"Intelligence of animals" Topic

This is a very hard topic, what is intelligence, and how do you judge the intelligence of creatures so diffrent from us.

And how to you compare intelligence.

A cow is mabye no newton in the grand scheme of mammals, but compeard to an croccodile it's a genius, infact all mammals co mpared to almost all other animals are geniuses. You know that dog you had, that always seem dumb, could never learn commands, just did what it did, not very bright? yet in the grand scheme of animals, that stupid dog is in the 0,0001%

There are just 5500 mammal species on the planet give or take a few dozen or even hundred. ther are 1.3 million species of KNOWN insects, and while me might discover mabye 500 more mammals, we probebly will discover 3 million more insects.

And insects aren't smart, or they are very smart in their adaptation, after all 4 million vs 5500, insects are so adaptive, there are a million ants for every human on the planet. But they aren't smart, each insect follow a very narrow set of commands, and they can't go beyond that. If you do something the insect didn't expect and have to commands for, it breaks down. If the human brain is a vast network of supercomputers, the insect "brain" is a 40 year old micro chip from a kalculater.

This does give some advantages, anybody that has tried to scash a fly with just your hand know it can be very hard, becasue the smaller the number of commands, the smaller the brain, the faster it reacts. When learnig to drive we know the reaction time of a human is up to 1 second even sober, that 1 second can by many meters of road if going fast.
This would not be a problem for an insect, it's reaction time would be 0.01 second, but it would not be able to learn the trafikk rules, so it probebly wouldn't get it's license.

Even compeard to other vertibrates mammals are generaly on top, only some species of birds and aperantly the green iguana seems to be close to mammals, some birds even surpas most mammals.

And infact the smarter the animal gets, the harder it is to understand it. because the smarter you are, the more complex you are, while all crocodiles are very predictibale, croc handlers always know exactly what the croc is going to do, it can only do so many things, and even tho a croc can tear your leg of, becsue the tainers always know what the croc is going to do given this and this, it's quite safe for them to handle them.

On the other hand, some dogs are phycopats, some are the genetacly, some become so after miss treatment. And dogs are only somewhat above avrage mammal inteligence. When you get to hyper smart animals, like elephants, non human apes and some whales. they can become very hard to understnad and predict, an dolphin might be playfull one monent and rape you the other. and while dolphns are seen as nice animals, many species weigh more then 300kg, that more then most sharks. some very big ones become over 450kg, you can imagen just how helpless a human in the water would be against a 450kg dolphn

Ofcourse the killer whale or orca is also technacaly a dolphin at 9 tonnes, and a 1 meter wide mouth, it could litterly swallow a human whole, and while there has been attacks by captured orcas, no attack has been reported in the wild, even tho it would be super easy for them to eat us, they don't. mabye the reconize us at other inteligent beeings.

Chimps are very diffrent, you got two kinds, Bonobo and commen chimpanze, while they look kinda the same one type the bonobo are hippes, peace and love(lots of love, in evey possible way) they also only eat fruit and non animal food, the commen chimp on the other hand, often have violent sociaties, anybody not keeping their place will be beaten and beaten, some times to death, they also hunt, tearing small monkey to sheards while they are alive.

Humans seem to be a mix of our to cosins. we have the violent part, but we also have the love and peace.

Elephants are also uniqe, while it's quite easy to test chimps they are human like, same body build more or less, hands and fingers, they are apes closly related to us. they kinda think like us ect. But how do you test an elephant, an animal that can lift sevral hundred kg, and crush a car with it's legs, not only that but you can't be around elephants like apes, elephants rutinly kill human keeprs by pure excident, one mistake and the human is crushed agianst the bars of the cage ect.

So while we can do some testing most of what we know about elephants come from just observing tame working animals like the ones in India and Thailand.
And wild ones. All ready in the classical period the elephant was know to not be any regular beat, The elephant is the beast that out do any other animal in wit and mid. Said aritotle. Known for it's long memory, and in Hindu religion the avatar of Ganesha is an elehpant, the god of wisdome, the arts, knowlage and the sciences.

We have observed sevral things about the elephants, one they apear to mourn their dead for decades, a dead baby elephant will mark the mother to the day she dies. They also have death rituals, if they come over elephant bones and skulls, they will stop and tuch them, smell them ect. clerly knowing this was a dead elephant. We have seen tame elephants beeing creative and even painting, painting flowers of all things. with colors and everything. There are some who do say that this painting elephant isn't painting what she wants, but simply mimicing a human painting. the jury is still out on this one.

