I think you're right on point, Beaverdam - a learned behavior can only be "learned" where the animal is genetically predisposed to that type of learning. For example, you're not gonna teach a whitetail to split the atom, or dance an Irish jig, but they apparently do have the capacity/willingness to change their travel patterns to avoid danger. Is this a new thing, or have they always had that ability, but it just took this long to develop the kind of hunting pressure necessary to facilitate the behavioral change? I guess that's the crux of this discussion.

I'd say that if you could somehow prove that whitetail brain sizes have increased by 5% over the past couple thousand years -it would substantiate the increase in cognitive ability.
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Ilbow - I'm not saying that we should have first-hand evidence of whitetail evolving - I'm just asking if anyone is aware of any trends. I'm just interested in knowing more about what deer were, and what they're becoming.

You could see a trend or patternin fossilized remains from a million years ago. It's not rocket science to observe the skeletal remains from yesteryear and compare them to their present-day decendants. Just a side-by-side comparison would yield info regarding size, height, length, brain size, teeth, bone formations, etc...

I'm sure somebody, somewhere has looked at this stuff. It's what researchers do.