# Humans are not smarter than animals, just "different"



## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

> Humans have been deceiving themselves for thousands of years that they're smarter than the rest of the animal kingdom, despite growing evidence to the contrary, according to University of Adelaide experts in evolutionary biology.
> 
> "For millennia, all kinds of authorities – from religion to eminent scholars – have been repeating the same idea ad nauseam, that humans are exceptional by virtue that they are the smartest in the animal kingdom," says Dr Arthur Saniotis, Visiting Research Fellow with the University's School of Medical Sciences.
> 
> "However, science tells us that animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings."



So we're not smarter and more intelligent than animals? Oh really? Let's list a few advantages humans have, then:

- Spoken and written language. This is really the defining difference between humans and animals
- Understanding concepts that no animal could possibly understand eg computers, Einstein's theory of relativity, maths and outer space to name just a few
- The massive intellectual and technological achievements achieved by man throughout millenia

It sometimes looks like (human) scientists have nothing better to do than spread fanciful theories. Read the rest at phys.org

Now, ask me if man is _better_ than animals and that becomes a totally different question...


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## Nordic (Dec 8, 2013)

Devils advocate speaking...
-Spoken language. Why do they need it if they have other possibly better ways of communicating?
-Understanding certain concepts. How do you know they do not?
-Massive intellectual and social achievements. How do you know that say the orca's have had massive intellectual and social achievements. Any achievement you could bring up only seems more important because it is relative to you and your perception. We don't tell orca's about our social achievements and they don't tell us if they had any.


Reason I brought up orca's is because of this interesting piece of human orca cooperation history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_whales_of_Eden,_Australia


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

qubit said:


> - Spoken and written language. This is really the defining difference between humans and animals
> - Understanding concepts that no animal could possibly understand eg computers, Einstein's theory of relativity, maths and outer space to name just a few
> - The massive intellectual and technological achievements achieved by man throughout millenia


-Virtually all social animals have a spoken language.  They don't write because they don't have opposable thumbs.  We know, for example, that specific rooster calls invoke specific responses from the hens.  The hens will also distrust the rooster if he "cried wolf" too many times.  We also know that wolves have a long range howl for finding each other when separated and if you mimic that sound, they'll howl back so you know where to find the pack.  We also know that orcas from different pods can't communicate with each other (assumed their languages are incompatible--kind of like the Native American tribes); it can cause miscommunication and violence towards the minority pod.  Orcas also have a long range call they do like wolves when one of their pod is missing.
-I think a lot of the larger mammals could understand complex concepts.  The problem is making them care enough to bother.
-The keyword there is "millennia."  Without centuries of past experience, neither of the above (writing and complex concepts) would have occurred.  If Newton didn't establish the fundamentals of physics, what's the odds of Einstein being interested in such things?  Pretty remote.

Orcas are very intelligent animals and I think we vastly underestimate them.  They are hugely limited by their environment and apendages though.


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## micropage7 (Dec 8, 2013)

i guess yes and no, they develop their own language and concept so do we
we just inch better of developing it


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## Melvis (Dec 8, 2013)

The day that my cat makes me dinner will be the day ill believe all that crap.

I thing my cat is smarter then me is in taking a dump in the kitty litter, no way I can do it that well and cover up lol


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## pigulici (Dec 8, 2013)

First you must define the word "smarter", after that you can make a real comparison...from history you can see that the people who govern us(the president, the pope,th tribal head, etc) keep told us that we(people) are the best of the best, and the fauna it is too low under us, and we like to be told that, and the history(now science) keep "show" us that the difference between us and fauna it is less than we want to see, some animals are better than us in some area(like smell at dogs), even the plant are better than us in some areas, so what is for sure it is that we are vainglorious and we like that...even if it hurt us...


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## GreiverBlade (Dec 8, 2013)

fresh news tho, i mean how come they think about that now ... its common sense to know our place as just another animal on earth ... different yes, yet the most destructive animal known, if that is being smarter i don't know what is not, of course its not generality, but still i rejoin james888 argument, as for the 3 argument you mention, he is right. also we don't know if animal don't understand theory and concept better than us, as they can't talk "human language" but they have their own languages.

many different opinion yet no right one


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## Nordic (Dec 8, 2013)

Its all relative


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

There's some people trying to understand some animal languages but the more complex mammals like whales, we're fairly clueless.  Put bluntly, we don't know what they comprehend until we can ask them in their language.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the whales (especially social ones like orcas) have stories passed through generations millennia old not unlike humans.  We'll never know until we can understand them though and that's a long ways off.


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## Jetster (Dec 8, 2013)

Brian on Family guy is pretty smart


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

And dead.


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## AsRock (Dec 8, 2013)

Human race is smarter but it don't act it ( Never will either ) making errors that only do us good which in the end pretty much don't then we repeat.  Tell ya what though this world be a much better place without us and were more of a mistake than any thing.



FordGT90Concept said:


> And dead.



I believe he's making a come back before Christmas although i am not for if it's going be a perm thing but people are pissed at them for it and actually making partitions to get him back lol.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

I suspect it is a permanent thing.  Macfarlane probably wanted to reduce his workload at the show and that's the most reasonable way to do it.  As long as the numbers for the show don't plummet, he'll stay gone.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 8, 2013)

about the computers... my crow did understand when i was playing or when i was studying on the computer.
it also had a deep interest in racing games for some reason.


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

I'm surprised at how many people are sticking up for animals being smart like us when they're not and I think this is because they're confusing two things.

Animals may be better at particular tasks, whether it's detecting smells (dogs) swimming, digging or whatever. What they don't have is the power of _reason_ in the way that we do, even if they can figure out certain things such as opening doors etc. Also, if I remember correctly, only certain animals like chimps are self aware. Animals like cats and dogs are not self aware and it's easy to see this by their reactions to their reflections in the mirror, as cute as that may be.

And yes, killing off Brian was a travesty.


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## de.das.dude (Dec 8, 2013)

no they are not smarter... but what i am saying is they are smarter than what most people think.


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## Jetster (Dec 8, 2013)

I trust my dogs opinion about people. But he doesn't like the UPS driver. I think its because he doesn't bring him anything


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## Frick (Dec 8, 2013)

How is smartness (??) defined? I don't think any animal is as smart as humans as such, but on the other hand they have their niches. Humans are sort of above that.

If they use this as an excuse to tell people to treat animals better I'm all for it.


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## techtard (Dec 8, 2013)

In some ways we are smarter due to the way we were forced to evolve our intelligence to survive. For a long time, we were small, weak, stupid hominids. Having opposable thumbs enabled us to create and use tools. Mutations in our throat structure allowed us to develop complex language. Which enabled us to become fierce pack hunters, granting us access to high quality animal protien and further enhancing our size, strength, intelligence and then further down the road lead to civilization.

We are not smarter than animals. We are just very smart animals. 

Some of the other animals have evolved to occupy their niche in the ecosystem and are extremely 'smart' at what they need to do. They may not understand abstract thought the way we do, and may not be good at the things that we think define intelligence. Their thought processes would be totally alien to us even if we developed a supercomputer that allowed us to understand them.


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

de.das.dude said:


> no they are not smarter... but what i am saying is they are smarter than what most people think.



Agreed. Take the cleverness of parrots as an example. They can certainly figure out a thing or two. 



Frick said:


> How is smartness (??) defined? I don't think any animal is as smart as humans as such, but on the other hand they have their niches. Humans are sort of above that.
> 
> *If they use this as an excuse to tell people to treat animals better I'm all for it.*


+1. I detest animal cruelty too and despise the people who dish it out.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

qubit said:


> Animals may be better at particular tasks, whether it's detecting smells (dogs) swimming, digging or whatever. What they don't have is the power of _reason_ in the way that we do, even if they can figure out certain things such as opening doors etc.


Incorrect (dog demonstrates deduction):








We have no way to prove or disprove if an animal, like Chaser, reasons internally before making a decision.  Judging by his indecision, I think that's evidence that he does (it can't be that one, it can't be that one, it must be this one I don't know, but is it really?).