Another exampal is alturism, the elephant normaly do not harm other animals unless they are defending them self, some times even protecting humans they them self have hurt by acident.

Lastly and both most amazing and troubeling, the elephants seem to be able to commit premeditated murder, and revenge killings, during the 70s and 80s, lots of elephants were killed in africa, what happend was sevral young males on sevral diffrent ocatinos, started to band togeather, and attack human villages, killing and wounding many. This was aperantly a planed attack in retaliation of the killing of they kind.

Anyway just to thoughts.

We've argued this before: how intelligent are the most intelligent OTHER mammals compared to humans? And the conclusion is that they are not very intelligent if we gauge by products of intelligence. You mentioned the painting elephant; but that prodigy only paints because it was trained to do it, not because it picked up offered brushes and dipped into offered paints, and then painted on the offered paper, all without the slightest human intervention. The tricks that any intelligent animals do in shows are only the result of human compulsion, i.e. training.

How much awareness the higher animals have is the unknowable part, because they do not speak our language and we do not know theirs. This does not seem likely to change anytime soon.

But when you compare "our kind of thought" to that of any of the other higher animals, theirs is not remotely comparable to what we do with our thinking. The most rudimentary tools in the repertoire of the chimps, for instance, cannot be any sort of developing intellect on its own: these tools are used solely to acquire food or comfort, i.e. instantaneous facilitation to fulfill an immediate need. No other animals but us plan for the future, create tools to mold that future, and manipulate the world to our own visions. No other animals contemplate God or metaphysical matters; probably to the other animals, afterlife is a "no brainer", and the existence of God, ditto. Only man can argue himself into not believing in the existence of things that all the other animals take as simple facts of life….

The gulf between human intelligence and animal intelligence is the distance from the Earth to the stars. Or at least the heliosphere; we've built and sent a device that far which communicates with us and obeys our commands, and tells us about a Universe no animal even begins to contemplate.
Unless Star Trek VI comes true, nothing will convince me that any animal is remotely close to being the intellectual equivalent of man.

I'll start thinking about a non-human earthly animal as intelligent as soon as it teaches us it's language, and has something interesting to say. Until then, it's "hello dinner".
-Kle.

The most rudimentary tools in the repertoire of the chimps, for instance, cannot be any sort of developing intellect on its own: these tools are used solely to acquire food or comfort, i.e. instantaneous facilitation to fulfill an immediate need.

Wrong.

link

No other animals but us plan for the future, create tools to mold that future, …….

Wrong.

link

No other animals contemplate God or metaphysical matters; probably to the other animals, afterlife is a "no brainer", and the existence of God, ditto.

Well Doug, we killed off every one else in the Genus of Homo that was trying to become smart. Neanderthals, who did consider an afterlife, based on funeral rites, were our last victims. There would have been a few non-Human intelligences left on this planet to study had we allowed them to live.

Parzival and Klebert display a bit of anthropocentricity in their statements. Doug, I know you are a recent fan of false syllogisms, from our last arguments with Rocky. How about this?:

1) We are intelligent and do cool human things.
2) Other animals don't do these cool human things.
Therefore,
3) Other animals aren't intelligent.

Well Doug, we killed off every one else in the Genus of Homo that was trying to become smart. Neanderthals, who did consider an afterlife, based on funeral rites, were our last victims.

Nope.
We undoubtedly killed plenty of Neanderthals, but we mostly appear to have ed (engaged in sexual reltions with) them to "death".

Parzival and Klebert display a bit of anthropocentricity in their statements.

Yah… and you display quite a bit of magical thinking in yours.
-Kle.

Parzival and Klebert display a bit of anthropocentricity in their statements.

Yah… and you display quite a bit of magical thinking in yours.

You and Parzival seem to indicate that animal intelligence requires animals to mimic our behavior. We have attempted to teach simple language structure and ASL to certain animals. You stated that you would consider those same animals intelligent if they returned the favor. That is an example of anthropocentrism.

Magical thinking, indeed.

…..but we mostly appear to have…..

