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We humans define intelligence in such limited terms. I have a border collie who's remarkably intelligent. But the words she knows are just the beginning. She's

We humans define intelligence in such limited terms. I have a border collie who's remarkably intelligent. But the words she knows are just the beginning. She's incredibly perceptive. Gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tone are all things she pays attention to. Determining how intelligent an animal is by how much it can learn the words of our language is a remarkably arrogant thing. We've clearly underestimated the intelligence of every animal we've ever dealt with. We only ever revise our estimates of animal intelligence upwards.

joshrule 16y ago
I imagine the research about non-verbal communication in humans would be instructive here. A relatively small minority of our in-person communication actually comes from the spoken words. The rest comes from body language, tone, inflection, and so on. I wonder how much of that a dog or similar animal picks up on regularly? Could it be that they actually pick up on the majority of our communicated meaning? What's more, I wonder if we are we actually poorer communicators than animals, because they understand our messages better than we understand theirs?
philwelch 16y ago
Gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tone are all things she pays attention to. Yes, but to be fair, that's common knowledge. Who hasn't run this experiment: tell a dog "you're so stupid and worthless!" in the happiest, most playful talking-to-a-dog tone of voice you can think of while scritching it behind the ears and see how it reacts? The idea that a dog has a very good command of spoken vocabulary in addition to picking up nonverbal cues is what's new and interesting.
- jeremymims 16y ago
  I disagree with the idea that this is new. The thing that is new is we're designing incrementally better experiments (but I would still argue that this experiment is flawed). In the past, we would have said that this was an excellent trainer and the dog just does it for the food. In fact, this has been our default for hundreds of years. For all we know, many dogs know or understand thousands of words, gestures, expressions, and even smells. This border collie probably understands even more than the words associated with the toys its supposed to pick up. I call this a Jurassic Park problem. We ask bad questions and so we get the wrong answers. We continue to ask if any dinosaurs are missing instead of asking how many dinosaurs there are. It's of no small amazement to me that we're so quick to treat revelations like this as a surprise. They're not. I'm all in favor of the results of these experiments being spread as widely as possible in the hopes that it creates doubt about the way we treat all animals. We might treat them better.
jordan0day 16y ago
"We humans define intelligence in such limited terms." How would you define intelligence, then? Being able to correctly respond to human emotional cues has been evolutionally advantageous for dogs. They've had thousands of years of coexistence to refine their instinctual abilities to "interpret" our emotions, which leads to more attachment on our part, which leads to better reproductive opportunities for those dogs which we are more attached to. For all we know, dogs responses to human emotions, gestures, and nonverbal cues are a completely autonomic behavior. I love dogs, I think my dog is super-smart, funny, and very sweet. I've heard her particular breed referred to as "the dog with the human brain" on some dog TV show before, and I'm sure she's not even as smart as a collie. That said, I can't help but feel like your comment is a bit... overwrought. Dogs clearly understand parts of human language and judging them by their ability to understand it seems like the best way to determine their intelligence. I would hardly call it "remarkably arrogant". You have to consider the fact that humans have likely had spoken language for as long as we've had domesticated canines. In the end I can't help but feel like over-sentimental and hyperbolic (would you say we've "underestimated the intelligence" of, say, jellyfish?) declarations like yours really set us up only for disappointment. Our dogs are great, and probably do actually love us, but they're not furry little geniuses held back only by their lack of proper speaking ability. All that said, they're still way better than cats.
- jeremymims 16y ago
  This is precisely why I believe almost all of these experiments are flawed. You begin with the assumption (based on nothing other than a general feeling of human specialness) that "For all we know, dogs responses to human emotions, gestures, and nonverbal cues are a completely autonomic behavior". Considering that we discover all kinds of animals are smarter than we thought with each passing experiment, the burden of proof should lie with you. The limitations appear to be our experiments. We do not start with this assumption when dealing with human beings. The safe assumption is that animals have their own desires, goals, ambitions, and purposes for existence. Since we have significant trouble understanding them or communicating with them (even though we know that within their own species they communicate perfectly well with each other), we might start from a less biased viewpoint. As for jellyfish, I don't know. But I do know that we've approached it from the wrong angle. Asking how many words a jellyfish can respond to and then determining whether or not it is intelligent is a surefire way to create a lousy experiment. BTW, Europeans used to do the same sorts of experiments with people from other countries and civilizations. They knew that white Anglo Saxons were the best and brightest so they looked for evidence to prove it. Africans clearly hadn't invented guns or the printing press so they determined that they had a lower level of intelligence. It's just as ridiculous a methodology when you're talking about studying animals.
jberryman 16y ago
Perceptive is right. Dogs are used to assist epileptics and can alert them when they are about to have siezure.