You underestimate animals.  If a dog with a brain that small can deduce information that it is lacking, what do you think something with a brain as big as an entire human being can deduce?  Case in point, we know elephants are extremely intelligent but research into how intelligent is lacking.

I like to think of animals as autistic people.  They have intelligence but they show it in ways that is outside of the norm (for humans anyway).  Are autistic people dumb?  No, some can do stuff "normal" people simply can't (like memorize an entire song and play it back perfectly on first hearing).  They just don't fit the paradigm of demonstrating-scientific-knowledge-makes-you-"smart" bias.  Before "science" as a concept was established, how do you think people developed their bias towards "smart" people?  In the cave man days, I wouldn't be surprised if it was synonymous with brave.  One can't discover fire without likely getting burned first, for example.


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

That's a very bright dog, I agree and was nice to see. However, we know that dogs can distinguish between word sounds - as opposed to truly understanding word meanings - and can be trained like this. This just takes it to a higher level, like someone with a higher IQ for example, but it's essentially the same thing. The fact this dog could figure out the unknown Darwin doll was something I hadn't seen before, however. Yes, the dog is reasoning here, but it's still at a very simple level nowhere near what humans can do, so my argument holds. Show me an animal that can reason anywhere near like a human and I'll reconsider my viewpoint.

Also, I guess we have another "unfair" advantage over animals: we live a damned sight longer than most of them, giving us the ability to learn so much more. For a cat or a dog, it's basically 10-15 years and then it's all over for the poor thing and smaller animals such as mice, only a couple of years. That's a very fast learning rate to squeeze it into such a short time span.

I see that for some reason ABC retardedly doesn't like to embed its videos on TPU.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

You're going to have to define what "reason anywhere near like a human" means, beyond the poor grammar.   Are you implying emotion?  I'd argue that too.

I'd argue that Chaser reasoned and that your argument is null and void.  I would concede that you probably couldn't teach the concept of the decimal system to Chaser but since when did quantifying anything really matter to anyone except humans (and even then only because we trade--a distinctly human thing as far as I know)?

But there's the point!  Whales and elephants do live as long as humans do (if not substantially longer)!  There's so little research into them beyond acknowledgement that they are indeed very intelligent.  Case in point: elephants deliberately avoid mice but no one can definitively answer the "why?"  Could it be that they respect the life that the mouse represents?  That they don't want to take a life if they don't need to?  Orcas exhibit similar behaviors in captivity.  They're friendly giants, unless provoked or mentally...in a bad place (vengeful, frustrated, etc.).  Even domesticated dogs and cats behave similarly.


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

Yes, I'm talking about the sort of reasoning that allows us to have a conversation here over the internet on a computer that we've built, with all the advanced concepts we must understand in order to allow us to achieve this. Really, all the points I made in my OP and more. I'd like to see animals send someone to the moon or a space probe to the furthest reaches of the solar system. The list just goes on and on. I don't see what's to disagree here?

And I'll give you poor grammar!  _<qubit does a punch and judy on poor Ford>_


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

I'd argue the reason why we get to this point and no other animals did (that's a pretty major assumption by the way) is because we're the only ones that always walk upright (freeing our hands) and have opposable thumbs (to manipulate objects).  If humans never happened, what's the odds of some other animal evolving these advantages and reaching this point in millions of years?  I'd say pretty good.  We got lucky but according to our genetic makeup, the luck almost ran out many times.

Then again, Chaser demonstrated the fundamental reasoning all computer technology works on: binary; yes or no: if object might be Darwin, yes; if object is known not to be Darwin, no.


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## Jetster (Dec 8, 2013)

You could bring in the fact of the size of the cerebral cortex to explain the advancement in the human being. But its a fairly large and clear gap between humans and animals. Evolution does not clear this up entirely. Even Darwin said that. Maybe a higher being at work here?


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

I'm just going to leave this here...
Are Whales Smarter Than We Are?
TL;DR, we don't know.

This little guy (tree shrew) has a bigger brain/body mass than humans do:


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I'd argue the reason why we get to this point and no other animals did (that's a pretty major assumption by the way) is because we're the only ones that always walk upright (freeing our hands) and have opposable thumbs (to manipulate objects).  If humans never happened, what's the odds of some other animal evolving these advantages and reaching this point in millions of years?  I'd say pretty good.  We got lucky but according to our genetic makeup, the luck almost ran out many times.
> 
> Then again, Chaser demonstrated the fundamental reasoning all computer technology works on: binary; yes or no: if object might be Darwin, yes; if object is known not to be Darwin, no.



I do agree, with your first paragraph especially. I don't think anyone truly knows how and why we evolved our intelligence the way we did, but it seems a pretty reasonable premise and I've heard scientists on documentaries put forward these ideas. Who's to say that if we weren't here that chimps and apes wouldn't evolve our level of intelligence and perhaps more in a couple of million years? Yeah, I'll buy that. 

As far as Chaser goes, yes that was reasoning all right. Also, think about the reputation that foxes have for being wiley? You gotta have reasoning skills for that - and some devious ones, too.


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## radrok (Dec 8, 2013)

Can we really be categorized as smarter than animals considering how much self destructive we are?


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## Kreij (Dec 8, 2013)

As several people in this thread have stated, without a definition of the term “smarter” the whole premise of the thread lacks any sort of objectivity from a scientific standpoint. That, however, has never stopped us from discussing things based on our own views and opinions and is unlikely to do so anytime soon. 

Do animals make decisions? Absolutely. Animals make decisions constantly. Whether those decisions are based on instinct, or some form of learned behavior, could be up for discussion, but that must be taken in a case-by-case basis and is the same with humans.

I worked for many years training dogs, and a great deal of it involved behavioral modification.
The one thing that dogs lack, that humans do not, is the ability to chain together logical associations (or assumptions) based upon previous experiences (memory). Here is something I ran into with dog owners on a somewhat regular basis when helping them modify their dog's behavior.

A)  Fido gets into the trash and makes a mess when the owner is gone.
B)  The owner comes home and finds the mess.
C)  The owner reprimands the dog for making a mess.
D)  Dog slinks away after being scolded, so owner assumes Fido “knew he did something wrong.”

This is completely false. Fido does not, and never will, make the association that A caused C, and therefore resulted in his response in D. All Fido knows is that if garbage is on the floor when his owner gets home he will get reprimanded. Many owners argued (and had completely convinced themselves) that Fido knew he did wrong due to his resultant actions. The simple way to prove them wrong was to ask them to call Fido over to the garbage and knock it over in front of him. Fido would ALWAYS slink away knowing he would be reprimanded for the spilled garbage even though, in this case, he was not the cause of it. All Fido knows is that B results in C, and he never makes the logical leap of association that A was the catalyst in the event which resulted in the scolding.

One, of course, can train the dog to stay out of the garbage by reprimanding it when caught in the act (or by setting a trap in the garbage to dissuade the behavior), but that is by no means the same as thinking the dog actually is associating its behavior with the outcome in a chain of events.

Is this sort of logical associative chaining of events exclusive to humans? I have no idea, but it is rather thought provoking and can easily be tested with your favorite domesticated furball.

As for humans being self destructive, all animals have the capacity to kill each other. Usually it involves a territorial dispute, but there have been cases of seemingly random, or wanton, killings with animals too. Due to our ability to use tools we’ve just become a lot more efficient at it.


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## BiggieShady (Dec 8, 2013)

There was this experiment, I couldn't find a link for the life of me, the experiment was about young (human) kids and birds (crows, I think) and the food dispenser that they encounter for the first time.
Food dispenser had a button and a simple mechanism that was visible (open box that shows the lever in the insides of the machine).
With mechanism visible birds and kids all knew how to get food from the dispenser.
With new set of kids and birds, they closed the box, and the machine became just a food storage with a button on it.
Birds were clueless and kids had no problems getting food.
This shows that imagination is the key - explaining things with "magic", accepting it and acting upon it while willing to experiment - the key human traits in this case. Birds failed when there was no clear insight to function of a button.
Essentially we have brains that tend to push on even when we don't understand some of it, because everything not understood can be explained using remarkable concept of "magic" that only humans have.