Nope. At between 1 to at most 4% genetic material coming from Neanderthals, I think the term "mostly" is a reach. The current best "most likely" cause of us hanging around was our much greater variation of food sources. This caused greater adaptability to climate change, disease resistance ( later Neanderthal skeletons show a litany of diseases), and the ability to support larger populations. While not as sexy as Dr Paabo's work at the Max Planck Institute, those studying Neanderthal coprolites are making an equally important contribution.

they make tools and use them to acquire foods, for social displays, etc

This is not a time to use "etc". They do not MAKE tools in any sense of the word; they pick up objects and apply them to a particular task. "Mulipart" or "complex" tools are utterly beyond their intelligence.

they have sophisticated hunting strategies that require cooperation, and allow animals to achieve influence and rank by sharing meat

Oo! I'm impressed. Wolves have the very same kind of pecking order based on pack status, and they utilize sophisticated hunting strategies as well.

they are highly status conscious and manipulative, capable of deception

Bald faced assertion, and no doubt observed by anthropologists seeing what they want to see.

they are analytical and problem-solvers, clearly capable of insight and complex "cognitive performance" in both the wild and in captivity, and particularly adept at analyzing relative relationships

Yes, they are highly intelligent ANIMALS. Where in any of this is evidence of thinking about the future and planning and manipulating?

language experiments have shown that chimps are creative, can learn to use symbols (and teach them to others) and understand aspects of human language including some relational syntax, concepts of number and numerical sequence

The key word here is LEARN. They can respond to human training, but they cannot return the favor and communicate with us.

spontaneous planning for future stone throwing

One ape? Ten years observing ONE chimp. Big deal. When as a species they exhibit such prodigious behavior then I will revise my pov. In any species there is a grade in intellect. Some cats seem as smart or smarter than the humans that consider them as pets; a particular cat can be a genius feline, while the human is almost of subhuman intellect.

So how is disease among Neanderthals the fault of homo sapiens? How exactly did we not "… allow them to live"? This notion that we are evil planet destroying animals is so popular with certain irrational "thinkers". I think that 1 to 4% genetic overlap with Neanderthals is actually pretty significant. The other "extinct" hominids probably disappeared the same way: sexual intercourse bred out the distinctions.

The fact is that there is ZIP evidence for the level of intelligence, in any other animal species we have record of, as displayed by us. Similarities, rare/singular examples only begin to resemble human complexity of thought; never remotely coming close to it, much less without human intervention/contamination of some kind along the way….

No other animals contemplate God or metaphysical matters; probably to the other animals, afterlife is a "no brainer", and the existence of God, ditto.

HAR-HAR! (Laughs and Points at the dumb Animals) HAR-HAR, how stupid! Am I right, Father? I am? HAR-HAR! Stupid, Dumb Animals!

Pat

Bald faced assertion, and no doubt observed by anthropologists seeing what they want to see.

Yes of course primatologists understand primate behavior much less than you Doug. Clearly I should have asked you first. My apologies.

None of your examples show animals lack intelligence, only that it is different and most likely less capable compared to ours. And I'll repeat this again: using human behavior as a yardstick to measure the intelligence of a non-human is ridiculous.

So how is disease among Neanderthals the fault of homo sapiens? How exactly did we not "… allow them to live"? This notion that we are evil planet destroying animals is so popular with certain irrational "thinkers".

There is no intent involved. But neither was intent involved when Europeans brought smallpox, diphtheria, measles, influenza, etc. to the New World. To answer your question, the skeletal changes seen in late Neaderthals show Vit. D deficiency, iron deficiency, Hashimoto's disease, Harris lines in long bones, lack of enamel development in tooth formation, etc. Coprolite studies showed that Neanderthals became dependent on fewer species of plants and animals, while Homo Sapiens living in the same area ate a much wider diversity of foods. Eventually, we were fitter, healthier, lived longer and produced more viable offspring. That's all you need to survive.

That doesn't include all the Neanderthal skeletons that show what is euphemistically called "signs of interpersonal violence". The difficulty is in assessing who did the violence.

And I'll say a 1% DNA overlap (Northern European) with a species that we co-existed with for more than 50 millenia is not a lot of cross breeding.

You and Parzival seem to indicate that animal intelligence requires animals to mimic our behavior. We have attempted to teach simple language structure and ASL to certain animals. You stated that you would consider those same animals intelligent if they returned the favor. That is an example of anthropocentrism.

That's the definition of intelligence. "Like humans".

Magical thinking, indeed.

Yes, magical thinking.
You seek to define animals as intelligent by changing the definitions, apparently because you are desperate to see something that is not there.
Chimps are really smart animals, for animals that are not people. They are way, way, smarter than dolphins, for example. However, they are probably not even as smart as a two year old, and two year olds are as dumb as a box of rocks.

