3 ms·
> The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it. It goes both ways, in the past we had Clever Hans[1]. People beli
by josefx 5y ago
> The more I learn about animal intelligence, the more I suspect we grossly underestimate it.
It goes both ways, in the past we had Clever Hans[1]. People believed Hans could perform simple math, when his cleverness was actually watching his owners expression for small changes. So any observed intelligence ends up under suspicion of them acting on information gained from a much simpler side channel.
[1]https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clever_Hans
- cscurmudgeon 5y agoYep, given the huge replication crisis for human cognitive science and pyschology, I am not sure how reliable these studies are.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThe thing about animal intelligence is that it is probably significantly different from ours. In studying it, we must avoid antromorphization of animals. Mammals are somewhat close to us, but we have diverged from birds over a hundred million years ago and we still struggle to understand how a tiny and smooth brain such as corvids have can produce such an observably intelligent behavior.
- firebaze 5y agoMammals are close to us in the dimensions of reproduction and biological ancestry; also, there are countless mammals which are (way) less intelligent than corvids. Corvids may have small brains in terms of volume, but not measured by the number of neurons in the areas that count[1]. Maybe animal intelligence is not so different to ours, but our measure is. [1] https://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255 https://www.pnas.org/content/113/26/7255
- xcambar 5y agoFor something radically different, I'd suggest you look at octopuses. They're as different from human as can be. Surely BBC or NPR has a decent documentary on the topic.