Originally Posted by coughthecat:
“Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but bear in mind that we define intelligence, so we're bound to be a bit biased!
As such, if we see an animal mimicking a human behaviour, we say "Oooh ... isn't that clever!"
Yeah, because a chimp has a fundamental need to dress up in dungarees and ride a tricycle!
We also focus on what's important to us, and sometimes forget it might not be important to animals ... and vice versa! So, we can sit there congratulating ourselves on our brilliant intelligence having invented the Sat-Nav. Meanwhile, two swallows are sitting on a telephone wire watching a couple in a car arguing about which way they should turn at a junction, and thinking to themselves "FFS! We've just flown from Africa and found our way back to the exact spot we were last year! How dumb are these humans?"
”
“Slightly tongue-in-cheek, but bear in mind that we define intelligence, so we're bound to be a bit biased!
As such, if we see an animal mimicking a human behaviour, we say "Oooh ... isn't that clever!"
Yeah, because a chimp has a fundamental need to dress up in dungarees and ride a tricycle!
We also focus on what's important to us, and sometimes forget it might not be important to animals ... and vice versa! So, we can sit there congratulating ourselves on our brilliant intelligence having invented the Sat-Nav. Meanwhile, two swallows are sitting on a telephone wire watching a couple in a car arguing about which way they should turn at a junction, and thinking to themselves "FFS! We've just flown from Africa and found our way back to the exact spot we were last year! How dumb are these humans?"
”
Very true Cough - I like the way Douglas Adams saw it, that we think we are more intelligent than dolphins because we have invented war & bombs, while they just frolic in the sea - and dolphins think they are more intelligent than us, for exactly the same reasons.
on the 8 step puzzle.