And I'll say a 1% DNA overlap (Northern European) with a species that we co-existed with for more than 50 millenia is not a lot of cross breeding.

How much overlap do you suppose you have with your individual H. Sapiens ancestors from the same period, after all these years? Amongst other things, I have the impression that the great demographic bottleneck shown by mitochondrial DNA was long after there were no distinct Neanderthals.
-Kle.

using human behavior as a yardstick to measure the intelligence of a non-human is ridiculous.

What other comparison can there possibly be? Anything not comparable to the attainments of homo sapiens is of a lower order of intelligence.

However, self awareness is not something we can measure without communication. And communication is a two way street; we have been extending the "invitation" to communicate to all other animals for thousands of years, and more particularly during the last few generations as science researches the intelligence in other species: none, not one species, not even one prodigiously smart individual animal, has ever opened a conversation with a human. How rude. Or how stupid.

And I'll say a 1% DNA overlap (Northern European) with a species that we co-existed with for more than 50 millenia is not a lot of cross breeding.

Neanderthals are dammed ugly. No more reason than that….

Neanderthals are dammed ugly. No more reason than that….

And you are such a catch Doug? I remember when you used to have a 'photo on your profile….

Pat

Neanderthals are dammed ugly.

Never stopped me when I had my beer goggles on.

Neanderthals are dammed ugly.

I've seen worse breeding locally

x42

Dogs attempt to communicate with us all the time. They just don't do it with verbal cues. The way they hold their tail, the position of their ears, etc. say a LOT to other dogs and people who know what they mean. That they aren't verbally saying "I'm scared and if you come over here I'm going to react to that with aggression" doesn't mean that other dogs (and people) don't understand it perfectly. Frankly, the dog probably thinks we're idiots sometimes for not seeing the most obvious things they are "saying".

What if a green man with from outer space tried to telepathically communicate with us. We'd fail and I guess he'd "rightly" conclude we were not intelligent? There's only about 1000 science fiction stories that go down that road.

How come we are told all the time that Chimps are so smart, they are just like humans and share 98% of their DNA with humans, yet others claim we only share 1% of DNA with Neanderthals who are human? How does that work?

Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek

bunkermeister.blogspot.com
sgtsays.blogspot.com

That's the definition of intelligence. "Like humans".

Where do you get that from? A quick glance at any on-line dictionary indicates that this is your definition. I guess an ant and a chimp are equally unintelligent since neither can teach me French or build a satellite. Thanks for clearing that up.

How come we are told all the time that Chimps are so smart

Like Dolphins – here is an interesting article debunking the 'Dolphins are Clever' argument. I believe a Doctor Doug Larsen may have been involved in the study.

link

Pat

That is one ugly kid and "daddy". Some might not think them unattractive, oh, maybe one to four percent of the available dating pool. The rest of homo sapiens daters would look for a potential mate that is a tad less extreme in his/her physical features and body shape. I happen to find Frazettic women attractive; in his more amusing pictures, he shows "Neanderthals" kidnapping Frazettic women and so forth, never the other way around. That's because a barrel with long arms and stumpy legs and drooping bags for breasts is not usually sexually attractive to the typical homo sapiens male.

Dolphins, chimps, dogs, prodigiously intelligent individuals in all three species, are not "clever". They are smart and less smart and stupid, just like humans in our spectrum. "Communication" is not what I was distinguishing: animals are communicating unconsciously all, the, time. Only humans actually realize that communication is impossible; animals in the lower orders do not realize this and keep trying. It's built in. We, on the other hand, realize that unless we somehow convey our language, and deduce their "language", we will never get through. So far, the only literal communicating that has occurred is between animals and the humans that know them well enough to be familiar with their moods and habits. Even in those rare research cases where symbols have been taught to apes, there is no CONVERSATION possible; at best, a single statement of fact is sometimes possible. Nothing deeper follows; the animal drifts off to some other distraction; they cannot be kept focused long enough to CONVERSE. There is no sharing of IDEAS, no melding of the minds, no cooperation possible, etc….

Dogs attempt to communicate with us all the time.

They succeed, too. They just don't have anything very interesting to say.

How come we are told all the time that Chimps are so smart, they are just like humans and share 98% of their DNA with humans, yet others claim we only share 1% of DNA with Neanderthals who are human? How does that work?

Because you can't bleep a chimp and have a viable child with it. Signs indicate that the same was not true of Neanderthals. This is not rocket science.

