck is that modded insightful? i've known parrots more insightful than that!
My new blog
That parrot is more intelligent than most Christians!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.