Citation very strongly required to back up this statement. I'm not aware of any evidence that this is the case, in fact its quite the opposite.
How does a young creature observe an elder doing something, and then copy it, without some form of thought occurring? It seems the elders are teaching the youth, and the youth are learning, but I'm not sure how that can happen without thinking.
I'm not an expert in brains. After taking a few casual courses I saw recommended here, and reading some of the books, I'm suspicious that our story about our own intelligence is somewhat oversold, and we may find that our intelligence is 99% mundane, custom-built automation and 1% story telling. But that story telling is pretty magical.
Buddhism and Modern Psychology
Happiness Hypothesis (which is more about brains than happiness)
Frankly, one of reasons I visit HN is to find these. ;)
Flattering aside, what fascinates me is the difference in thinking - a new approaches, not seen or thought by me.
In contrast, humans are arguably the only creatures in the universe that can think. Certainly we have never discovered a creature that can think better than a human. Thus it would be highly exciting if we discovered or created one.