Hans Kylberg wrote:
>
> At 09:08 1999-09-06 -0400, Don wrote:
> >There's one thing that's intrigued me for years.  Why is
> >man the only animal that doesn't instinctively know what
> >foods to eat in order to stay healthy?  Any ideas why that
> >is?
>
> First: Humans are the most cultural dependent species, so we learn
> more and use fixed intuitive knowledge less (less ROM more RAM).
>
> Second: There is good reason to believe that our consciousness as
> described by Julian Jaynes is something that H/G's do not have,
> and this takes us even farther away from our intuition.

These are all wonderful arguments but what about wild animals born in
zoos? They need to be taught hunting skills in order to be reintroduced
to the wild. Even domestic cats have an extremely hard time 'going
feral', and many starve to death or die in the process. I'm not as well
read as some on this list but it seems to me that animals that  have
infant, childhood, and adolescent stages of growth have them because
they need training in order to survive. Suckling infants die if they are
abandoned. Children need guidance and adolescents need role models.
Mammals in the wild are no different. Most suckle,are weaned to solid
food and eventually trained to hunt and kill for themselves. I think
they need to be taught what to eat, just like us.

Helen