Many years ago I drove truck on the weekends. I delivered cannery waste (pea pods, cauliflower leaves and ends, corn husks and cobs, etc...) to sheep ranches, dairies and feed lots.
I would arrive at the field and open the gate to drive into the field. If the sheep were close they would all run out the gate at the truck. I would put the truck in granny low and slowly inch along and the sheep would follow me back into the field. One sheep (the leader?) begin to run as fast as they could circling the truck with all of the other sheep following in a large circle as I drove across the field. In a vain attempt to gain access to the contents of the truck aka lunch. When I got the area of the field we were dropping the feed, I would stop the truck and get out. The sheep were still running around the truck but giving me a wide berth. I would open the back of the truck, turn on the wet kit and activate the hydraulic walking floor. Then I would walk back to the front of the truck, all the while the sheep were running around the truck, except for the 10 or 15 that could get to the feed that fell out the open door. I put it back into granny low and inched forward. The sheep continued to run around the truck but as I spread the feed gradually less sheep were making the full circuit as the smarter (relatively speaking of course) or quicker ones saw food and were able to begin eating.
This is the conclusion one quickly arrives to after having spent even just a small amount of time working in Livestock Ag, they seem like the ideal animal to exhibit the effective methods in Human breeding/gene selection for desirable traits to create a docile and stupid enough animal that is incredibly tasty when cooked and whose wool was once useful commodity for textile use; because by contrast goats are incredibly intelligent and agile that persists despite centuries of being livestock.
With that said, what does this title have to do with the article linked to which is titled:
Presence or absence of stabilizing Earth system feedbacks on different time scales
I think this is a good representation of how people comment on a topi based on the headline without reading the article, or even click on the link.
> Please accept my apologies. As you correctly noted, the paper linked here is
No need, I was just wondering if I was the only one to have clicked the link since the entire page just kept going on tangents about sheep when the link was about the study on climate change and I felt incapable of drawing any other conclusion. > >
> Going off-topic is not allowed on HN ?
I'm sure it is, and I'm guilty of it as well, but again I was just wondering if anyone bothered to click their link before dusting off their anecdotal stories about sheep's intelligence, or lack thereof.
>With that said, what does this title have to do with the article linked to which is titled:
>Presence or absence of stabilizing Earth system feedbacks on different time scales
Yup, I didn't click the link to read the article. Mostly on purpose. I have worked with livestock since a child and many of the "educated" have not. Am I an expert, probably not, but I usually know what not to do. Like imply sheep have cognitive intelligence.
I would arrive at the field and open the gate to drive into the field. If the sheep were close they would all run out the gate at the truck. I would put the truck in granny low and slowly inch along and the sheep would follow me back into the field. One sheep (the leader?) begin to run as fast as they could circling the truck with all of the other sheep following in a large circle as I drove across the field. In a vain attempt to gain access to the contents of the truck aka lunch. When I got the area of the field we were dropping the feed, I would stop the truck and get out. The sheep were still running around the truck but giving me a wide berth. I would open the back of the truck, turn on the wet kit and activate the hydraulic walking floor. Then I would walk back to the front of the truck, all the while the sheep were running around the truck, except for the 10 or 15 that could get to the feed that fell out the open door. I put it back into granny low and inched forward. The sheep continued to run around the truck but as I spread the feed gradually less sheep were making the full circuit as the smarter (relatively speaking of course) or quicker ones saw food and were able to begin eating.
Sheep are not intelligent.