joshrule 16y ago

I imagine the research about non-verbal communication in humans would be instructive here. A relatively small minority of our in-person communication actually comes from the spoken words. The rest comes from body language, tone, inflection, and so on. I wonder how much of that a dog or similar animal picks up on regularly? Could it be that they actually pick up on the majority of our communicated meaning? What's more, I wonder if we are we actually poorer communicators than animals, because they understand our messages better than we understand theirs?

philwelch 16y ago

Gestures, facial expressions, and vocal tone are all things she pays attention to. Yes, but to be fair, that's common knowledge. Who hasn't run this experiment: tell a dog "you're so stupid and worthless!" in the happiest, most playful talking-to-a-dog tone of voice you can think of while scritching it behind the ears and see how it reacts? The idea that a dog has a very good command of spoken vocabulary in addition to picking up nonverbal cues is what's new and interesting.

jeremymims 16y ago
I disagree with the idea that this is new. The thing that is new is we're designing incrementally better experiments (but I would still argue that this experiment is flawed). In the past, we would have said that this was an excellent trainer and the dog just does it for the food. In fact, this has been our default for hundreds of years. For all we know, many dogs know or understand thousands of words, gestures, expressions, and even smells. This border collie probably understands even more than the words associated with the toys its supposed to pick up. I call this a Jurassic Park problem. We ask bad questions and so we get the wrong answers. We continue to ask if any dinosaurs are missing instead of asking how many dinosaurs there are. It's of no small amazement to me that we're so quick to treat revelations like this as a surprise. They're not. I'm all in favor of the results of these experiments being spread as widely as possible in the hopes that it creates doubt about the way we treat all animals. We might treat them better.

jordan0day 16y ago

"We humans define intelligence in such limited terms." How would you define intelligence, then? Being able to correctly respond to human emotional cues has been evolutionally advantageous for dogs. They've had thousands of years of coexistence to refine their instinctual abilities to "interpret" our emotions, which leads to more attachment on our part, which leads to better reproductive opportunities for those dogs which we are more attached to. For all we know, dogs responses to human emotions, gestures, and nonverbal cues are a completely autonomic behavior. I love dogs, I think my dog is super-smart, funny, and very sweet. I've heard her particular breed referred to as "the dog with the human brain" on some dog TV show before, and I'm sure she's not even as smart as a collie. That said, I can't help but feel like your comment is a bit... overwrought. Dogs clearly understand parts of human language and judging them by their ability to understand it seems like the best way to determine their intelligence. I would hardly call it "remarkably arrogant". You have to consider the fact that humans have likely had spoken language for as long as we've had domesticated canines. In the end I can't help but feel like over-sentimental and hyperbolic (would you say we've "underestimated the intelligence" of, say, jellyfish?) declarations like yours really set us up only for disappointment. Our dogs are great, and probably do actually love us, but they're not furry little geniuses held back only by their lack of proper speaking ability. All that said, they're still way better than cats.

jeremymims 16y ago
This is precisely why I believe almost all of these experiments are flawed. You begin with the assumption (based on nothing other than a general feeling of human specialness) that "For all we know, dogs responses to human emotions, gestures, and nonverbal cues are a completely autonomic behavior". Considering that we discover all kinds of animals are smarter than we thought with each passing experiment, the burden of proof should lie with you. The limitations appear to be our experiments. We do not start with this assumption when dealing with human beings. The safe assumption is that animals have their own desires, goals, ambitions, and purposes for existence. Since we have significant trouble understanding them or communicating with them (even though we know that within their own species they communicate perfectly well with each other), we might start from a less biased viewpoint. As for jellyfish, I don't know. But I do know that we've approached it from the wrong angle. Asking how many words a jellyfish can respond to and then determining whether or not it is intelligent is a surefire way to create a lousy experiment. BTW, Europeans used to do the same sorts of experiments with people from other countries and civilizations. They knew that white Anglo Saxons were the best and brightest so they looked for evidence to prove it. Africans clearly hadn't invented guns or the printing press so they determined that they had a lower level of intelligence. It's just as ridiculous a methodology when you're talking about studying animals.

jberryman 16y ago

Perceptive is right. Dogs are used to assist epileptics and can alert them when they are about to have siezure.