Birds have brains, let's talk about it.

After watching Bird Brain, I think it became more clear how important it is to adjust research in order to answer your question, rather than shaping your research around your experiment. We could see this in the second experiment when researchers changed the strings to cross over one another instead of the food being directly under their noses. By doing so, they were able to see the train of thought that made the bird unique, if not, they would not have been able to measure their intelligence. By making this distinction also, it allows birds to go through challenges they otherwise would not face in the wild. However, by doing so can it be a curtain, used as a way of measure? 

 Not only that but there is also the importance of looking at what makes an animal anatomically different and how it affects our understanding of them. Referencing the excerpt from “Bird Brain ''we see how the size of the brain is the part that allows them to make plans and strategies and organize ideas to use to act upon things that will happen in the future”(12:30). By seeing the biological differences we as a science community can make better distinctions and explanations for why the world is the way it is. In more specific terms, by actually looking at the differences between animal structures, especially humans, we can understand ourselves more than other animals. Therefore, our comparisons could be more realistic within our measure. For example, when measuring intelligence in the Times article from week 1 we see how scientists found that the basal ganglia is a subcortical nucleus that is responsible for motor control and has a lot of control in motor learning and functions within behaviors and emotions (Kluger). Although avian research focuses on different parts of the brai

n, it becomes clear that this distinction is even more needed within animal research.