Study after study keeps showing there is far less difference between us and our animal relatives in so many areas. Often, it’s more a matter of degree.
Sheep aren’t viewed as the cleverest of creatures, but new research has found they might be a lot more intelligent than previously thought.
Scientists at the University of Cambridge found that Welsh mountain sheep can map their surroundings, and may even be able to plan ahead. The discovery shows they have the brainpower to equal rodents, monkeys and, in some tests, even humans.
Monkeys trained to play computer games have helped to show that it is not just humans that feel self-doubt and uncertainty, a study says. US-based scientists found that macaques will “pass” rather than risk choosing the wrong answer in a brainteaser task.
Awareness of our own thinking was believed to be a uniquely human trait.
But the study, presented at the AAAS meeting in Washington DC, suggests that our more primitive primate relatives are capable of such self-awareness.
Some animals are certainly more aware than we give them credit for. Not sure about macaques. I was adopted by one in Angola. Wasn’t very smart. I think wild sheep (like the Welsh mountain sheep above) may be smarter than the dumb breeds we normally interact with. Wild turkeys are pretty shrewd. Domestic turkeys can drown in a rain storm. (Or so the myth goes.) Domestic sheep are protein and textile manufacturing machines. Little more. Cattle don’t even exist in nature to the best of my knowledge. Man domesticated oxen and buffalo and, through thousands of years have turned them into dumb, meat, milk and leather manufacturing units. If there’s anything less aware than a cow, we’d have to call it an Alfie.
You also need to draw a significant line differentiating “smart” and “intelligent.” I had a very smart black Labrador retriever but he never got the basic gist of long division and could read no better than the average Wisconsin high school graduate.
My apologies. I should do the research BEFORE I post. A quick check of Wikipedia indicates that cattle DO exist in nature. The problem is that, due to their apparent ability to interbreed with anything, the genome is seriously polluted.
So Animby, what with your habit of googling all the time just to be accurate in what you post, just exactly what species/co-habitants has Alfie interbred with? and are THOSE offspring fecund?
Political vote counters want to know!
Speaking of which, when the catalog of the bits and pieces of sentient building blocks are understood better, then Science can march on to find the cure for PUKE unawareness. Until such time, only religion can provide any insight at all: Damn Them!
Yep, just having my fill today reading how they are reengaging the “values wars” that should be well behind us. PUKE Platform: Projectile Fecal Vomiting.
Will every advanced society carry within it the seeds for its own destruction? Political vote counters want to know.
I don’t get the first joke at all. Not funny but “wry”? I’m putting “wry” at the top of my human intelligence pyramid.
Bobbo: Hahahahaha. The idea of Alfie being allowed to touch any fertile female creature had me doubled over with laughter. Likely he was rejected by his own hand! Sadly, it doesn’t matter if his progeny would be fecund since his god creates more of him upon demand.
Wry? Did you understand the phrases were Spanish? I thought it was funny enough that I’ve saved the cartoon and intend to send it to some friends in Mexico.
I don’t really have anything else to add – just didn’t want to break the chain of couplets
The identification of couplets is but a pattern created from random events?
Patterns found, here, there
But meaning still eludes us
Self Deprecation?
Eat all of them!
I see no evidence that these scientists have considered the matter from the angle of (some) humans lowering their intelligence to that of the animals. A significant proportion of humans are engaged in developing methods of wiping out the human race for example. Don’t know of any animal who pursues that line of ‘intelligent activity’. Also, if you need any verification try looking at how humans so readily accept that certain members of their species have the right to invent something called Global Warming or Climate Change and then nail down the rest of their species to provide comforts (money – vast quantities – deprived levels of sustenance, living under a great cloud of guilt)whilst those who came up with this (i.e. Al Gore) are rewarded for their ‘thought’ despite having the intellect, or intelligence of a mentally retarded house brick. I don’t really see that as intelligent behaviour – not that I’m prejudiced against such strange beliefs you understand. It’s just that I wish such persons would take up swimming with the Sharks to demonstrate their affinity with nature.
#10 “A significant proportion of humans are engaged in developing methods of wiping out the human race for example. Don’t know of any animal who pursues that line of ‘intelligent activity’.”
Chimpanzees, most notably, although perhaps not on the scale you’re thinking of – apparently, clubs are the latest trend to knock open the heads of other clans. Then again, they’re said to be pretty closely related to us so just give them time…
its taking them this long to figure this out?
maybe the researchers should live with a friendly dog or cat for say, 15-20yrs.
you’d have to be rather ignorant (or arrogant?) not to to notice a huge array of emotions -and “planning” displayed.
that aside, i’m kinda in the same boat with #10. -if you step back and look at the big picture, we as species overall, are the only profound idiots on the planet compared to all the rest..
what that actually means in the grand scheme of things, i’m sure will make for some interesting debate at the chess table..
