A new study suggests that pigeons are capable of differentiating between good and bad art. Professor Shigeru Watanabe from Keio University in Japan taught pigeons to distinguish between good and bad paintings by giving them treats when they pecked at good paintings and withholding when they pecked at bad ones. (Read the Science Daily article about the study to see how "good" and "bad" were determined.) Once trained, the pigeons were given a batch of paintings to critique that included paintings they had already seen as well as new ones. The avian art critics not only successfully evaluated the paintings that had been used in the training, but they were also able to use their nascent skills to judge paintings they had never seen. Watanabe concludes:

Artistic endeavors have been long thought to be limited to humans, but this experiment shows that, with training, pigeons are capable of distinguishing between 'good' and 'bad' paintings. This research does not deal with advanced artistic judgments, but it shows that pigeons are able to acquire the ability to judge beauty similar to that of humans.

Oh, man. Most humans are incapable of advanced artistic judgments. This study endangers every human's right to a sense of superiority over the animals. If pigeons can critique our art, isn't it just a matter of time before they start thinking they're better than us? I'll be damned if I'm gonna let some uppity pigeon tell me that my painting sucks. This is just like those gorillas who know sign language. They think they're so great.

Well, if the animals are gonna try and act all human, then I'm gonna have to go animal on their asses. I'm gonna teach myself how to echolocate! Take that, animal kingdom!

* Critique created using The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator

Posted by Jessie Bluejay on Wednesday, July 01, 2009