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Humans often claim that their “intelligence, rationality, reason, sentience, conscious ect ect” separates them from other beings. Let me first address what intelligence really is: “The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills” ~Oxford dictionary. This is a very, very nebulous definition and that is exactly because it is SO multidimensional. It is not a linearly scale on which you can scale one as stupid or smart. Comparing the “intelligence” of one species with another is like comparing apples with pears. Even within one species, for example humans, it’s difficult to define one’s “intelligence” – and indeed, as behavioural biologist, I don’t believe in IQ tests. Some people are good at solving practical problems, while others have a much more developed emotional “intelligence” or “social intelligence”.

The same goes for other animals. That’s why I like to refer to one’s cognition rather than intelligence, since intelligence has become a very subjective term. Every species is adapted to perform well in their own specific ecological niche and every species has their own ‘umwelt’ in which their cognitive skills work the best. Having many sociality related emotions don’t make sense for a solitary species and since humans are a social species, they tend to regard the lack of social emotions as stupid or less intelligent, thereby forgetting that a solitary species needs an entire mindset to survive alone. Why would they waste brain-space on something they don’t need? They better spend that space into becoming better at something that they DO need.
There are many types of intelligence in the animal world (to which humans belong): empathy, theory of mind, social learning, tool-use, episodic memory, self-awareness, social learning, Machiavellian sociality, spatial memory, deceptive thinking, causal reasoning, imitation, perspective taking, associative learning, planning ect ect. Humans tend to emphasize only the types of intelligence that they can relate to; they automatically value that as better, more superior, more advanced and forget that another species has another type of intelligence that makes sense for their specialized ecological niche. That can even make another species much more intelligent than humans, depending on the definition. Fact is there are many of these cognitive skills in which other animals outperform humans by far. Really BY FAR. Take the spatial memory of nutcracker birds, the episodic memory of elephants, the ability to predict movements of prey in predators. Many of these marvelous skills are then disregarded by humans as “instinct” or as not important.

Another important paradoxical point I have come over many times during my biology studies and career is how ‘the most parsimonious explanation’ is only applied on non-human animal cognition, but the opposite is done on human cognition. The most parsimonious explanation means that one tries to explain a complicated feature (be it a cognitive skill or physical product of evolution) in the simplest way possible. In that way, many scientists try VERY hard to reduce advanced cognitive skills of other animals to simple automatism or instincts. But what do humans do to their own, exactly the same cognitive skills? Right…they glorify it, make it more complex than it really is and then pride around with how advanced they are. Measuring with two standards that is. As if they are afraid of another species being ‘better’ at something?

Just read this book if you're interested to learn more about non-human animal cognition:
www.amazon.com/Are-Smart-Enoug…

(mind the dichotomy talking….even here…..it’s a shame. Although the author explains that there is no dichotomy on the first pages of the book, still he uses a lot of dichotomy wording…which in my eyes, is wrong and not good of a trendsetting – it still frames the mind to think in dichotomy since language shapes thinking on a subconscious level.

Other interesting articles
No emotion is unique to humans longreads.com/2019/03/12/i-can…
Intelligence underestimated www.washingtonpost.com/express…
Theory of Mind phys.org/news/2016-02-birds-th…

Rationality phys.org/news/2017-11-animals-…

Rationality 2 www.psychologytoday.com/intl/b…

:+fav: if you use this

Description

:+fav: if you use this.

Humans often claim that their “intelligence, rationality, reason, sentience, conscious ect ect” separates them from other beings. Let me first address what intelligence really is: “The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills” ~Oxford dictionary. This is a very, very nebulous definition and that is exactly because it is SO multidimensional. It is not a linearly scale on which you can scale one as stupid or smart. Comparing the “intelligence” of one species with another is like comparing apples with pears. Even within one species, for example humans, it’s difficult to define one’s “intelligence” – and indeed, as behavioural biologist, I don’t believe in IQ tests. Some people are good at solving practical problems, while others have a much more developed emotional “intelligence” or “social intelligence”.

The same goes for other animals. That’s why I like to refer to one’s cognition rather than intelligence, since intelligence has become a very subjective term. Every species is adapted to perform well in their own specific ecological niche and every species has their own ‘umwelt’ in which their cognitive skills work the best. Having many sociality related emotions don’t make sense for a solitary species and since humans are a social species, they tend to regard the lack of social emotions as stupid or less intelligent, thereby forgetting that a solitary species needs an entire mindset to survive alone. Why would they waste brain-space on something they don’t need? They better spend that space into becoming better at something that they DO need.
There are many types of intelligence in the animal world (to which humans belong): empathy, theory of mind, social learning, tool-use, episodic memory, self-awareness, social learning, Machiavellian sociality, spatial memory, deceptive thinking, causal reasoning, imitation, perspective taking, associative learning, planning ect ect. Humans tend to emphasize only the types of intelligence that they can relate to; they automatically value that as better, more superior, more advanced and forget that another species has another type of intelligence that makes sense for their specialized ecological niche. That can even make another species much more intelligent than humans, depending on the definition. Fact is there are many of these cognitive skills in which other animals outperform humans by far. Really BY FAR. Take the spatial memory of nutcracker birds, the episodic memory of elephants, the ability to predict movements of prey in predators. Many of these marvelous skills are then disregarded by humans as “instinct” or as not important.

Another important paradoxical point I have come over many times during my biology studies and career is how ‘the most parsimonious explanation’ is only applied on non-human animal cognition, but the opposite is done on human cognition. The most parsimonious explanation means that one tries to explain a complicated feature (be it a cognitive skill or physical product of evolution) in the simplest way possible. In that way, many scientists try VERY hard to reduce advanced cognitive skills of other animals to simple automatism or instincts. But what do humans do to their own, exactly the same cognitive skills? Right…they glorify it, make it more complex than it really is and then pride around with how advanced they are. Measuring with two standards that is. As if they are afraid of another species being ‘better’ at something?

Just read this book if you're interested to learn more about non-human animal cognition:
www.amazon.com/Are-Smart-Enoug…

(mind the dichotomy talking….even here…..it’s a shame. Although the author explains that there is no dichotomy on the first pages of the book, still he uses a lot of dichotomy wording…which in my eyes, is wrong and not good of a trendsetting – it still frames the mind to think in dichotomy since language shapes thinking on a subconscious level.

Other interesting articles
No emotion is unique to humans longreads.com/2019/03/12/i-can…
Intelligence underestimated www.washingtonpost.com/express…
Theory of Mind phys.org/news/2016-02-birds-th…

Rationality phys.org/news/2017-11-animals-…

Rationality 2 www.psychologytoday.com/intl/b…

:+fav: if you use this