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Humans not smarter than animals

30 posts · originally from https://geek.digit.in/community/threads/humans-not-smarter-than-animals.179887/

Anorion
Anorion Original post #1
Dec 9, 2013 at 9:01 AM
Professor Maciej Henneberg said animals often possess different abilities that are misunderstood by humans. "The fact that they may not understand us, while we do not understand them, does not mean our 'intelligences' are at different levels, they are just of different kinds," Henneberg said.

"Animals offer different kinds of intelligences which have been under-rated due to humans' fixation on language and technology. These include social and kin aesthetic intelligence.

"Some mammals, like gibbons, can produce a large number of varied sounds - over 20 different sounds with clearly different meanings that allow these arboreal primates to communicate across tropical forest canopy. The fact that they do not build houses is irrelevant to the gibbons," Henneberg said.

Humans not smarter than animals: experts - Indian Express Mobile
bssunilreddy
Dec 9, 2013 at 9:04 AM
Animals can detect Earthquakes but we cannot. Its as simple as that.
srkmish
srkmish #3
Dec 9, 2013 at 9:24 AM
Rather than all this, Animals simply enjoy life living in the present moment and humans worry their whole lives about job,money,marriage and the whole damn future.

Who is more intelligent now?
rijinpk1
Dec 9, 2013 at 9:28 AM
Rather than all this, Animals simply enjoy life living in the present moment and humans worry their whole lives about job,money,marriage and the whole damn future.

Who is more intelligent now?

humans live long too :D
Desmond
Desmond #6
Dec 9, 2013 at 10:27 AM
The misanthrope in me is smiling right now.
bubusam13
Dec 9, 2013 at 11:29 AM
Many Birds and tortoise have build in GPS system. They can detect magnetic field of earth and locate their position. Bats got sonar more precise than the most advanced human made sonar.
Bee can see a differently coloured world.
a_k_s_h_a_y
Dec 9, 2013 at 11:52 AM
What's he trying to do ? Change the definition of intelligence and smart in oxford dictionary ?
H
Dec 9, 2013 at 12:31 PM
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
M
Minion #10
Dec 9, 2013 at 12:46 PM
So true if you look at those street dogs sometimes they fight among them but we human always fight among ourselves so we are even worse than them.

Humans always think about themselves and not anyone.

Even Your school friends they simply broke any relationship(friendship) if they have job and you don't have this is so insane they stop calling you texting you... So animal yeah they are lot better than humans..
Desmond
Desmond #11
Dec 9, 2013 at 1:46 PM
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

So long, so long and thanks for all the fish.
Darth Vader
Dec 9, 2013 at 3:19 PM
Only humans can think beyond Earth.

Animals kill each other....infact eat their own offsprings. Humans kill each other but in more sophisticated way because we are more intelligent. So Intelligence has nothing to do with WAR & PEACE. Intelligence is a weapon used for the survival of the human species.

Ultimately we are the only species ever lived that talks **** about our own species :D
Anorion
Anorion #13
Dec 9, 2013 at 5:06 PM
Yeah the scientist is saying the same thing Adams said
Greed, anger, lust, fear, hunger still motivates us in day to day existence, at least more than space travel. Our tech and brains havent yet elevated us over animals. It remains to be explored what animals are advanced in without comparing based on what humans have achieved.
N
nav18 #14
Dec 9, 2013 at 6:19 PM
Many Birds and tortoise have build in GPS system. They can detect magnetic field of earth and locate their position. Bats got sonar more precise than the most advanced human made sonar.
Bee can see a differently coloured world.

And we are constantly adapting these kind of things in our technology.
So we have an edge no matter what our intelligence level is. :cool:
Anorion
Anorion #15
Dec 9, 2013 at 8:45 PM
But we rely on these so much we cant even tell time without complicated devices

We can no longer survive in jungle, thats devolution
Human babbys are most helpless in wild
We paid heavy price for brains
Extreme Gamer
Dec 10, 2013 at 12:26 AM
Quick question: What is intelligence?

:D
Desmond
Desmond #17
Dec 10, 2013 at 7:20 AM
But we rely on these so much we cant even tell time without complicated devices

We can no longer survive in jungle, thats devolution
Human babbys are most helpless in wild
We paid heavy price for brains

There is only one way forward, the Strogg way.
harshilsharma63
Dec 10, 2013 at 10:31 AM
Quick question: What is intelligence?

:D

From "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" (1994), an editorial statement by fifty-two researchers:

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.
Extreme Gamer
Dec 10, 2013 at 10:43 AM
From "Mainstream Science on Intelligence" (1994), an editorial statement by fifty-two researchers:

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

Exactly what I thought. The tl;dr version of it, that is- the degree to which a being is able to learn and think independently.
cyborg47
cyborg47 #20
Dec 11, 2013 at 11:36 PM
Animals simply enjoy life living in the present moment and humans worry their whole lives about job,money,marriage and the whole damn future.
That's such a dumb statement, lol.
mohit9206
mohit9206 #21
Dec 15, 2013 at 9:53 PM
I always knew that humans were no smarter and intelligent than animals but nobody believed me.Now take that suckers.
beingGamer
Dec 15, 2013 at 10:54 PM
Rather than all this, Animals simply enjoy life living in the present moment and humans worry their whole lives about job,money,marriage and the whole damn future.

