by: Yousef Alahmadi
Prior to reading Jason Hribal's article titled "Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet,"(1) I used to believe that animals only acts on their instincts. However, I just realized that I was wrong. Reading about how Janet and the other elephants resisted their masters and decided to not accept the trainers miss abuse reminded me of the many stories of how people resisted unjust governments, such as the French Revolution between 1789 and 1799. Moreover, the elephants, in most narrated cases, killed only the trainers or the circus employees, and in Janet's second accident, which happened in Palm City, Florida, Janet was trying to revenge from the ankus by hitting it to van. Both facts confirms that their actions was not just a result of the "musth," or heat, as claimed by 19th century scientists. It shows that the elephants, willingly, chose their victims, and they chose to fight the abusers. These actions are exactly what we call free-will.
Furthermore, the video clip of the crows intelligent method of cracking walnuts(2) shows the animals capabilities of developing multistage simple plans. the video demonstrates how crows developed a complex method of cracking walnuts. It starts by showing how a crow used the falling force and the stiffness of concrete to crack it. Then it shows a crow using the traffic cars to open up the nut. Even more striking, the crows figured out that it would easier for them to do it next to the traffic lights.
Original Source:
1)The Story of Janet
2) Video Clip of Crows Cracking Nut
No comments:
Post a Comment