system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do fish eating birds have to understand refraction in order to catch fish?

Its fascinating humans have to understand refraction on the most basic scale to catch fish when looking into the water. Is it an inherent ability in other animals or a trial by error as they grow into an adult?
gpt
I think the question itself is kind of silly. We didn't have any understanding of refraction until optics were invented 1200 years ago. However, people still perceived and accounted for it. Similarly, most of us have no physical understanding of the gyroscopics that keeps a bike from falling over, yet anyone can learn to ride. 

The brains of birds are plastic, learning neural networks. They would 'teach' themselves how to catch fish based on past successes or failures, without 'understanding' refraction in any non-intuitive sense. Otherwise, they would starve.