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## BarbaricSoul (Dec 8, 2013)

All animals possess a certain level of intelligence, but all breeds of animals not are as intelligent as all the other breeds of animals.

For example, here is a simple test for people that own a cat and a dog. Get a treat for the dog and show it to him or her. Leave the room with the treat leaving the animal in the room. Leave the treat in the other room and go back to the dog. Generally, the dog will realize you had the treat when you left, and didn't have it when you came back, so they will go to where you went and look for the treat. Now do the same thing with a cat. When you come back without the treat, the cat normally will just assume the treat is just simply gone, and will not know enough to go look for it like the dog.



Kreij said:


> As several people in this thread have stated, without a definition of the term “smarter” the whole premise of the thread lacks any sort of objectivity from a scientific standpoint. That, however, has never stopped us from discussing things based on our own views and opinions and is unlikely to do so anytime soon.
> 
> Do animals make decisions? Absolutely. Animals make decisions constantly. Whether those decisions are based on instinct, or some form of learned behavior, could be up for discussion, but that must be taken in a case-by-case basis and is the same with humans.
> 
> ...



I can not agree with you Kreij, and it's because of this. My last dog, a pit/boxer mix named Nikita, most certainly understood how A resulted in C. When Nikita was still young, one day I left a half a pizza on the counter top as I walked over to my neighbor's house. When I returned, the pizza was gone and the cardboard it was sitting on was in the middle of the floor. Well I went to Nikita's ass with that piece of cardboard. Granted, your not going to hurt a 95lb pit/boxer mix with a 16" piece of cardboard, but I definitely got my point across. Nikita was less than 2 years old when that happened. She lived to be 14 years old. From that day forward, it didn't matter what it was, if it was not on the floor or in her dish, she knew it was not hers. I could leave a juicy steak on the coffee table at her nose level, and she would not even pay it any attention. But once it was on the floor, it was hers', and she knew it.

God I miss her.


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## Kreij (Dec 8, 2013)

BarbaricSoul said:


> I can not agree with you Kreij, and it's because of this. My last dog, a pit/boxer mix named Nikita, most certainly understood how A resulted in C. When Nikita was still young, one day I left a half a pizza on the counter top as I walked over to my neighbor's house. When I returned, the pizza was gone and the cardboard it was sitting on was in the middle of the floor. Well I went to Nikita's ass with that piece of cardboard. Granted, your not going to hurt a 95lb pit/boxer mix with a 16" piece of cardboard, but I definitely got my point across. Nikita was less than 2 years old when that happened. She lived to be 14 years old. From that day forward, it didn't matter what it was, if it was not on the floor or in her dish, she knew it was not hers. I could leave a juicy steak on the coffee table at her nose level, and she would not even pay it any attention. But once it was on the floor, it was hers', and she knew it.



I still think that your assessment of what Nikita "understood" may be a bit anthropomorphic. Did Nikita realize that what she did was wrong, or did you just teach her that what was on the counter/table was off limits (which could have been accomplished without the dog ever having taken the food)?
Since there is no way to test the theory anymore it is a moot point, but it's always interesting to ponder.



> God I miss her.



I've lost many dogs over the years and they were all unique in their own way. I miss mine as well.


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## 15th Warlock (Dec 8, 2013)

I don't think animals are as smart as humans, however, I do believe they are not just dumb creatures with no feelings and incapable of any degree of reasoning like some people like to think of them.

Videos pop up all the time showing people beating the crap out of animals at slaughterhouses because the were taught these creatures can't feel anything and it's OK to abuse something that will end up as a hamburger or tri tip....

Chefs have always said crustaceans don't feel pain and think that justifies cutting them in half while still alive, try and raise even the most tiny shrimp or crab in an aquarium and watch how they interact with each other and even recognize feeding time and how to avoid messing with other fish in the aquarium to avoid harm, then tell me these creatures are incapable of complex behavior. Sure they won't build a fusion reactor out of sand and coral anytime soon, but that doesn't imply these creatures are just moving decorations in your aquarium, not smart but certainly able to feel pain or recognize danger.

Like others have mentioned, whoever's had a dog as part of their family can attest to witnessing emotion beyond sheer instinct in these loyal creatures, after sharing many years with my old dog, a boxer, I  could tell if he was sad, happy, curious, or had done something bad just by looking at him for a second, my ex wife always said I was crazy for saying I could tell how my dog felt just by seeing his face, she said to her he always looked the same.

This dog could tell he was looking at his own reflection in a mirror, and was so smart that every time I started packing to go study abroad he would try and grab my clothes from me to keep me from leaving, he never did that while I was just folding my laundry or anything, one time I found he put his favorite blanket in one of my suitcases while I didn't notice and the last couple of times I even had to force him out the suitcase as he would jump into it as soon as I opened it to pack my things, I think he wanted to follow me even if that meant traveling in one of my suitcases! 

When I moved to America I had to leave my dog with my parents and he passed away while staying with them, I brought my ex with me and after many years of enduring her crazy behavior and rampant paranoia I divorced her, and she kept the house I worked so hard for, I  should've brought my dog with me instead of her, he would have never asked me to give him my house 

Anyway, yes I agree animals are just different from us but that doesn't make them just stupid creatures with no capacity for complex behavior.


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## Peter1986C (Dec 8, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> -Virtually all social animals have a spoken language.  They don't write because they don't have opposable thumbs.  We know, for example, that specific rooster calls invoke specific responses from the hens.  The hens will also distrust the rooster if he "cried wolf" too many times.  We also know that wolves have a long range howl for finding each other when separated and if you mimic that sound, they'll howl back so you know where to find the pack.  We also know that orcas from different pods can't communicate with each other (assumed their languages are incompatible--kind of like the Native American tribes); it can cause miscommunication and violence towards the minority pod.  Orcas also have a long range call they do like wolves when one of their pod is missing.
> - I think a lot of the larger mammals could understand complex concepts.  The problem is making them care enough to bother.
> -The keyword there is "millennia."  Without centuries of past experience, neither of the above (writing and complex concepts) would have occurred.  If Newton didn't establish the fundamentals of physics, what's the odds of Einstein being interested in such things?  Pretty remote.
> 
> Orcas are very intelligent animals and I think we vastly underestimate them.  They are hugely limited by their environment and apendages though.



As far as I know (unless I misunderstood the linguistics lectures I had), _language_ is giving humans the ability to communicate beyond the usual _signals_ like "predator!", "Mating time", etc.; making it possible to construct more complex meaning and making us able to talk about contra-factual things (e.g. when hypothesising) and we know concepts like past and future. As far as we know, most animal species can not communicate or reason about things that are existing in the "here and now" timeframe. Plus, have you ever noticed a chimp or dog pass on the skill humans thought them, to another member of their species? I didn't, nor do I know anyone else who did. Animals have (sometimes very elaborate) sets of signs available to them, but it is AFAIK not officially recognised as _language_. Maybe further research into crows and certain dolphins (Orcas are dolphins) may bring more nuance in this, but for now there is no proof (by my knowledge) that those animals can use their sets of signs the way we do. Especially since animals don't seem to care enough to bother, as you already stated.



FordGT90Concept said:


> You're going to have to define what "reason anywhere near like a human" means, beyond the poor grammar.   Are you implying emotion?  I'd argue that too.
> 
> I'd argue that Chaser reasoned and that your argument is null and void.  I would concede that you probably couldn't teach the concept of the decimal system to Chaser but since when did quantifying anything really matter to anyone except humans (and even then only because we trade--a distinctly human thing as far as I know)?
> 
> But there's the point!  Whales and elephants do live as long as humans do (if not substantially longer)!  There's so little research into them beyond acknowledgement that they are indeed very intelligent.  Case in point: elephants deliberately avoid mice but no one can definitively answer the "why?"  Could it be that they respect the life that the mouse represents?  That they don't want to take a life if they don't need to?  Orcas exhibit similar behaviors in captivity.  They're friendly giants, unless provoked or mentally...in a bad place (vengeful, frustrated, etc.).  Even domesticated dogs and cats behave similarly.