Where do you get that from? A quick glance at any on-line dictionary indicates that this is your definition. I guess an ant and a chimp are equally unintelligent since neither can teach me French or build a satellite. Thanks for clearing that up.

"Having the faculty of understanding". So far, only humans have demonstrated this. Therefore, irrespective of your baseless claim, my definition and the dictionary definition are one and the same.

Yes, a chimp and an ant are equally unintelligent, because neither of them are intelligent. The chimp has a much better brain though, better problem solving, is demonstrably self aware, etc. As a colloquial shortcut, one can say that a chimp is smarter than an ant… this does not mean that a chimp is intelligent, however.
-Kle.

Kle,

I think you are having trouble distinguishing between the phrases, "Chimps are intelligent" and "Chimps display human-like intelligence". I would guess that the first phrase describes the current scientific consensus amongst anthropologists and primatologists. I know of no-one who would agree with the second phrase.

Also your answer to Bunkermeister doesn't make sense. We can't have viable offspring with any living species on this planet. That doesn't explain why we share 98% of our DNA with Chimps.

Cows are 80% similar to humans:
link

Fruit Flies are 60% similar to humans:
genome.gov/10005835

As is the chicken:
link

The reason is that we are probably close to 100% similar to Neanderthals. The big differences would be among the 49 HAR gene regions in our genome. Those are the gene regions that have changed to most, and the fastest for us over the millenia. The 1 to 4% is an estimate of the genetic material that we received from Neanderthals. It is difficult to ascertain what the journalists are writing about. Is it the amount of genes?, the genotype?, the order genes are found on a given chromosome? or the similarity of the base pair sequence within a gene? Are homologous genes counted? Controller genes? Telomere sequences? We diverged from chimps from a last common ancestor about 5.5 million years ago. We are much closer related to others in the Homo genus, especially Neanderthals.

The gulf between human intelligence and animal intelligence is the distance from the Earth to the stars.

There might not be a distance at all, more like a barrier, like the sound barrier, it's quite easy to get a plane to the the barrier but breaking it was very hard, might be the same with animal intelligence, they might be right behind us, but may be lacking that tiny extra thing to push through the barrier.

We see chimps not with just simple tools, but multi part tools, they first find a nice round rock, it has to be the right weight and shape, they then find another big rock with a level plane, mabye with a slight indent, they then use it as a hammer and anvil thing, it's rather complicated thing, it does take training and knowlage to find the right hammer stone and right anvil stone.

It's very simular to early humans creating flint knivs and filnt arrow heads. not quite the same but much like it.

So Gun, you are a believer in "Planet of the Apes" then? When will we give "human rights" to the first ape? Then when will porpoises, cats and dogs evolve to the "worthy" level and be awarded the same protected status?

You do know, I suppose, that there are nutjobs who already advocate for the right of animals to sue humans in civil court? A quasi "personhood" status is being asserted; all based on some twisted belief that animals are "just like us" only different, in insignificant ways; much like you are imagining here, i.e. that intelligence is separated by some kind of "barrier", but that animal intelligence is as great as our own….

So are you of the same thought as 17th centuary philosopers that think animals are automata? they only mimic human emotion and such, so it's ok to vivicet a cat with out sedativs, and if it screams it's just simulating pain, it can't really feel it?

I do agree that great apes should have the same rights as humans, if you want to call it human rights thats fine, if you want to call it great ape rights, fine by me.

I also agree that killing elephants are close to murder, concidering the evidence we have of thier abliliy to suffer.
If you kill a babye elephant infornt of it's mother, the mother will feel much the same way if you killed a baby human infornt of it's mother.

It's been shown that some mother elephants never get over loosing their babies. they never mate again, they become solitary, some even starve them self to death over it.
Is that not real emotion, just becanse the elephant is gray and weight 4 tones, while we are pink or brown it's diffrent.

I don't agree that all animals are worthy of human rights, but all mammals, all birds and a few reptiles, apreat to be able to suffer quite badly and so need protection.

Insects and jellyfish do not apear to be able to suffery in anything close to vertibrates. It's not just about how smart they are, tho intelligance does give rise to new ways of suffering. Any animal with pain reseptors and nerves can feel pain, so fish can feel pain, even fruit files can theoretacly feel pain, but you also need a certain amount of brain mater to truly be able to suffer. all mammals have both the brain power and nerves which means they are able to suffer extenevaly. dogs suffer from phycologigal problems if miss treated ect. Even really dumb mammals like the koala, is still sevral million times smarter then the smartes fly

Animals are not automatons. I don't know where you'd get the idea that I believe that.

