Mixed Metaphor

One version of the AP starling story, attributed to Seth Borenstein, ends with a quote from Jeff Elman:

What the experiment shows is that language and animal cognition is a lot more complicated than scientists once thought and that there is no “single magic bullet” that separates man from beast, said Jeffrey Elman, a professor of cognitive science at UCSD, who was not part of the Gentner research team.

What a lovely self-refuting mixed metaphor. Surely a pretty reliable way to differentiate between human and beast, in cross-species encounters, is to ask who’s using a weapon to kill whom?