Crows can recognize geometric regularity

Does the idea that "only humans can recognize shapes" sounds ridicolously outdated? Its like "Science confirms animals feel pain".

I assume the subtext of this research is not that human are special, and more that each specific claim towards each species of animal needs exploration and confirmation.

And it genuinely takes a lot of time when dealing with reasonably complex animals.

It reminds me of the research on cinereous tits, where the researcher had to spend like half a year at a time to validate a given chant matches a given word.

For better or for worse an idea sounding (ridiculously) outdated doesn't exactly make for a good argument, which becomes an issue when you need one.

Given the ways of the current US administration, not so sure if that is even something open to discussion.

Why does everything need to devolve into a discussion or comment about US politics? Not everyone cares that much about it.

It does but one has to hold a belief for it to be eventually confirmed or denied.

Many people historically and presently see themselves as the pinnacle of a godly creation, so they put humans above everything and anything, meaning that most perspectives to validate or not are about how unique we are. It might be annoying or backwards but at least there are people out there still willing to chip at it, one study at a time.

Because of the ways it influence modern life, and technology choices.

Those that don't care will eventually find themselves on a situation where they will care, by then it will be too late.

The interesting part of this research is that baboons, while evolutionary closer to humans, fail to perform this task.

So scientists were thinking "hmm, maybe perception of geometric regularity is a unique skill to homo sapiens?". It turned out that crows can tell a square from trapezoids, too.

> because of the ways it X

Because of the ways the benefactors want us to think it X

It really doesn't matter as much as the hysteria around it. Maybe the hysteria is 0.0001% accurate and that's generous. This is true for any political tribe, politics and political messaging in general.

Did they tested the baboons eyesight ?

I care, but mostly about my country, then my continent, and only them I'm roughly aware of things happening in other large countries (Russia, China, the US). I still don't see why comment about the US administration is relevant here.

The University of Tübingen is in Germany.

Whatever your feelings on the current US administration, no reasonable person could deny that it's having significant effects worldwide.

Specieism in science goes way back. The funny thing is, people who live closer to nature and birds and animals have known about animal intelligence for millennia. But they were "primitives" who couldn't possibly have more knowledge than learned white people.

And crows? Humans have been battling crows since the beginning of agriculture. It takes some serious effort to crow-proof everything on a farm.

It isn't as if European countries are free of such problems, with similar minded parties, and since you mention Germany, AfD keeps increasing their size.

The study is testing a very specific type of "recognizing shapes"; which the title of the article calls "geometric regularity". The "background stimuli" are shapes that crows would be expected to be able to distinguish, and are used to train the crows on the task. Whereas the "probe stimuli" are the actual experiment.

As a sibling indicated baboons can not distinguish these shapes easily. Additionally, rather than a binary "crows can recognize shapes" the study shows how well crows process the shapes. One of the graphs in the paper, but not the article shows that two different crows have a similarly hard time with the rhombus.

In other studies, this same test was applied to humans to find that it is a fairly innate skill rather than developed by doing geometry in school.

I've been on the internet for twenty-some-odd years and at some point this attitude has come to feel like willful ignorance (generally; i do agree that it is unsurprising that crows recognize patterns. Or much less obviously intelligent animals for that matter, consensus-driven evidence hopefully inbound.)

Most people in active testable science have worldviews where they suspect many relationships about the world that have not been strongly validated. Einstein was not the first person to discuss how space and time seem inextricably related in a special way; pythagoras was not the first to figure out how to derive the third side of a right triangle; galileo was not the first to suggest a heliocentric worldview; etc etc. Demonstrating things that seem obvious or intuitive or that are already assumed and used practice is still immensely valuable. Communication is hard, and demonstrating things about the world without getting tangled up in the inherent unsuitability of language to precisely describe the world is incredibly, incredibly difficult. We are still validating knowledge that the ancients practiced on a daily basis. Galen certainly never bothered to persuade; only to inform.

It nearly makes me want to ban articles if the paper is available. The discussion inevitably sags.

I would argue the interesting part is that these shapes are nearly impossible to find outside of human society. Sure you can find quasi-crystals and straight lines occasionally, but either this is reused functionality (abstract thought?!) or they have a special relationship with things humans see as human.

The economic priorities of the US will have significant effects worldwide even if you put a watermelon in the president's office. It has been having significant effects worldwide for the last 100 years. Politics has not changed this one bit.

Some "significant effects" are a lot bigger and more broadly negative than others. You know this.