Suffering is not a criteria for quasi "personhood". Human beings have the power to literally kill off every species of great mammal on the planet. The same is not true of any other mammal: they have NO power. Our unique position demands that we behave as stewards of our planet. Most of us feel that duty/role keenly.

But animal rights cannot in any way be equal to human rights. That is just messed up thinking and will cause all manner of unreconcilable scenarios where humans and animals have a "conflict of interest". The animals must ALWAYS lose out when any question of human rights versus animals rights is concerned. For example: it would be totally wrong to allow tigers in India to move on humans without a proper reaction to protect humans; and some animal activists would have the tigers protected to the degree that the humans must move out and make room for the tigers. Messed up thinking. Some of these same animal lovers hate human beings and want the planet turned back into a hunger-gatherer state with no more than c. 500 million humans max, like that idiot from Finland….

We put people in jail for mistreating animals. That is an obvious example of animal rights winning out over human rights.

In a less direct way, we (humans) authorize the use of deadly force when apprehending poachers in Africa. While the direct cause of the poacher's death is resisting the authorities, the humans involved know that a possible consequence of protecting the animals is that people may die. They know that and still protect the animals just the same.

I don't have a problem with laws protecting animals, and for humans to spend jail time for breaking the laws. But the laws protecting animals have to be just; they cannot, must not, include curtailing people from the use of their own land, or taking their land away from them to create "preserves", etc. If a poacher goes onto an already established preserve, i.e. land that does not belong to him, and never has, then the laws can put the animals on said preserve above human "rights". There has to be a place for animals free of human encroachment and exploitation….

First off I believe any humans (there might be some exceptions) life is more important than any animal. That also puts Humans in a whole another tier above animals. But said that I believe animals are way more intelligent than people give them credit for. I also might be in the minority thinking animals have feelings very similar to humans just not on the same level of importance the best way I can think of explaining that is they only think of themselves and not sure they think of loved ones the same way as we do.

It seems to me that many people here forget that humans are animals, too. Primates, specifically.

Anyone who has ever lived with an animal knows quite well that they think, feel, communicate and seem capable of some "higher" thought that some people seem to feel is only within the capabilities of humanity.
This is not anthropomorphising them, this is understanding them.

Cats are one of the more intelligent "other" species. They have mood swings and behavioral variations due to moods, similar to humans. Invariably, cat lovers cannot escape anthropomorphizing their cats. Yet the alien quality of cats' thinking remains dominant. The huge difference between cats and humans is the apparent level of extended, deep thought: we spend an enormous portion of each moment imagining "what if's": all other animals appear to exist only in the moment; never plan for the future by making and retaining complex tools; or learn anything beyond survival lessons from experiences. They never produce memory jogging art to memorialize the past. And as 14Bore points out, all other animals put thinking of "the self" above all other considerations: this is instinct only, as a mother will prove by sacrificing herself to save her young when instinct takes over and overrules the instinct for self preservation. Human mothers are concerned not only for their own "brood" but for humanity as a whole. Again, a whole level up in thinking than any other animals.

Again, a whole level up in thinking than any other animals.

Agreed. Now how does that make all animals unintelligent?

I didn't mean to be taken to literally on animals thinking of just themselves God knows humans do too often. Dogs will attack someone if their human companion is threatened often at their own demise. I have two cats who are sisters and when one is accidentally locked in a room and don't know about it often the other is noticeably upset that the other is missing. I saw a story on the internet there was a dog who I believe was killed in a traffic accident. Another dog, that if I have it right went and stood over the dead dog in the middle of the road. I am sure there was no connection between the two.

@Bowman: When or where did I say that other animals are "unintelligent"? We have talked about this before. While the most intelligent animals seem almost anthropomorphic in some of their behaviors, none of those remarkable anecdotal examples amount to the depth and height of human thought. No other animals leave behind traces of their imaginative thoughts; if they are having imaginative thoughts, i.e. thinking that has nothing directly to do with the moment's tasks or problems, we cannot tell. They do not tell us anything about hypothetical thinking going on; they apparently do not tell each other. We on the other hand share our imaginations with each other more than any other single shared thing. The outcome is religion, science, the "Medía", philosophy, and inventions. No other animals even make a beginning of showing any of this….

@Bowman: When or where did I say that other animals are "unintelligent"?

You didn't use "unintelligent", you said:

And the conclusion is that they are not very intelligent if we gauge by products of intelligence.

