4 ms·
Cows have much larger brains than dogs and are quite intelligent, and so are pigs. The "dogs are special" argument is a familiarity thing or perhaps a statemen
by foobiekr 4y ago
Cows have much larger brains than dogs and are quite intelligent, and so are pigs. The "dogs are special" argument is a familiarity thing or perhaps a statement that dogs evolved to more effectively manipulate human emotions.
- kodah 4y agoAs I said, it probably has to do more with our aggregate personal connection to animals in a given culture, because that will influence how we perceive their intelligence. If you've read the studies I did, they're not very good. For instance, the test that asserted a pig is smarter than a dog was where they were tasked with moving a joystick designed for a monkey that controlled a cursor that they wanted moved into a blue region on a screen. I'll let you make your own judgements about how sound the testing with respect to the assertion is. My dog certainly has eyes that can be tuned to manipulate me, but she also has a sizeable vocabulary, a lot of tonal intuition, and this little heat seeker in her nose that quite literally syncs her heart rate with mine. There's a good amount of theory that says this adds up to empathy.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoCows may have larger brains, but they also have much bigger bodies. They aren't anywhere near as intelligent as dogs. Now, with pigs, you have a point. They're indeed very smart. I justify eating pigs by reasoning that pigs will happily eat humans if they get a chance (a few pig farmers lose their lives that way every year, plus there's the occasional serial killer...). Turnabout is fair play.