[mitchell_h]

I'm a small time cattle rancher and raise a few pigs per year. Also friends with many fellow ranchers. My only response to this is entirely "duh". Cows and pigs maybe dumb, but they figure things out with trial and error at an amazing rate.

[IAmBroom]

Also, using a stick as a scratching tool is not really on the same spectrum as flint-knapping a knife, sun-baking a pinchpot, or sharpening a fire-hardened spear point.

This is like those articles that claim that trees "communicate" because they exude more waste products under duress, or somesuch horseshit.