"Not very intelligent", …….close enough to "unintelligent" for your argument. Animals are clearly unintelligent because they don"t program Blackberrys, can't teach me French, and can't figure out how the laundry dryer works. Right, I got it. Intelligence is only measured by the "products".

I agree with the rest of what you say. But the topic is not, "Is Man intelligent", rather, "Are animals intelligent". Something you have consistently tried to argue against, on purely anthropomorphic grounds.

I guess this is a non topic: since "intelligent" equals "almost as intelligent as humans" to some people here: yet we have no measuring scale to gauge by if we refuse to recognize the significance of products of intelligence. "Products of intelligence" includes homo sapiens, but no other species. Therefore we are indeed in a class of intelligence by ourselves; which is the whole point of bringing up the subject of animal intelligence in the first place: we have sapience, the rest of the animal "kingdom" do not. We can tell what sapience IS by the products it leaves everywhere. So where did that singular level of intellect come from? Or how did it come about? Those are the questions that derive from a comparison of intelligence. We already know how to rate animal intelligence compared to each other; it is compared to homo sapiens intelligence that the topic really means anything, imho, of course….

I guess this is a non topic: since "intelligent" equals "almost as intelligent as humans" to some people here: ….

Really? So "tall" means "tall like a human", or "fast" means "fast as a human". It's all in relation to humans? So no animal can be intelligent, because we are so much more intelligent? What sort of logic is that?

…… we have sapience, the rest of the animal "kingdom" do not.

That doesn't make all animals unintelligent. You are conflating sapience and intelligence, thereby "moving the goalposts".

I never separated the "goal posts" to begin with, so I have never moved them. Sapience is the very definition of higher intelligence: sapience is what makes our intelligence leave "products" of itself everywhere. It is what makes the rest of the animal kingdom into "food", and de facto us into stewards of the world….

Roll the dice…high roll(2d6) wins.

Who won?

My single '12'. Well then, I guess this proves the superiority of rolling 2x6s.

You realize, of course, that the vast majority of rolls were in the '6, 7, 8' range -and that that could be (easily) interpreted to mean that the game favors those results? Also, the ones that rolled 'snake-eyes' met the same odds…and those that rolled '11' came very close (odds-wise) to that 'magical' 12?

Perhaps, but since rolling 'boxcars' means you get to write the rules of the game (including the ex-post-facto definition of the winner), having the most (successful/long-living) result doesn't mean much, does it? Here…have a cup of Subaru: it'll make you feel better.

Shall we play again?

No need -we already have a winner, don't we?

No apologies for ego-stroking, but I thought (after seeing it in pixelated grandeur) that that was ever so clever…

I think I shall reward myself/my 'unique' intelligence with a cognac… ; )

(visions of Sheldon pervade…)

I'm with Gunfreak on this one.

Wether any "animal" is as "intelligent" as ourselves is a moot point.

They DO have emotions, unique personalities and most definately feel pain, wether phsically or at the lost of a relative or friend.

My last cat hung on to life until she saw me one last time, meowed 3 times and then died in my arms after 18 years together.

Anthromorphising? No.
Just a very special cat that displayed many qualities that we admire in humans…

When I was a young boy we got a pair of grey kittens, brother and sister. My little brother accidentally broke the leg of one of them and we put it down. The sibling languished without eating for a week then was too weakened to move; we put it down. I could tell that he was mourning the death of his pal. It isn't anthropomorphic, it's mammalian; all mammals possess emotions and attachments. But that isn't what is at issue here: it's the kind of thinking going on, not emotions and feeling pain. Only homo sapiens actually think imaginatively: other animals evince no capacity to think beyond the moment. They possess long memories in many instances, but no imaginative/creative thought, beyond the needs of the moment….

But that isn't what is at issue here: it's the kind of thinking going on, not emotions and feeling pain. Only homo sapiens actually think imaginatively: other animals evince no capacity to think beyond the moment. They possess long memories in many instances, but no imaginative/creative thought, beyond the needs of the moment….

Oh sigh…..

1) Humans are intelligent.
2) Animals are not as intelligent as humans.
3) Therefore animals are not intelligent.

False syllogism time again.

Doug, all you are repeating (ad nauseum) is that we humans are vastly more intelligent than animals. No one disagrees. That does not mean animals are NOT intelligent. They clearly display intelligence, just not human type intelligence. That's when you haul out the anthropomorphic nonsense.

