One particularly early, groggy morning I was walking into work and there were a few crows pecking around the grass by the sidewalk. Lost in my thoughts I hear a raspy old man say, "good morning". I look around and don't see anyone, then I look at one of the crows and it looks me right in the eye and repeats, "good morning". I doubted my sanity for a few days before confiding in my wife what happened and was surprised and very much relieved when I learned crows could talk.
I didn't read the article or have anything to add, I just wanted to share this.
Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
121–130 of 390 posts
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans were effective in their intelligence and rule the world with it, no other animal has shown anything approaching something like that. You judge them by their results.
We didn't come to rule the world with our intelligence... we came to rule it with fire. Fire, control over it and the ability to make it, is the one thing humans have that no other animal has. We may (or not) be more intelligent, have a more complex capacity for language, etc., but those are differences of degree. Only fire is truly a difference of kind. We are the animal that makes fire. Fire is literally what made…
Except for Australian Hawks, who use wildfire to flush out smaller animals.
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm endlessly grateful that Raccoons aren't more intelligent.
Yet. Coexisting near humans, it's likely that the environment will incentivize smarter raccoons.
I think it’s the opposite. Any idiot raccoon can raid a trash can and get lots of calories. And unlike rats we are generally not out there looking to kill them.
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans were effective in their intelligence and rule the world with it, no other animal has shown anything approaching something like that. You judge them by their results.
Maybe the longer term results are different. If the Fermi Paradox is a thing, perhaps our brand of intelligence - the combination of brains and dexterity and environment that let us quickly advance from sophisticated tool building to a global industrial economy - is an evolutionary dead end and species that have gone down this path destroy their ecosystem and themselves along with it inside a few thousand years. Wher…
This reminds me of the discussion a while ago about how efficiency and robustness are at odds.
It's the same thing, but on a much grander scale.
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".
That's uncomfortably close to Eurocentric claims of superiority that point to their colonization and exploitation of other countries in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. I don't necessarily buy it. A pacifist civilization might be "dominated" by a violent civilization, but they might still choose death over becoming violent themselves.
I agree with your post but it’s worth noting it does not apply to dolphins. Dolphins are not pacifists[0].
[0] http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160204-cute-and-cuddly-dolp...
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#126The headline of the article, as is often the case, overstates what the actual research shows. Here is the actual claim made in the abstract of the paper:
"We show that single-neuron responses in the pallial endbrain of crows performing a visual detection task correlate with the birds’ perception about stimulus presence or absence and argue that this is an empirical marker of avian consciousness."
In other words: when crows who are trained to look for something show behavioral evidence that they see what they are looking for, the researchers can correlate that with neuron firings in their brains. Which, compared to the overblown claim of "higher intelligence", equates to "whoop de freaking do".
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".
That's uncomfortably close to Eurocentric claims of superiority that point to their colonization and exploitation of other countries in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century. I don't necessarily buy it. A pacifist civilization might be "dominated" by a violent civilization, but they might still choose death over becoming violent themselves.
I do not read that the previous poster meant that the superior one was morally superior. Only superior in terms of violent power.
You're not buying it but they're not selling it?
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".
what would be the next trump card above intelligence for survival/evolution/procreation/whatever the "goal" is?
Self knowledge and self control.
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
Humans were effective in their intelligence and rule the world with it, no other animal has shown anything approaching something like that. You judge them by their results.
We didn't come to rule the world with our intelligence... we came to rule it with fire. Fire, control over it and the ability to make it, is the one thing humans have that no other animal has. We may (or not) be more intelligent, have a more complex capacity for language, etc., but those are differences of degree. Only fire is truly a difference of kind. We are the animal that makes fire. Fire is literally what made…
I wonder if the Black Kite will ever come to rule the world one day then.
Re: Crows possess higher intelligence long thought a primarily human attribute
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
But this type of reasoning went out the window, as soon as humans started killing dolphins in large numbers (see tuna nets), and the dolphins had no way to defend themselves or otherwise dissuade humans from doing that. This is one of the big lessons in history. The civilizations that use their intelligence to make tools and weapons end up screwing civilizations that "muck about, having a good time".
Aha, so when an interstellar empire comes around and fucks up our planet -- if not outright just sending an asteroid our way, it's justified because we are of a lower technological level? The humans and proto-humans of the past weren't 'stupid'. And even if they were comparatively, 'stupidity' isn't a justification for committing harmful actions, degrading, or otherwise treating the recipient as lesser. This sounds l…
Why are you assuming that previous poster aimed to justify that behaviour? I don't see that that was implied.