There are certain people (living in certain very remote and isolated tribes) who are unaware of the decimal system, and as such have no words for them in their native language. So your comment about trade is one I could agree with (although there probably have been more reasons than that for humans to start counting and do maths).



Kreij said:


> As several people in this thread have stated, without a definition of the term “smarter” the whole premise of the thread lacks any sort of objectivity from a scientific standpoint. That, however, has never stopped us from discussing things based on our own views and opinions and is unlikely to do so anytime soon.
> 
> Do animals make decisions? Absolutely. Animals make decisions constantly. Whether those decisions are based on instinct, or some form of learned behavior, could be up for discussion, but that must be taken in a case-by-case basis and is the same with humans.
> 
> ...



^  ^


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## qubit (Dec 8, 2013)

Kreij said:


> As several people in this thread have stated, without a definition of the term “smarter” the whole premise of the thread lacks any sort of objectivity from a scientific standpoint. That, however, has never stopped us from discussing things based on our own views and opinions and is unlikely to do so anytime soon.
> 
> Do animals make decisions? Absolutely. Animals make decisions constantly. Whether those decisions are based on instinct, or some form of learned behavior, could be up for discussion, but that must be taken in a case-by-case basis and is the same with humans.
> 
> ...



I generally agree with your ABCD example, but I'm not 100% sure due to my own experiences. My mum is excellent with animals, got the magic touch with them and she explained the same thing to me about animals not making the association from A to D.

We used to have a dog and various cats and when one of them would do something naughty while we were out (pee/poop on the floor, tear apart the loo paper (a kitty favourite)) when we came back, the little buggers sure acted guilty! This was even before we knew what they'd done to get upset about it.

Typically, the dog would sort of hang his head be some what quiet and look all submissive instead of jumping around like a deranged thing happy to see us when we returned.

The guilty cat (whichever one it was) would slink away, giving us sideways glances as he went. It was all too cute for words of course, lol. We never went balistic with them either, like some people tend to do and generally just let them get over their guilty faces.

So, do they understand A to D? My experiences suggest so, but this was also no controlled study, so I won't state it definitively.



BarbaricSoul said:


> God I miss her.



I know _exactly_ where you're coming from. We lost our (slightly psycho) ginger kitty way back in '89 at the age of 13 and I still miss him  a lot, to this day. I didn't feel so strongly about all the others, although I loved them dearly too and do miss them as well. I could sort of accept their passing better, I guess.



15th Warlock said:


> I don't think animals are as smart as humans, however, I do believe they are not just dumb creatures with no feelings and incapable of any degree of reasoning like some people like to think of them.
> 
> Videos pop up all the time showing people beating the crap out of animals at slaughterhouses because the were taught these creatures can't feel anything and it's OK to abuse something that will end up as a hamburger or tri tip....
> 
> ...



So.Flipping.Well.Said!

Animals have emotions equally as strong as ours (maybe more in some cases) and the full range of them, too - along with the associated complex behaviour. That people use this pathetic excuse to be cruel to animals is despicable and shouldn't go unpunished. One can tell _at a glance_ that animals have emotions and feelings, without having to conduct any kind of scientific study or living with them.


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## BarbaricSoul (Dec 8, 2013)

Kreij said:


> I still think that your assessment of what Nikita "understood" may be a bit anthropomorphic. Did Nikita realize that what she did was wrong, or did you just teach her that what was on the counter/table was off limits (which could have been accomplished without the dog ever having taken the food)?
> Since there is no way to test the theory anymore it is a moot point, but it's always interesting to ponder.



I did have 14 years with her. That was but one example. I do feel she understood to some degree, not to the degree a human understands, but more than most canines. She was very easy to train and once trained, the training stayed with her though out her life. She was very intelligent for a canine, a lot more than I see in most dogs. She was one of those dogs that you feel like you could talk to and she would understand to some degree.


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## rtwjunkie (Dec 8, 2013)

Most zoologists I believe, hold the opinion that the whale family at least may be as smart as humans.  They have a highly evolved and complex language, large brains, and social skills that rival our own, but because they lack thumbs and feet, and because we don't entirely understand their various languages, it is hard to know for sure at this point.  Beyond that though, I would have to agree with qubit that most members of the animal kingdom don't come close to us in intelligence.  But let me leave you with this:  who invented the definition of intelligence?  The animals that see themselves at the top of the pyramid....humans.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 8, 2013)

Kreij said:


> This is completely false. Fido does not, and never will, make the association that A caused C, and therefore resulted in his response in D. All Fido knows is that if garbage is on the floor when his owner gets home he will get reprimanded. Many owners argued (and had completely convinced themselves) that Fido knew he did wrong due to his resultant actions. The simple way to prove them wrong was to ask them to call Fido over to the garbage and knock it over in front of him. Fido would ALWAYS slink away knowing he would be reprimanded for the spilled garbage even though, in this case, he was not the cause of it. All Fido knows is that B results in C, and he never makes the logical leap of association that A was the catalyst in the event which resulted in the scolding.


Bare in mind that dogs rate moderate on the intelligence spectrum in the first place.  Just because dogs don't make the "A caused C" connection doesn't mean there isn't an animal species out there that does.  One thing we do know is that dogs are often better at reading human emotions than even humans are.  That's a remarkable thing.




Chevalr1c said:


> Plus, have you ever noticed a chimp or dog pass on the skill humans thought them, to another member of their species?


The first problem with that is differentiating what is learned from genetic memory.  Bear cubs, for example, have to know how to fish to survive.  The question is, do they learn it from their mothers or is it passed through genetic code?  I'd wager the mothers teach it to their offspring.  The mothers even show them where the best fishing spots are too.  Of course, humans pass on a lot more information to our offspring than animals do but regardless, I believe there is substantial evidence they (especially mammals) teach vital life lessons to their offspring.



Chevalr1c said:


> Animals have (sometimes very elaborate) sets of signs available to them, but it is AFAIK not officially recognised as _language_.


Language is simply expressing thoughts or feelings to others.  We know animals convey feelings of being threatened, for example.  What we don't know is if they communicate thoughts that aren't related to survival.


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## Peter1986C (Dec 9, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> The first problem with that is differentiating what is learned from genetic memory.  Bear cubs, for example, have to know how to fish to survive.  The question is, do they learn it from their mothers or is it passed through genetic code?  I'd wager the mothers teach it to their offspring.  The mothers even show them where the best fishing spots are too.  Of course, humans pass on a lot more information to our offspring than animals do but regardless, I believe there is substantial evidence they animals (especially mammals) teach vital life lessons to their offspring.



Read please, I was writing specifically about stuff _humans taught them_. What you write about is all obvious stuff.



FordGT90Concept said:


> Language is simply expressing thoughts or feelings to others.  We know animals convey feelings of being threatened, for example.  What we don't know is if they communicate thoughts that aren't related to survival.



See this article on language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language. I know it is but Wikipedia, but still it sums things up nicely enough.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2013)

Chevalr1c said:


> Read please, I was writing specifically about stuff _humans taught them_. What you write about is all obvious stuff.


Humans don't teach animals things that are useful to them so they don't pass it on and I wouldn't expect them to.  It would be an interesting, long term experiment to try though.




Chevalr1c said:


> See this article on language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language. I know it is but Wikipedia, but still it sums things up nicely enough.


This is the most appropriate article at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

The one you linked to is specific to humans.


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## DayKnight (Dec 9, 2013)

qubit said:


> So we're not smarter and more intelligent than animals? Oh really? Let's list a few advantages humans have, then:
> 
> - Spoken and written language. This is really the defining difference between humans and animals



Um... no. Thank You.


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## qubit (Dec 9, 2013)

DayKnight said:


> Um... no. Thank You.


If you're gonna say no, then you have to back it up in some way...


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## Peter1986C (Dec 9, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Humans don't teach animals things that are useful to them so they don't pass it on and I wouldn't expect them to.  It would be an interesting, long term experiment to try though.


Agreeing to last phrase.



FordGT90Concept said:


> This is the most appropriate article at Wikipedia:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language
> 
> The one you linked to is specific to humans.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Dec 9, 2013)

I think most people are arguing for a genuine intelligence, when there is none.  Other animals are not as smart as humans, but not because of some of these arguments.  Let's take a look at them.