-s
soundwash, I think you’re on the right track. How intelligent are humans who grew up with animals? Ha. But when we humans take an animal and teach them, some of them can learn quite a bit.
More than we like to admit.
Oh, and Gary Larsen is a genius.
As long as they keep making them taste good, I could care less how intelligent they are. When I’m eating lamb or veal, I’ve never cared how well this animal would have scored on an SAT. I love meat like a womanizer likes his women, only for the body and not the brains.
This research begs the question, are sheep more intelligent than sheeple and assuming they are, isn’t it an insult to all sheep to refer to our human idjits as sheeple?
This kind of research also begs the question, should we really be imprisoning and eating creatures, the majority of whom are more intelligent than the majority of our species?
Where’s God when you need Him to answer a few simple questions, huh? He’s never fucking available.
Maybe sheep are smarter than God, too? At least we know for sure they’re kinder, gentler and more reliable than any of the Gods we’ve so far invented.
I had a Rottweiler that was incredibly smart, she use to do my taxes. I tried to breed her – took her to movies, dinner, drinks, nothing worked.
One of them things running as vice president was all the proof I needed. Hopefully, we can all agree on that clear evidence.
Re #17, Metis, “Where’s God when you need Him to answer a few simple questions, huh? He’s never fucking available.”
I’m right here Metis. I post on Dvorak all the time.
Even though some of you comically deny it, you are all nothing more than animals that have the intelligence to pretend to be superior. An animal with Intelligence, wrapped in stupidity, ruled by an enigma.
Yes, eat any animal you like. I don’t care if you make it suffer. That’s why I gave all animals the ability to feel pain.
#20 God, Allah and other monikers
There are nine billion names of god. Post them all and we shall worship thee (except maybe bobbo and possibly Alfie, who is, as you know, faking it).
Let’s see now, at one name per second, that’s nine billion seconds.
This should be a piece of cake for an omnipotent being like you.
Get back to me when you’re done, OK? OK!
Even god doesn’t fuck with Metis.
Metis==glad to see you posting your opposition to God/He who has 9 Billion Names even if he does post them all. Conceptually, god cannot be all things attributed to him. At most, he can only be very very powerful and thats no basis for worship. Just an alien with tech we don’t understand.
Quite a few staunch rationalists on this blog, but you got Alfie pegged. He is either Satan’s loose tool or totally a stooge. Even a crazy person evidences more variability than Alfie. Could be Watson .4?
Are his nicknames included in that 9,000,000,000 figure?
I sometimes call god Carl. Is that 9,000,000,001?
I think I’m going out for a dolphin burger…
Waiting for Godot…
Ah Metis… only 9 billion? The possibilities are infinite. You could call Me aaaaaa… continuously, pausing only for breath and food for your entire life where you could have a friend take up the challenge for their entire life… and so on. Let’s call that name #1. Some people use that name when I allow them to fall off a cliff.
However, I will give you a sampling of 9 billion versions. I’ve even included Carl in the list. They are all contained in the period after the end of this sentence. .
#25 God, Allah and other monikers
Not very convincing but a really nice try there, Carl.
Hey, wait a minute! I thought you were infallible! Shouldn’t I automagically be convinced right now?
Quod Erat Demonstrandum
Even god doesn’t fuck with Jesuits
😀
Metis, the cool thing about being God is that I don’t need to give proof of anything. That’s what faith is for.
And no, I’m not infallible and I never said is was. I did a really crappy job in creating Homo sapiens didn’t I? I should have skipped the evolution experiment and went straight to the finale. You would have had wings and good eyesight.
I did a nice job on birds though, don’t you think?
#27 Carl
Absolutely! Birds are good. Very good indeed. Recycling them out of old, used up dinosaurs was a stroke of pure genius.
As for Homo sapiens, I think you might have blinked and missed the evolution to Homo crudelis but hey, that’s OK, nobody is perfect, not even Nobodaddy, apparently.
Home sapiens is, I fear, a lost cause. Even if you add wings and pussycat eyes to Homo sapiens, you’re still just going to end up with a pretty stupid, bloodthirsty creature, who happens to see better when flying around drunk or drugged.
Ah, faith! It is your greatest strength and your greatest weakness. It was the beginning and it will be the end of you, thank Carl!
I have a welsh mountain sheep who has a wicked sense of humor. She knows she’s black, she knows she can scare me if she sneaks up behind me. She does this regularly, and then trots away. What is the purpose? I’m sure it’s fun to scare a human.