[pfortuny]

What I wonder is: why is this so relevant if birds have been building nests for quite a while yet? I do not get the great difference... And please do not mention the 'tool' word: a nest is something MUCH more complicated and abstract than a tool.

[driverdan]

Unfortunately I don't have sources to cite or know enough about the topic to explain it eloquently but I know you're wrong. Tool use is far more abstract and requires much more intelligence. The animal has to recognize and understand the problem at hand, the fact that they can create a tool, and then the method of using that tool. Nesting is an evolutionary trait that has existed for a long time.

[pfortuny]

Depends on what you call 'intelligence': making a home for living is more intelligent than just picking a stone for playing, is it not?

Building for the future (you know, you do not build a nest with a couple of straws) means projecting oneself in the future: that is intelligence for me.

'I know you're wrong' is quite strong.

[ot]

And spiders can craft incredibly complicated webs.

However there is a big difference between something that you have wired into your instinct by thousands of years of evolution (such as nests and spider webs) and coming up with new tools in order to adapt to a novel environment.

[kriro]

Not a biologist but my guess would be that nest building is more or less "hardcoded reproduction code (perfected over time)" and this case is one of seeing a problem, finding a tool to fix the problem.

[pfortuny]

The fact that it is 'hardcoded' does not diminish its value as 'intelligence'.

[LeBleu]

Yes, it does. If it is 'hardcoded', then the intelligence lies in whatever 'hardcoded' it, not in the entity following the 'hardcoding'. Genetic algorithms have a certain amount of intelligence, although slow and clumsy. The fact that the world's biggest genetic algorithm* can program a spider to build an elegant solution does not mean the spider itself is intelligent.

* If you treat the algorithm for spiders and beetles as the same... I strongly suspect that a significant portion of the algorithm is actually implemented within the genes. For example, control genes massively amplify the effect of small genetic changes, allowing creatures using them to evolve faster than those without.