Language:
All animals have means by which they communicate.  Those that are not sociable have warnings (think rattlesnake), those that are sociable have complex ways to signal one another.  Let's look at an ant.  Arguably, the common ant is stupid.  It communicates via pheremones and other chemical indicators, which in the broadest sense is a language.  Moving upward, dogs are pack animals.  They can communicate information via a multitude of sounds, and can also leave chemical indications.  Greater apes, man included, have taken one step forward.  They can communicate with sounds, gestures, and chemicals.  Developing a written language is a rather substantial leap forward, but let's be realistic.  Language does not denote any great intelligence.

Learned Behaviors:
I'm not even sure why this is an argument.  Learning behaviors is simple, and something we've been able to demonstrate in single celled organisms.  A painful or, barring the faculties to sense pain, damaging sensation will cause an organism not to repeat the action.  Think about a paramecium utilizing its tail to move to more suitable locations to feed.  Dogs might be interesting on an emotional level, but they're pack animals.  We like to endow them with intelligence, but their behaviors are learned.  Doing X causes Y, which causes an undesirable stimulus.  Learned behaviors aren't a particularly good sign of intelligence.



What does denote intelligence?  There's one word that denotes intelligence, MATH.  It isn't sexy, glamorous, or even anything that will draw rooms full of people.  Math is the only thing that denotes intelligence.  What I'm proposing sounds foolish, and you can counter it with real world examples, no?  Try me.

S) But it has been proven that crows can count.
A) Crows can do simple single digit addition and subtraction.  They have the concept of nothing and plurality, but there is a limitation to how many operations they can perform.
S) But computers do math faster than humans.  Doesn't that mean computers are smarter than humans?
A) Not currently.  A computer can process a mathematical operation extremely quickly, but it doesn't have any ability to comprehend what it has done.  A human being can understand what the value of PI represents, and a computer can give it to you.  Whenever computers begin to show understanding of why they are doing math, rather than a flat answer to a question, we'll be knocked off the top of the intelligence ladder.  Until then, it's good to be king.
S) Insects and other animals have shown understanding of mathematical concepts well in advance of humanity.  For example, the hexagonal pattern of bee hives is the most effective repeating geometrical storage shape possible.
A) Another one word answer; evolution.  Animals that spend less energy on the containers, and more on getting the resources, survive better.  Every single natural animal adaptation is brought on by the pressures of evolution.  Let's say you start without a pattern.  You waste 30% of your energy building the storage structure, while the guy using squares only waster 27%.  That 3% increase in available energy allows you to reproduce more frequently, and your offspring will do what you did.  The same is true for one clever little offspring that uses hexagons, who only expends 21% of their energy of construction.  Eventually, the hexagon is the only pattern that appears, because they require the least energy to produce.  Millenia later a human observes the hexagon, manages to prove mathematically that the hexagon is the most efficient storage pattern, and it looks like you're intelligent.  This argument for intelligence might work, assuming that you believe in intelligent design rather than evolution.

Barring all of this, you can ask one question to determine if animals are intelligent or not.  Assuming that an asteroid is headed for the Earth, who has even the remotest chance of saving the planet?  An entire stadium full of dolphins, orcas, dogs, and octopi aren't going to be able to do anything.  Humanity, utilizing their intelligence via the application of math and science, have a remote chance of saving life on our planet.  It isn't a particularly good bet, but I'd put my money on NASA before I'd put it with any other member of the animal kingdom.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2013)

Comprehending math isn't math, it's reasoning.  If you place one apple next to another, reasoning dictates that there are now two.  If someone or something takes one way, one can reason that there is no only one left.  Mammals especially can reason so by your metric, that makes them more intelligent than computers.  But no, that isn't right: computers are only as intelligent as the code it was given to process.  Computers, thus, can be as intelligent as the individual that programmed it.  They have hardware limitations just like humans do.  AIs are already under development and likely in use on black projects.  The amount of sheer data computers can handle makes humans look stupid and slow.  Virtually all advancements in the last 30 years were derived from computers in one way or another.  But I'm getting off topic...

Animals can't do anything against an asteroid and, truth be told, humans aren't going to fare much better.  Let's look at an Earthly example instead: many babies that have quit breathing have been saved by dogs and some even by cats.  They weren't trained to do that.  You could call it instincts; I'd call it intelligence.

You use math as an example...explain this one:








Yes, it's evolutionary but I'd love to see a human try to do that unassisted.


I think the thread title has it right.  Humans are good at some things (using tools to make better tools, for example) but we absolute suck at a lot of other things (e.g. like Peregrine Falcon diving and attacking much larger birds in mid-flight--amazing reaction times).


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## phanbuey (Dec 9, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> -Virtually all social animals have a spoken language.  They don't write because they don't have opposable thumbs.
> 
> Orcas are very intelligent animals and I think we vastly underestimate them.  They are hugely limited by their environment and apendages though.



There are many species of monkeys and gorillas that have opposable thumbs that do not write, i think it has to do more with the way the brain is developed rather than appendages in their case.

I read the article, and it's pretty weak.  "Animals are smart because they can 'communicate' by smell, and can yell across canopies in the jungle" ... uh ok - I don't think that qualifies.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2013)

phanbuey said:


> There are many species of monkeys and gorillas that have opposable thumbs that do not write, i think it has to do more with the way the brain is developed rather than appendages in their case.


Great Apes have opposable thumbs but aren't particularly intelligent.  Old world monkeys, however, would be perfect for an experiment involving writing and observing if they attempt to pass that skill on to offspring.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Dec 9, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Comprehending math isn't math, it's reasoning.  If you place one apple next to another, reasoning dictates that there are now two.  If someone or something takes one way, one can reason that there is no only one left.  Mammals especially can reason so by your metric, that makes them more intelligent than computers.  But no, that isn't right: computers are only as intelligent as the code it was given to process.  Computers, thus, can be as intelligent as the individual that programmed it.  They have hardware limitations just like humans do.  AIs are already under development and likely in use on black projects.  The amount of sheer data computers can handle makes humans look stupid and slow.  Virtually all advancements in the last 30 years were derived from computers in one way or another.  But I'm getting off topic...
> 
> Animals can't do anything against an asteroid and, truth be told, humans aren't going to fare much better.  Let's look at an Earthly example instead: many babies that have quit breathing have been saved by dogs and some even by cats.  They weren't trained to do that.  You could call it instincts; I'd call it intelligence.
> 
> ...



You are conflating intelligence with a skill set.  That is not comparing like things.


My explanation for the fox is simple.  Environmental pressures have made it evolutionarily favorable to have acute hearing.  Magnetic detection isn't anything new either, as birds have independently evolved the same faculties.  If conflating natural abilities to intelligence were a viable comparison, the most intelligent thing on the planet would be a water bear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade).  The Tardigrade can survive in vacuum, without water, and enough radiation to make us humans a steaming pile of mush.


There is no reasoning involved in number crunching, as you astutely pointed out.  This is why computers are not intelligent.  A point that I thought I made clear when I stated "...A computer can process a mathematical operation extremely quickly, but it doesn't have any ability to comprehend what it has done...."  It is not a point that is likely to be valid forever, but conjecturing about what AI will be is avarice. 

Simple math was also covered.  For brevity; parrot sees 6 people enter a room, 5 leave, they know 1 remains.  Crow sees 7 people enter a barn, 6 people leave, they act as though everyone is gone.  I cannot find the study for crows, but the same logic applies.  The ability to count to 6 is an interesting quirk, but only having simple addition and subtraction available for 6 entities isn't stretching beyond the realm of a party trick.


We have been programed to see our traits in the world around us.  People love cats, because they share body proportions with our young.  People like dogs, because they are pack animals which were bred to suit our needs.  People project personalities and intelligence into animals because seeing those features in other beings is how we make sense of our world.  While I may think my dog is intelligent and loving (and which dog owner can really say otherwise?), that doesn't bestow any actual intelligence.  The understanding of math, which is applied via science and technology, is what makes humans intelligent.  I'd like to think that we aren't the only ones with this faculty, but there is no information which contradicts this.

