woopypooky Posted December 16, 2013 #26 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Okay, just because animals can smell pee on tree trunks miles away, that's make them smarter then human. Good point. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sundew Posted December 16, 2013 #27 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Intelligence can be difficult to quantify, especially in another species (sometimes I wonder about my own species). How much is learned behavior, and how much is instinctual? Ants and termites can build cities, some quite elaborate, with gardens, air cooling, nurseries, graveyards, etcetera, but most would agree it's all instinctual. Birds sing, but beyond claiming territory and seeking a mate, what "ideas" do they express in song? Can they tell a story, recall the history of their species, express sadness or joy, or again, is it mostly instinct driven? Humpback Whales sing and add to their song every year, changing it just a bit perhaps that implies more intelligence, but their bodies and environment don't allow progress nor would their songs seem complex enough to relate thousands of years of "oral history," so to speak, to multiple generations. Even the great apes are said to possess an intelligence roughly that of a three year old human. One interesting test on animals is the use of a simple mirror. Most territorial animals will attack their image in a mirror; they do not recognize the image as one of their self. Only a very few higher animals seem to understand they are looking at themselves, One case I find very interesting is the octopus. By far the most intelligent of the invertebrates, the octopus can solve complex problems (usually escape or food related). However octopi are notoriously short lived, sometimes only a year or so, and the female dies tending the eggs and guarding them until they hatch so there is no way to pass intelligence to the next generation. However there are a group of octopi living on the submerged flank of a volcano that constantly rains down small rubble into the sea. What this means is that the common octopus in this area has no permanent dwelling place and has to live with others of its kind in an ever shifting landscape. Normally these animals are solitary and territorial and would attack each other over dens. Here however, they seem to have called a "truce" and seem be learning new hunting skills from their neighbors and also passing on behaviors to them, i.e. they are getting smarter. Still their lack of a long live and the inability to pass information directly to the young likely means there are limits on how far their intelligence can develop. A heron was shown on video taking bread from someone feeding pigeons and using it to lure fish within striking distance. Cleaver no doubt, but the videographer pointed out that, without a way to pass this information on to your offspring, this trait will be lost when the bird dies. Setting aside all the stupidity and evil man has been involved in, we certainly have done things animals have not or cannot. Which animal can write a fugue? Build a robot? Land on another world? We have learned to fly, yet possess no wings. We have learned to survive beneath the ocean yet possess no gills. We survive in the arctic, yet have no fur or blubber (though some Americans are working on the blubber part). Animals must be cleaver to eat or avoid being eaten; their survival skills are to be respected, but again I think it remains difficult to separate instinct and intelligence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralaman Posted December 16, 2013 #28 Share Posted December 16, 2013 (edited) The other day some low-life gangster piece of **** decided to shoot up his co-workers car because he didn't get Employee of the Month at Walmart. Think about that and then decide if animals are smarter then humans... http://www.foxnews.c...-wins-employee/ Edited December 16, 2013 by Azznerak the Black Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xynoplas Posted December 16, 2013 #29 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Did he eat them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickian Posted December 16, 2013 #30 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Yeah, I don't think so. Try again when you can find a group of animals making tools that's only purpose is to make/improve other tools, build shelter out of more than a single raw material(twigs/mud) or create a language complex enough pass along any concept or intent. Or fire. Find me an animal that can make fire and cook food. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralaman Posted December 16, 2013 #31 Share Posted December 16, 2013 Yeah, I don't think so. Try again when you can find a group of animals making tools that's only purpose is to make/improve other tools, build shelter out of more than a single raw material(twigs/mud) or create a language complex enough pass along any concept or intent. Or fire. Find me an animal that can make fire and cook food. Octopi have been seen using tools to capture food, same goes for apes and chimpanzees. I guess since they cant make rap music or swindle the public out of billions they are just mindless creatures. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted December 17, 2013 #32 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Intelligence is not just about being 'smart' it is also about being not 'smart' ... Of course much has been made about out surviving and evolving the animals of the past ... but then no other animal engages in habitat destruction ... species annihilation ... indiscriminate killings spawned solely by murderous intent ... how many species can we name just at the top of our heads right now that is due to nothing else but the 'intelligent' human's talent for killing ? 'It looks no more like a Dodo than I do ... " Mark Twain ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aus Der Box Skeptisch Posted December 17, 2013 #33 Share Posted December 17, 2013 Now if we can just them thumbs they will rule the world. LOL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevemagegod Posted December 17, 2013 #34 Share Posted December 17, 2013 I'm a big advocate for animal intelligence. However, I honestly do not see any other species as being "more intelligent" than humans. Let's face it, no other species can manipulate the environment to insure their survival, not even to mention science, art, music, literature. Like I say, when my dogs can take care of my every need (food, housing, medical) then they can be the boss...until then, I'm the 'smartest'. Apes have been known to morn and bury there dead. Monkeys have also been known to chuck random **** at invaders in order to ward them. That is a form of using "tools". 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markdohle Posted December 18, 2013 #35 Share Posted December 18, 2013 (edited) There is a very good argument for humans being amongst the most stupid of all animals. After all, we have these incredible natural gifts and look at what we choose to do with them. Yeah we build cities, create beautiful works of art, write literature, philosophy and psychology, do science, create environments that we can survive in, we have music and dance, we love and hate, build and destroy, have religion, kill one another over it, like we do sports and politics, been to space, and may destroy ourselves in a stupid war because we are very intelligent but emotionally immature and we still have to struggle to be rational. We can do this because we have a higher brain and have the ability to be the way we are. Other animals, as wonderful as they are can't do that. They are not better than us, they can only be who they are. So yes we have done a lot, but at a cross roads, we may make a wrong turn and end up back in the ice age once again, this time perhaps permanently. There is a price to pay for being as intelligent as we are, a heavy one I believe. Edited December 18, 2013 by markdohle 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickian Posted December 18, 2013 #36 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Octopi have been seen using tools to capture food, same goes for apes and chimpanzees. I guess since they cant make rap music or swindle the public out of billions they are just mindless creatures. They use sticks and rocks. I'll be impressed if they start sharpening the sticks or using the rock for more than the crack open a shell. They're not mindless, but they are from being more intelligent that humans. