
The Crow Paradox - robg
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=106826971&ft=1&f=1001
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TrevorJ
Paradox seems a strong word for something that could have any number of
legitimate reasons behind it.

There is no compelling, logical reason to expect that becasue crows can
differentiate between humans, we should be able to differentiate between them.

You would expect crows to need to be able to identify predators pretty
precisely, whereas humans have little reason to differentiate between
different members of the crow species becasue our survival would never depend
on it.

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Pahalial
Agreed. He even puts forth that very explanation.

Hardly "a statement which contradicts itself."

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shaunxcode
More like "the crow fascination". I thought this was going to be related to
the parable of the crow at least (not really a paradox either) in which the
crow wants to get water from the bottom of a barrel which her beak can not
quite reach. Being an engineer she realizes that she can raise the level of
the water by dropping stones in. By the time she has dropped enough stones in
the water has actually just moved to fill the voids between them. She
continues to drop stones on the now overflowing barrel of stones unwilling to
admit she should have just broken the container open in the first place. She
dies of thirst shortly there after. Hows that for a kids book?

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curtis
I was once chased by a crow for a good hundred yards, if not more. It cawed at
me aggressively, and as I would get farther away, it fly to a new position so
it could keep cawing at me. Several times it buzzed me from behind a few feet
from my head. Finally I went around a corner where I was completely obscured
from the crow and the place where it originally started harassing me (there
was a 12 or 14 story building in the way). I thought I had finally escaped.
Then the crow buzzed me one last time, flying past me from behind so close
that it hit me on the shoulder.

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mahmud
In Australia, Magpies are known to peck people in the head and even made some
people I know bleed when they were kids.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magpie>