If you can prove that animals are genuinely intelligent, then please do so.  PETA has been trying to make this point for years, but doesn't have a shred of evidence.  It is highly doubtful that you can find something that they haven't tried, though being proven wrong would make me a happier person.  I have to say that evolution has produced some amazing things; it has not produced an abundance of intelligent animals.  Humanity, for all intents and purposes, is the only animal with true intelligence.



Edit:
You want to contest human intelligence, I'll provide you a few examples for which I have no explanation.  Rick-rolling, What the Fox Say?, and Michael Jackson.  Where you draw the arbitrary line for intelligence seems to be where this discussion is breaking down.  No matter where I draw the line, these examples (and more than a few others) exist as an exception to the rule.  Like Octopi, there's a lot of gray area between intelligence and idiocy.  Perhaps one day all of humanity will be on one side of the line.  I fear which it may be...


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## Nordic (Dec 9, 2013)

I like to say skills are different sets of intelligences. Take a A+ math major vs a super star soccer player, I would say they are both intelligent in their own way. The math major is super smart in math, while the soccer player is super smart kinesthetically. There is also the average guy who can do both but not as well, but has a broader skill set. Then there are those lucky few who excel at everything and are both an A+ math major super soccer star who not only a quality skill set but a broad skill set. Those are only two kinds of skill examples. There is also the quiet guy in the back who is emotional genius who might be a poet or something. Then there is the socialite social genius who has a, you guessed it, a strong social skill set.

I think people get too caught up in reasoning and comprehension as the only intelligence and that is what I think the article in the OP was about. My first post was a devils advocate because we don't have solid evidence that dogs don't think about stuff such as "what's beyond the stars" but are physically unable to build something so they can look. It is highly unlikely that a dog does such things. There are really intelligent species out there like orca's that might really be limited by there physical unableness to build tools like we can.

I do believe we humans are the most intelligent because we have the broadest and most quality skill set in all the animal kingdom. We would not be the dominant species otherwise.


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## MT Alex (Dec 9, 2013)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> People project personalities and intelligence into animals because seeing those features in other beings is how we make sense of our world.



Very well put.  This point, coupled with the fact that is very chic in today's society to be anti-humanist, is the only reason this thread has gotten any traction whatsoever.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 9, 2013)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> My explanation for the fox is simple.  Environmental pressures have made it evolutionarily favorable to have acute hearing.  Magnetic detection isn't anything new either, as birds have independently evolved the same faculties.  If conflating natural abilities to intelligence were a viable comparison, the most intelligent thing on the planet would be a water bear (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade).  The Tardigrade can survive in vacuum, without water, and enough radiation to make us humans a steaming pile of mush.


That is why I used the red fox for that example.  What they are doing is done with computer-like precision.  Yes, they may have evolutionary hardware we don't have but they also have a brain that can understand that hardware and know what to do with it to survive.

You're trying to define intelligence by a metric that only humans have demonstrated (mathematical concepts) which I would call bias.  If you want to compare intelligence across species, you have to establish and use a lowest common denominator.  As said previously, evolutionary biologists agree that the best measure is the size of the cortex compared to the body mass and by that metric, we are not alone in intelligence.

Case in point: look at what it took to get humans where they are today, specifically, diet.  The reason why our brains got so big is because we became omnivores and to be omnivores, we had to become the predator.  The same happened to the orca (they are carnivorous predators that hunt a wide variety of prey but each pod specializes in a few).  If you compare orca behavior to human behavior, the only difference is humans use tools.  They behave just like nomadic human tribes did.  We could likely teach an orca how to hunt an animal they usually don't hunt and they'll likely teach their entire pod and pass it on from one generation to the next because it is useful to them.  The reason why we don't know for sure is because serious research on animal intelligence has just begun recently.  At this point, saying humans are "the only animal with true intelligence" is no different than subscribing to intelligent design (bias, lots of it, with no empirical evidence to prove it).


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## lilhasselhoffer (Dec 10, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> That is why I used the red fox for that example.  What they are doing is done with computer-like precision.  Yes, they may have evolutionary hardware we don't have but they also have a brain that can understand that hardware and know what to do with it to survive.
> 
> You're trying to define intelligence by a metric that only humans have demonstrated (mathematical concepts) which I would call bias.  If you want to compare intelligence across species, you have to establish and use a lowest common denominator.  As said previously, evolutionary biologists agree that the best measure is the size of the cortex compared to the body mass and by that metric, we are not alone in intelligence.
> 
> Case in point: look at what it took to get humans where they are today, specifically, diet.  The reason why our brains got so big is because we became omnivores and to be omnivores, we had to become the predator.  The same happened to the orca (they are carnivorous predators that hunt a wide variety of prey but each pod specializes in a few).  If you compare orca behavior to human behavior, the only difference is humans use tools.  They behave just like nomadic human tribes did.  We could likely teach an orca how to hunt an animal they usually don't hunt and they'll likely teach their entire pod and pass it on from one generation to the next because it is useful to them.  The reason why we don't know for sure is because serious research on animal intelligence has just begun recently.  At this point, saying humans are "the only animal with true intelligence" is no different than subscribing to intelligent design (bias, lots of it, with no empirical evidence to prove it).




I'm not entirely sure where to begin here.  Let's say tomorrow a species not of this Earth lands in a space craft.  Their first task will be to go about determining which species dominates the planet, and if any exist which are capable of responding back to their advances.  Disregarding the cities, because there are multiple species co-habitating the structures; they begin by abducting an example of every species.  Stacking them up;
1) Humans do not have the greatest amount of brain, that distinction belongs to Sperm whales.
2) Humans are not the only species with spindle cells.
3) Humans do not have the most complex brain structure.
4) Humans are not the only social animal which can communicate with one another.
5) No species currently on the planet has a written language except humans.

So, the brains aren't largely special for humans, when compared to our contemporary "intelligent" species.  The only thing we've got going for us is a written language, which isn't exactly great.  Moving forward, adaptations are compared;
1) Cheetahs have the fastest burst running speed of any animals.
2) Whales are the largest mammals.
3) The amount of insects outstrips all other animals by several fold.
4) There are animals with better sensory perception than humans, no matter what the sense.

If our observer was polled at this point the dominant species for this planet would either be whales or insects.  Both of these choices have complex interactions with one another, are well adapted, and have some of the finest evolutionary artillery on the planet.  Upon opening a dialog, they get nowhere.  Whale song analysis allows them to talk the same language, but no complex data can be shared and interpreted.  Insects confronted with stimuli respond with mechanical precision, but no higher level thought and reasoning.  The aliens continue moving down the list, making sure that their attempts to communicate are simple and can be responded to.  Dozens more candidates fail.

Passing by the canines, felines, dolphins, and bears we finally reach humanity.  They don't have particularly well developed senses.  The brains aren't truly unique in any way, though the ratio of components is different than most.  These soft squishy things have a written language that has been discerned, so a simple logical problem is given to them.  They manage a reasonable response.  In order to make sure this was not a fluke 10 more are staged.  The human passes nine without issue, demonstrating some promise.  An octopus, comparatively, passed almost eight of these tests.


We've got two contestants for an intelligent species on this planet, humans and octopi.  All other species demonstrated amazing adaptation, but no skills beyond what their evolutionary hardware would indicate as possible.

A series of mathematical operators are shown to each potential candidate, starting from easiest to most complex process.  The octopi samples manage basic addition and subtraction, but no greater ability.  A segment of the human population demonstrates addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and rudimentary algebra.  No other being has demonstrated all of these skills, so it is determined that these D students (because really, what is humanity but the species that sank most of its evolutionary energies into evolving the brain) are actually intelligent enough to sustain a conversation.  No other animal on the planet can sustain a conversation, despite having immensely better faculties.


This is how scientists are proposing how we might make first contact on other world.  It stands to reason that other intelligent life would set the same parameters for determining which species were intelligent enough to converse with.  Like it or not, math is the easiest way to determine intelligence.  2000 years ago the smartest beings on the planet could use math to calculate the seasons and movement of objects in the night sky.  From that day until now, we've been doing the same thing with greater and greater precision.  Those foxes, dogs, whales, etc... haven't appreciably changed what they are doing or why they are doing it.  Evolution and selective breeding has honed them into good survivors, but that isn't true intelligence.  

