Sorry, but as a disciple of Shneirla's School in Behavior, (which is based
on a synthesis of (a)Morgan's Canon, and all the ideas that led Lloyd C.
Morgan to formulate his well known canon, and (b) the conclusion that all
individual traits, including behavioral traits, of all living organism,
develop in the individual organism, under inseparable effects of both genes
& environment), I consider all the amazing claims you site, pure nonsense.

Learning in insects can not serve as a model for learning in higher
organisms. Schneirla had already discovered very long ago, in a comparative
study on maze learning in ants, and rats, that the process is not only
quantitatively different (in terms of the number of repetitions required to
mask the task), but also qualitatively different in the two species. It is
qualitatively on a far lower psychic level in ants, than it is in rats. And
it goes without saying, that it is on a higher psychic level in humans, than
it is in rats. But the experts you cite completely ignore that.

Humans are the only living organisms capable of the qualitatively complexity
of human cognition. Where is the honeybee, pigeon, dolphin, or chimp that
are capable of any cognition that involves human art, science, etc.? But the
experts you cite insist on ignoring that.

Any one who believes he can know what goes on in the mind of animals of
another species, especially a species that is very distant from us in terms
of the psychic level of the group to which it belongs (in terms of Morgan's
ladder, where different groups are organized on a ladder of distinct rungs,
according to the highest psychic level members of each group can achieve),
is completely misguided, and only deluding himself.
-- 
Sincerely,
Ruth Rosin ("Prickly pear")

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