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted December 18, 2013 #37 Share Posted December 18, 2013 Just because a chimp beats me one time out of three it isn't considered as intelligent ? - a movie line from somewhere ... I don't remember ... intelligent blackout ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad hoc Posted December 19, 2013 #38 Share Posted December 19, 2013 When an animal writes an article with an air of righteousness self-deprecation I'll be impressed. Jests aside, I do think we oversimplify in terms of an intelligence scale. An experiment I read about a while back is a fascinating example: If you flash the numbers 1-10 in random order within a second in front of a human being, the chances they'll get it right are almost zero. If you do the same thing with a chimp- they'll get it right almost 100% of the time (presumably for a food reward). Now that's nuts. Consider that numbers probably don't even mean anything to them and are just shapes... certainly worth a chin scratch. If there's anything that animal intelligence research has shown us over the last decade, it's that there are a range of distinct faculties involved in intelligence, and it can be pretty surprising where individual faculties crop up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socio Posted December 19, 2013 #39 Share Posted December 19, 2013 (edited) Considering man is the only animal that deviated from natures path of a survival of the fittest or natural selection way of life, instead placing the unfit above the fit, severely weakening the human species on a global scale I would say all other animal species are smarter than man. Edited December 19, 2013 by Socio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wickian Posted December 19, 2013 #40 Share Posted December 19, 2013 I judge a species overall intelligence mainly on ingenuity. Some animals can process very specific processes better than us, but their overall thinking is too linear to be considered more intelligent than us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted December 19, 2013 #41 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Are you smarter than a chimp? Ayumu is a 7-year-old chimpanzee... Can you beat Ayumu in this memory test? Inoue and Matsuzawa from Kyoto University used the 'limited-hold memory task' to show that their chimps can out-perform college students. Watch Ayumu, then take the test below to see if your memory is as good as a chimp's! luminosity games link (flash player required) Chimpanzees Beat Humans In Memory Tests Posted: 09/30/2013 1:52 pm EDT | Updated: 09/30/2013 1:53 pm EDT Unless someone has been monkeying around with the research data, chimps are making chumps out of humans when it comes to memory tests. In an interview published this Sunday in the Guardian, Tetsuro Matsuzawa, a professor at Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute in Inuyama, Japan, explains three decades of research have led him to the firm conclusion that chimpanzees have much better short-term memories than people. Huffington Post link Chimps are making monkeys out of us Justin McCurry The Observer, Sunday 29 September 2013 Extraordinary research from Japan shows that chimpanzees are way ahead of humans in complex memory tests the Guardian link We know the chimps and many animals have shown in tests that they have the cerebral capacity ... ~ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Calle Posted December 19, 2013 #42 Share Posted December 19, 2013 create biological weapon that targets all Insect's & Animals on planet, Done. we're superior. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xynoplas Posted December 19, 2013 #43 Share Posted December 19, 2013 "'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted December 19, 2013 #44 Share Posted December 19, 2013 ^ "'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Albert Einstein ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ad hoc Posted December 19, 2013 #45 Share Posted December 19, 2013 "'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." One of Einstein's more patronizing statements, made in the general vein of the false modesty we require of our intellectual elite so that everyone can feel warm and fuzzy. Reality check: Everybody is not a genius. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spud the mackem Posted December 19, 2013 #46 Share Posted December 19, 2013 luminosity games link (flash player required) Huffington Post link the Guardian link We know the chimps and many animals have shown in tests that they have the cerebral capacity ... ~ Anyone who reads the Guardian has to be less intelligent than a chimp. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SHaYap Posted December 19, 2013 #47 Share Posted December 19, 2013 Anyone who reads the Guardian has to be less intelligent than a chimp. Aw c'mon spud my man ... they do have their moments ... stay away from the headlines and ye be fine ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myles Posted December 20, 2013 #48 Share Posted December 20, 2013 Considering man is the only animal that deviated from natures path of a survival of the fittest or natural selection way of life, instead placing the unfit above the fit, severely weakening the human species on a global scale I would say all other animal species are smarter than man. But not intelligent enought to survive. A high percentage of dogs eat poop. Poop full of bacteria. Not very smart. Not sure what everyone is basing this on, but I would say humans are much smarter than animals. At least once we get past the infant stage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Willie B Herd Posted December 26, 2013 #49 Share Posted December 26, 2013 "'Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." He also said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results." Horses' intelligence is also underrated by humans. Just because an animal can't run a computer, etc. doesn't mean they are stupid. They are smart enough to know how to survive, and don't need the theory of relativity to accomplish this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gaden Posted December 26, 2013 #50 Share Posted December 26, 2013 No one wants to be told that the creature we put on the table at dinnertime is an intelligent being, so we measure their intellect by our standards. I believe they may be as intelligent as humans in their own way. Few of us could survive a cold winter outside, naked and alone, with nothing but our claws and teeth and wits to survive, but they do. But we are here, right? Which means we have survived right along all of the other animals that escaped extinction. Some animals do not survive a cold winter. Some freeze to death, some starve to death. we are intelligent enough to build shelters and provide our own heat to survive. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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