I might believe that my pets know to follow my commands.  I might be able to determine that a fox is good at roughly calculating ballistic flight trajectories.  As an intelligent animal I can build a rocket, calculate the thrust it will generate, determine its ballistic trajectory, and use that to get myself safely off this ball of dirt.  All of this is a possibility because of intelligence, derived from an understanding of math.  No other known creature on this planet can do that.  That octopus is amazing for being able to open a jar, but the greater feat is the technology and infrastructure required to make the jar and keep the octopus alive.  In its most blunt form, good adaptation and faculties do not imply intelligent animals.  Intelligence is a function of going beyond the raw capabilities of your hardware, and being capable of doing more than you should be able to.  We fly without wings, swim without scales, travel vast distances with pinpoint accuracy, and our hardware doesn't offer any way to do this beyond an applied intelligence.


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## MT Alex (Dec 10, 2013)

Concise, well thought out responses will have little effect upon Ford when he gets into one of these ruts.  I have witnessed it too many times over at the site that will remain unnamed.  Best to move on.


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## Nordic (Dec 10, 2013)

@lifehasslehoffer
That reminded me of close encounters of the third kind. Honeslty that movie is relevant to this discussion.


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## thebluebumblebee (Dec 10, 2013)

So, is education a big circle?  Is there a point in education where you start getting stupider?

If animals have "cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings", why haven't they figured out how to dominate us? (no, an isolated incident of an animal killing a human is not dominating)


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 10, 2013)

lilhasselhoffer said:


> I'm not entirely sure where to begin here.  Let's say tomorrow a species not of this Earth lands in a space craft.  Their first task will be to go about determining which species dominates the planet, and if any exist which are capable of responding back to their advances.


Earth's surface is 70% water.  Orca dominates the ocean shores; sperm whales (another mammal with a giant brain) dominates the deep oceans.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> Upon opening a dialog, they get nowhere.  Whale song analysis allows them to talk the same language, but no complex data can be shared and interpreted.


It's likely as difficult for an alien species to communicate with whales as it would be to communicate with humans.  Just look at how fantastic we are at communicating with animals; the only ones we have any success with are those that have been domesticated.  Science has proven that domesticated animals, especially dogs, are excellent at reading human emotion ("Left Gaze Bias").  There's no reason, whatsoever, to believe aliens would find humans easier to communicate with than other animal species.  Hell, look how many problems we have communicating with each other even inside the same language.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> No other animal on the planet can sustain a conversation, despite having immensely better faculties.


That's a massive assumption with no imperial evidence to support it.  Case in point: try to have a conversation with someone who speaks a different language than you.  I guarantee you it won't be sustainable for long until one part learns the other's.  The same can be said of all human interactions with animals.  A dog may listen for commands or try to evoke a response from a human but that's hardly a conversation because it's very one-sided.



lilhasselhoffer said:


> 2000 years ago the smartest beings on the planet could use math to calculate the seasons and movement of objects in the night sky.


They weren't using math, they were noticing a pattern and sought to explain why it recurs.  FYI, the IQ test uses pattern recognition to score human intelligence, not math.  To use math, you need a lot training in regards to what the symbols 0-9 means.  You may also require background on operations and formula.  All these things must be taught.  Pattern recognition is a natural thing all animals can do to some extent.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> As an intelligent animal I can build a rocket, calculate the thrust it will generate, determine its ballistic trajectory, and use that to get myself safely off this ball of dirt.


Only because you have access to information from many scientists before you.  If you weren't subjected to all that prior information, you'd be more clueless than that fox.  The only thing that makes humans truly unique is we store vast amounts of information and we pass it on to future generations.  If you remove that, we're only slightly better (mentally, not physically) than the apes swinging in the trees.




thebluebumblebee said:


> If animals have "cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings", why haven't they figured out how to dominate us? (no, an isolated incident of an animal killing a human is not dominating)


We dominate them in our environment and they dominate us in theirs.  Get in a fight with a shark without a harpoon, you're going to lose.  Get in a fight with a tiger without a dagger, you're going to lose.  A rabid dog gets in a fight with a human with a loaded gun, the dog is going to lose.  I go back to my first response to lilhasselhoffer in this post: we absolutely do *not* dominate the ocean.


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## thebluebumblebee (Dec 10, 2013)

No matter the environment, WE adapt, WE dominate.  If the environment doesn't work for us, WE change the environment. (shark cage) Antelope run away from cheetahs every time.  They don't say, "Hey, we out number them 100 to one.  Everyone get a stick."

Ford, you are confusing ability with intelligence.  An otter may have the ability to use a rock to get food, but think about all the things that we do with a hammer.  We even make music with hammers.

If we don't dominate the oceans, then how did we hunt whales to the point of extinction?  As impressive as whales are, I've been on an aircraft carrier on the ocean and there is nothing in nature to compare. (although I had to laugh as some dolphins passed us like we were sitting still)



> The only thing that makes humans truly unique is we store vast amounts of information and we pass it on to future generations.


You may have just defined intelligence.  The ability to recognize, keep, expand on, and pass on what we have learned.


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## lilhasselhoffer (Dec 10, 2013)

You know, there appears to be nothing that I can say that you don't have some sort of reason to contest.  We begin the conversation with the supposition that "humans aren't smarter than animals," and you wind up with Orca versus human in the water is going to be Orca wins.  Congratulations, you've proven that evolution works; at no point have you said why an Orca is intelligent, or even driven by a discernable intelligence.

Math is not as limited as you seem to suppose.  Let's just forget that computers use base 2 for storage.  Let's forget that hexidecimal code exists.  Let's forget that that Babylonians didn't have a base 10 system.  Name me one other animal on the entire face of this planet that has explicitly expressed the concept of PI, and my argument can be swept under the rug.  The problem is that no animal can do this without math.

Let's also try some math.  Give me the value of y in these two equations:
y=(2*3)^2
y=2*3^2
Assuming that you haven't forgotten PEMDAS, you'll note the first is 36, and the second is 18.  What about giving me the next number in these series, without ever knowing the mathematical operators:
1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, ...
1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, ...
Being able to recognize numerical pattern and operators doesn't give you crap if you can't figure out why you are doing it.  I'm betting that the number strings are familiar to you, and there was no problem seeing the mathematical patterns they represent.


IQ is not a test for intelligence.  It is a moving average set so that the average cognitive faculties of humanity can be compared.  By these low standards, a tree has a measurable IQ.   I don't believe either of us could argue that a tree have cognitive faculties.

Assuming that no records of any previous human before me were kept, we still beat out animals.  2000 years ago the printed word was a rarity.  Apprenticeships taught you a skill, and you taught your apprentice what you'd learned.  Despite having no printed records humanity managed to improve upon materials, develop chemistry (though it was couched in alchemy at the time), and a way to store their accumulating knowledge.  


My last point is going to be language.  Your example here is crap.  My native tongue is French, your native tongue is Japanese, but we both speak a second language.  That second language is English.  We can communicate with it, despite your ignorance of French and my ignorance of Japanese.  Mathematics is something that will have to be mastered to traverse the great void of space.  The extra terrestrials may not even be capable of audible speech, but binary signaling is an easy and effective way of communicating numerical values.  If we can't begin to understand that then any hope for humanity's future is already lost.  Our closest version of communicating, via a lingua franca, with other members of the animal kingdom is sign language with other great apes.  Given that we are basically their cousins, this seems like the only animal which may also display genuine intelligence.  It's a pity that they have not ever communicated any great ideas via sign language, simply base desires and what might charitably be called canned responses to identifiable factors. 



All of this said, I cannot continue to argue the point.  You have a preconceived notion, which is incapable of being changed by argument.  Continuing as such would be me wasting my time and yours.  I believe that evolution and selective breeding have produced many interesting adaptations which appear to mimic intelligence, but I would note that humans have evolved to see patterns that do not exist.  I would like to believe my dog is an intelligent animal, but I've yet to see any proof of it.  I don't believe the differentiation between a beautifully crafted evolved response, and a genuinely intelligent response, has yet been proven in other members of the animal kingdom.  Differentiation between the two is difficult, which may well be where our irreconcilable philosophical differences lie.


