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> A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. That's such a misanthropic statement I

> A wild untrained human animal isn't that bright. We can probably operate above the crow level, but maybe not by much. That's such a misanthropic statement I don't even know where to begin. Just sticking to the kinds of structures a human and a crow can build in the wild, it's still obvious to the untrained observer that the human is well beyond the crow in terms of intelligence.

joshowar 7y ago
What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to? Think you'd just arrive at these ideas on your own? Think you'd even consider building your own at all? Or would you just keep walking until you found a cave? We depend more on our collective intelligence and teachings than you think.
- jancsika 7y ago
  > What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to? For an instructive example-- a crow's nest of sticks, leaves, etc. Especially if that human comes up happens to come upon a crow's nest in the wild. Notice that the human can probably scale that design to fit their own larger stature. Now imagine a crow coming upon a little 1x1 dugout crawdad battle arena, or a little lattice-structure of sticks that encloses a caddisfly larva collection of a 9 year old. If you saw a crow observe and then build that you'd have quite a research paper on your hands. But we're probably going to get stuck in physical differences so let's change the subject and just give both animals a stick. One of them uses it to extract a morsel of food from a hard to reach area. The other uses it to mark time according to either the moon cycle or possibly something else that lasts that long. I.e., this animal has created a calendar. Using historical evidence please tell me which animal performed which feat? The thing is-- I really do find the intelligence of crows fascinating! I just don't get the desire to pair that with the "human's aren't such hot shit" trope.
  - s1artibartfast 7y ago
    I think you are making of conflating how a socially raised human would behave in the the wild with how a feral human would behave. Despite nearly 8 billion people on Earth, we have very little data on human cognitive development when isolated from other humans.
boatswain 7y ago
Look at the levels humans are when they haven't been taught by other humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child
samatman 7y ago
It's not, although I believe I see why it was unclear. An untrained 'wild' human doesn't develop the language facility. Absent that, there's little to distinguish us from another large apex predator. There have been a few humans raised away from their own kind, not many, but enough to make this observation.

joshowar 7y ago

What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to? Think you'd just arrive at these ideas on your own? Think you'd even consider building your own at all? Or would you just keep walking until you found a cave? We depend more on our collective intelligence and teachings than you think.

jancsika 7y ago
> What kind of structure would you build in the wild, if you'd never seen a house, or hut, or lean-to? For an instructive example-- a crow's nest of sticks, leaves, etc. Especially if that human comes up happens to come upon a crow's nest in the wild. Notice that the human can probably scale that design to fit their own larger stature. Now imagine a crow coming upon a little 1x1 dugout crawdad battle arena, or a little lattice-structure of sticks that encloses a caddisfly larva collection of a 9 year old. If you saw a crow observe and then build that you'd have quite a research paper on your hands. But we're probably going to get stuck in physical differences so let's change the subject and just give both animals a stick. One of them uses it to extract a morsel of food from a hard to reach area. The other uses it to mark time according to either the moon cycle or possibly something else that lasts that long. I.e., this animal has created a calendar. Using historical evidence please tell me which animal performed which feat? The thing is-- I really do find the intelligence of crows fascinating! I just don't get the desire to pair that with the "human's aren't such hot shit" trope.
- s1artibartfast 7y ago
  I think you are making of conflating how a socially raised human would behave in the the wild with how a feral human would behave. Despite nearly 8 billion people on Earth, we have very little data on human cognitive development when isolated from other humans.

boatswain 7y ago

Look at the levels humans are when they haven't been taught by other humans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_child

samatman 7y ago

It's not, although I believe I see why it was unclear. An untrained 'wild' human doesn't develop the language facility. Absent that, there's little to distinguish us from another large apex predator. There have been a few humans raised away from their own kind, not many, but enough to make this observation.