The admission that animals are "intelligent" affects different people differently: extremists want animals to be able to sue humans in human courts of law, and make illegal any and all eating of animals, etc. Nut cases in high places are amusing and aggravating. At the other end is the stance that ALL animals are merely "food": we can ignore any apparent similarities to human behavior as merely observer bias: only homo sapiens are possessed of "souls", i.e. intended for afterlife status in heaven or hell, etc.

When I point out that "our kind of thinking" is unique, you are the one who has trotted out the false syllogisms by making a short list of unique traits other animals possess, and assume that that sweeps aside the uniqueness of human thought. But as none of those "accidental" products of evolution have anything to do with thought, they have nothing to do with the question of whether there really is a metaphysical side to existence: our kind of thinking does provide countless evidences for assuming the existence of metaphysical paradigms. And not just flights of fancy/imagination either. The implications of our kind of thinking are real: raised questions of just how such capacity could originate on this planet without prior evidence of evolutionary development are not answered by science at this time: precisely because the existence of our kind of thinking is a conundrum. There is no evidence for it evolving on this world, yet here we are. It has been suggested that some hypothetical extinct races of subhumans, i.e. the evolutionary links to our species, formed the evolutionary development of imaginative thought: but there are no artifacts beyond that point where our kind of thought leaves products of itself lying about, therefore no evidence for earlier "vestigial" imagination. Our kind of thinking appears in the record of artifacts all at once: implying that some outside cause accounts for it, not merely evolution on this planet without any influence from the rest of the cosmos….

The admission that animals are "intelligent" affects different people differently: extremists want animals to be able to sue humans in human courts of law,….

Irrelevant.

When I point out that "our kind of thinking" is unique, you are the one who has trotted out the false syllogisms by making a short list of unique traits other animals possess, and assume that that sweeps aside the uniqueness of human thought.

You don't know what a syllogism is. And I never "assumed" anything of the kind.

The implications of our kind of thinking are real: raised questions of just how such capacity could originate on this planet without prior evidence of evolutionary development are not answered by science at this time: precisely because the existence of our kind of thinking is a conundrum.

There is a LOT of prior evidence of the evolution of intelligence. I presented some a way back. The rapid evolutionary changes of genes that controlled the development of the neo-cortex, especially within the frontal lobes is being studied. They can tell at what point from the 5,000,000 year divergence from chimpanzees these changes occurred. These changes are bolstered with the correlation of hominid skull growth that occurred concurrently. Growing bigger frontal lobes requires growth in the frontal aspect of the skull. The sloping forehead started to disappear. These increases in brain mass and usage also required a greater demand on the blood supply. Internal castings of the hominid frontal bones show an increase in the amount and size of cranial arteries. This all apparently went over your head, as your comments on "phrenology" made absolutely clear. But of course, you know better than the scientists.

Btw, it is still irrelevant to the topic.

…but there are no artifacts beyond that point where our kind of thought leaves products of itself lying about,…

That's where you are blinkered. The evidence of their intelligence lies within the evolution of their equipment to have intelligence. It's like denying our ancestors had language, because we have no physical artifacts of speech. If they had a developed Broca's area (the inferior frontal gyrus), as seen from the interior of their skulls, and the geneticists find they carried the FOXP2 gene, then we know they had speech, irregardless of what demands you think are necessary.

Learn some of what is being studied before you make generalized comments. Btw again, all mammals have orthologs of the FOXP2 gene. I'll let you figure out the ramifications by yourself.

And again, this also is irrelevant to the question about the "Intelligence of animals". By trying to redefine intelligence as "human intelligence" you are moving the goalposts. A tactic you employ quite often in these discussions.

It appears to have gotten cold, so I'll make up a fresh pot of Subaru for you…do you take cream? ; )

No thanks, I've given up Subaru

By trying to redefine intelligence as "human intelligence" you are moving the goalposts. A tactic you employ quite often in these discussions.

Read through the thread again: I've never varied from the point that it is sapience that allows us to note and compare intellect in all animals, ourselves included. So sapience IS intelligence, and unique in the universe so far as we know, so far….

I have read the thread, and my comments stand. Animals show intelligence. End of argument.

So sapience IS intelligence…….

Are you sure? Isn't that like saying knowledge is the same as wisdom? Sapience is the capability to act or respond with judgment. Intelligence is a much wider encompassing subject including but not limited to "abstract thought, understanding, self-awareness, communication, reasoning, learning, having emotional knowledge, retaining, planning, and problem solving." ( stolen from Wiki)