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## DayKnight (Dec 10, 2013)

qubit said:


> If you're gonna say no, then you have to back it up in some way...



No. YOU have to try harder to convince us with your number one and *the* definitive point.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 10, 2013)

thebluebumblebee said:


> If we don't dominate the oceans, then how did we hunt whales to the point of extinction?  As impressive as whales are, I've been on an aircraft carrier on the ocean and there is nothing in nature to compare. (although I had to laugh as some dolphins passed us like we were sitting still)


Whales don't have gills.  They have to surface to breath.  That's when whalers get them.  How little we know about the deep oceans is demonstrated by the theory and how long it to get proof of the existence of giant squids.  Unlike whales, they never surface; like whales, they disappear into the deep for extended periods of time and we have no idea what they are doing when they do.




thebluebumblebee said:


> You may have just defined intelligence.  The ability to recognize, keep, expand on, and pass on what we have learned.


That's bookkeeping.  Seriously, look how much humanity's collective knowledge declined during the Dark Ages.  I don't think it is what makes us intelligent but it is certainly what makes us unique.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> Congratulations, you've proven that evolution works; at no point have you said why an Orca is intelligent, or even driven by a discernable intelligence.


Humans and orcas are social; orcas and humans are predators; orcas exhibit behaviors we'd call "human" in situations of duress (e.g. if you take a calf from its mother, the mother will try to free, or least stay close to, the calf where virtually all other animals would flee); orcas plot against their prey (e.g. if a seal is on an ice burg, they'll systemically destroy the ice berg until they reach the seal) and work in groups to hunt, like humans; they try to fool predators like humans (e.g. a pod they took calves from when they tried again, the mothers and calves dove underwater and took a different branch in a river while the males stayed on the surface and went down another branch; the whalers only caught the ruse because they had aircraft monitoring them and saw it happen); and this is only from the little we know about them--often observed, candidly, in nature.


"Smarter" is a bad word and it always will be because it lacks specificity.  I simply have a problem with people dismissing (especially arrogantly so) the intelligence of animals.  They may not be on par with humans or even close to humans for the most part but the majority of them don't qualify as being the opposite of "smart:" stupid.  Evolution has a way of dealing with them.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> Apprenticeships taught you a skill, and you taught your apprentice what you'd learned.  Despite having no printed records humanity managed to improve upon materials, develop chemistry (though it was couched in alchemy at the time), and a way to store their accumulating knowledge.


I was referring to being alone without tools and no prior knowledge (think "George of the Jungle").  As I said repeatedly, humans are exceptional in the amount of information we pass from one generation to the next through teaching and learning.  I am in no way dismissing the same thing may happen with other animal species because it may.  The only thing definitive is the volume and broadness of information.




lilhasselhoffer said:


> My last point is going to be language.  Your example here is crap.  My native tongue is French, your native tongue is Japanese, but we both speak a second language.  That second language is English.  We can communicate with it, despite your ignorance of French and my ignorance of Japanese.  Mathematics is something that will have to be mastered to traverse the great void of space.  The extra terrestrials may not even be capable of audible speech, but binary signaling is an easy and effective way of communicating numerical values.  If we can't begin to understand that then any hope for humanity's future is already lost.  Our closest version of communicating, via a lingua franca, with other members of the animal kingdom is sign language with other great apes.  Given that we are basically their cousins, this seems like the only animal which may also display genuine intelligence.  It's a pity that they have not ever communicated any great ideas via sign language, simply base desires and what might charitably be called canned responses to identifiable factors.


*sigh*  Research the  Choctaw code talkers.  The allied forces used an old language the Germans/Japanese couldn't even recognize.  It was more effective at sending secret messages than any kind of "math" solution because it wasn't decryptable--it was simply alien.  If you don't have one of those Native Americans explaining to you how the language works, you'll never figure it out.  We have the same problem communicating with animal species.  We teach them some of our language but they don't teach us theirs; thus, they can understand us to some extent but we don't understand them beyond observing behaviors.  I'm pretty sure trainers are familiar with the phrase dolphins and orcas use for "fish" but that's about as far as it goes.

When's the last time you tried to sign Einstein's theory of relativity?  Bare in mind that human sign language is alien to apes yet, they learned it and use it.  Speaking of apes, I learned how best to open a banana from them.


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## Nordic (Dec 10, 2013)

I brought it up earlier in the thread but this is a story of human and orca's cooperation. Communication happened at some level here. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/killers-in-eden/introduction/1048/


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## Peter1986C (Dec 10, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> Seriously, look how much humanity's collective knowledge declined during the Dark Ages.


I did not. The Orient kept developing, partly using knowledge that the Occident (and Orient, too of course) had developed during the Classical period or before that. I hope you do realise that or base 10 mathematical system is Oriental? Our numberical symbols are Oriental, too, although I do not know whether our basic mathematical operators (+ - / * ( ) ) are all being eastern as well.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 10, 2013)

Yeah, the Dark Ages hit Europe.  Had the east stopped working on mathematical concepts or it was destroyed there too, we probably wouldn't have had a lot of technology we do today.




james888 said:


> I brought it up earlier in the thread but this is a story of human and orca's cooperation. Communication happened at some level here. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/killers-in-eden/introduction/1048/


I didn't know that whalers and whales have a symbiotic relationship in some scenarios.  It makes me sad for their prey; that's so unfair getting double-teamed.


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## Nordic (Dec 11, 2013)

FordGT90Concept said:


> I didn't know that whalers and whales have a symbiotic relationship in some scenarios.  It makes me sad for their prey; that's so unfair getting double-teamed.


I watched the full pbs documentary on this. You got it wrong. The orca's love the tongue. The orca's would help bring the whale in for the whalers. The whalers would let the orca's eat the tongue, and the orca's would leave the rest for the whalers. The sad part is that at some point people decided to hurt the orca's that were helping them. Since then relations have not been as good. They remembered.


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## FordGT90Concept (Dec 11, 2013)

Ha!  The tongue?  I would have never guessed that.

Orcas remembering doesn't surprise me.  It'll probably be generations before they trust again.


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## DannibusX (Dec 11, 2013)

All of you arguing overwhether animals are smarter than humans.

I can't wait for the day when the whales begin to beach themselves with weapons and the great whale uprising begins.  They've been practicing for years, to lull us into a false sense of security and will bring ever increasing amounts of victims to try and "help" them back into th ocean.  Who's the dumbass then?  Us.


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## RejZoR (Dec 11, 2013)

I wish my dog could speak. She's very smart and only thing really holding it back is the lack of ability to speak. But she developed ways of telling us what she wants with her behavior, on her own, without any training what so ever. And i've seen similar behavior with other animals, so yeah, i believe they are very smart, in a way we helped them become smarter, but at the same time we are holding them back...


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## Frick (Dec 11, 2013)

DannibusX said:


> All of you arguing overwhether animals are smarter than humans.
> 
> I can't wait for the day when the whales begin to beach themselves with weapons and the great whale uprising begins.  They've been practicing for years, to lull us into a false sense of security and will bring ever increasing amounts of victims to try and "help" them back into th ocean.  Who's the dumbass then?  Us.


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## larrymoencurly (Jan 5, 2014)

Kreij said:


> The one thing that dogs lack, that humans do not, is the ability to chain together logical associations (or assumptions) based upon previous experiences (memory). Here is something I ran into with dog owners on a somewhat regular basis when helping them modify their dog's behavior.
> 
> A)  Fido gets into the trash and makes a mess when the owner is gone.
> B)  The owner comes home and finds the mess.
> ...


When my childhood dog was caught doing that, it got a lecture from my mother while she cleaned up the mess.  The dog didn't completely stop getting into the trash from then on, but when it did it would look guilty, even my mother came home from shopping, before she knew what happened to the trash.  This dog would also show no interest in its mirror image, after sniffing the nose initially.


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