Who is more intelligent now?


Humans not happy.jpg

True.. This image explains it.
Chetan1991
Dec 16, 2013 at 6:30 PM
I call BS. Sounds like the subjectivity crap theories flying around.

Watch this: David Christian: The history of our world in 18 minutes | Video on TED.com

Animals might be better at specific tasks than us. A specialization of an animal doesn't make it better than us humans.

Their rate of adaption and learning is governed by evolution, which, while way more error-free than our methods, is very slow.

OTOH we humans can adapt and survive by by using "collective learning." which can occur phenomenally faster than evolution.(Watch the video in link for description)
The most basic urge of any organism is survival, and in my opinion the species which can survive in the most variety of environments is most successful.
We can live in space now and might send humans to live on Mars in near future; that makes us the most successful species.
Anorion
Anorion #24
Feb 12, 2014 at 6:32 PM
Update on this
A New Scientific Model that Defines Alien Intelligence

that also answers this question

Quick question: What is intelligence?

Historically, our measures of nonhuman intelligence has looked like this:

Physical measurements: brain to body ratio, brain structure/convolution/neural density, presence of artifacts and physical tools
Observational and sensory measurements: sensory signals, complexity of signals, cross-modal abilities, social complexity
Data mining: information theory, signal/noise, pattern recognition
Experimentation: memory, cognition, language comprehension/use, theory of mind
Direct interfaces: one way and two way interfaces with primates, dolphins, birds
Accidental interactions: human/animal symbiosis, cross-species enculturation
But these are mostly "human-like" attributes and measures. Most scientists are often reluctant to consider other types of intelligence that may not have human analogues.

"[Our] abilities to profile 'types' of intelligence that differ on a variety of scales is weak," writes Herzing. "Just as biologists stretch their definitions of life to look at extremophiles in unusual conditions, so must we stretch our descriptions of types of minds and begin profiling, rather than equating, other life forms we may encounter."

Intelligence is COMPLEX

To that end, Herzing has proposed a new approach to profiling a variety of nonhuman intelligences along multiple dimensions. Called COMPLEX (COmplexity of Markers for Profiling Life in EXobiology), it looks like this:

EQ: Encephalization Quotient
CS: Communication Signal complexity
IC: Individual Complexity
SC: Social Complexity
II: Interspecies Interaction
For example, dolphins have a high encephalization quotient, they engage in complex communication, and have big brains. The octopus is capable of associative learning, tameness, and exploratory behavior. Bees have collective intelligence, a symbolic waggle dance, and are capable of counting and learning. Even bacteria can exhibit complex behavioral responses without having to evolve complex brains. As for machine intelligence, namely AI, it demonstrates intelligence via neural networks, computational power, and algorithms.

To scale these markers, Herzing used a small set of taxa devised by biologists Lori Marino and Kathryn Denning. Each category was scored by experts on a scale from 1 to 10. Using this system, dolphins scored high in most categories, bees and machines scored relatively high in both the Communication Signal and Social Complexity categories, and microbes scored high in terms of Interspecies Interaction.
Harsh Pranami
Feb 15, 2014 at 5:01 PM
Bullshit! Humans have the capability to adapt like no one else. Of course through science. Animals can't do that
Desmond
Desmond #26
Feb 15, 2014 at 5:42 PM
Also, how are humans on top of the food pyramid?
Zangetsu
Zangetsu #27
Feb 17, 2014 at 6:51 PM
Humans are ahead in only in terms of Science & Living other than that Animals are superior
A
ash63425 #28
Feb 18, 2014 at 4:50 PM
There are many species of animals whose special abilities have left intelligence of humans behind.
Desmond
Desmond #29
Feb 18, 2014 at 8:27 PM
Humans are ahead in only in terms of Science & Living other than that Animals are superior

Yet, Humans developed science, which forms a solid repository of knowledge that he can use to better understand the world and our place in the universe and helped him make further progress and developments in technology that makes our lives comfortable. Animals on the other hand are driven by instinct, they have simply not evolved to the same level as humans because their ancestors did not feel the need for higher intellect and/or did not mutate in a way that they would develop such a level of sentience. Of course, humans cannot do everything that an animal can but that is because the human body has limitations and is not built for the speed of a cheetah or the strength of a elephant. However, humans evolved intellect as a way to compensate for the serious limitations of the body. This intellect helped the first humans develop more efficient methods to hunt and methods to farm which has more or less propelled us to where we are now. Animals on the other hand, are built in a way that best serves the environment they live in and their level of sentience is as much as is needed to survive. That is all to it.

Even if you cite complex communication methods employed by so many animals, they are still pretty simplistic as compared to the lakhs of words worth of vocabulary that an average human has.
Anorion
Anorion #30
Feb 19, 2014 at 2:06 AM
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