Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community
Category

Animal minds

Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 14, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Cell biology, Intelligent Design
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How exactly do one-celled life forms learn?

Denyse O'Leary
May 14, 2021
Animal minds, Cell biology, Intelligent Design
Where do they store memories? New thinking is, changes in the state of the life form, resulting in changed behavior — which amounts to learning — need not “be someplace” or weigh something, for the same reasons as a full USB stick doesn’t weigh any more than an empty one. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 8, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Mind
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Human exceptionalism: You can be a good or a bad human but you can’t just be an animal

Denyse O'Leary
May 8, 2021
Animal minds, Ethics, Intelligent Design, Mind
When we try to escape into being animals, all that happens is that we reason badly and become bad humans. And the moment we even bring reason into the discussion — well, that’s precisely what human exceptionalism is about! Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
May 7, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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Kin selection? The selfish gene? Researchers ponder why animals adopt other species’ orphans

Denyse O'Leary
May 7, 2021
Animal minds, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
Human exceptionalism is never more obvious than when humans are offering rational-sounding arguments against it. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
April 17, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Information, Intelligent Design
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What has information theory to say about talking to spiders?

Denyse O'Leary
April 17, 2021
Animal minds, Information, Intelligent Design
There's a way we can do that, provided the spider has anything to say. One of the presentations at the American Chemical Society’s Spring 2021 meeting featured an algorithm that makes music from the analysis of spiders’ webs. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 27, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
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The rarity of bonobo adoption as an argument for human exceptionalism

Denyse O'Leary
March 27, 2021
Animal minds, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design
The willingness of our pets to adopt other animals’ offspring — relative to that of the wild chimpanzees — is an argument for human exceptionalism. The real story is a reason that humans are not just animals. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
March 25, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Oldest (so far) cephalopods discovered at 522 million years old?

Denyse O'Leary
March 25, 2021
Animal minds, Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design
Wait a minute. Many cephalopods (octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) are considered very intelligent though it is unclear how they got to be so. So, not only is this another instance of stasis (complex life forms emerge early and remain complex) but there is a real possibility that a high level of intelligence emerged early. Assuming that any intelligence at all could originate via a Darwinian mechanism, early origin followed by stasis does not sound like a Darwinian program for intelligence. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 23, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Intelligent Design
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Why do researchers need to try to prove that animals have personalities?

Denyse O'Leary
February 23, 2021
Animal minds, Intelligent Design
Mammals, birds, and reptiles differ by ability but those that have been studied seem to have individual personalities within the frame of their intelligence. What they don’t have or make little use of is abstract reasoning. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 17, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Evolution, Intelligent Design
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Does evolution help us understand why some species in the same genus are significantly smarter than others?

Denyse O'Leary
February 17, 2021
Animal minds, Evolution, Intelligent Design
One could simply say, “Evolving more intelligence helped the animal to survive.” The trouble with that explanation is, many free-roaming life forms would probably survive more readily if they were more intelligent. But they do not develop greater intelligence on that account. There must be more to the story. Read More ›
Type
post
Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
February 13, 2021
Categorized
Animal minds, Intelligent Design
Tagged
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Researcher: Humpback whales DON’T learn songs from one another?

Denyse O'Leary
February 13, 2021
Animal minds, Intelligent Design
Don’t blame Eduardo Mercado. In order to deal safely, if not rationally, with the demand that whales be seen to be nearly as smart as people, he is stuck with making these nonsense claims. The probable situation is that whales don’t vary their songs much because they can’t. One might say the same of many birds. Read More ›