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Having grown up with both, I strongly disagree. You can build very strong bonds with cats, but you have to earn their trust first. Just because they don't feel

Having grown up with both, I strongly disagree. You can build very strong bonds with cats, but you have to earn their trust first. Just because they don't feel that the purpose of their existence is to please their owner doesn't mean they're not intelligent.

jononomo 4y ago
The inability of a cat to communicate with a human being is what makes cats unintelligent. People like to think that cats are above communicating with humans when the fact is that they're just too stupid. It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to -- it's that cat are dumb and they can't follow instructions.
- czx4f4bd 4y ago
  This is just flat-out incorrect. Scientists have found cats are plenty intelligent and simply don't cooperate with testing. https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-rival-dogs-many-tests-social-smarts-anyone-brave-enough-study-them https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-rival-dogs-many...
  - jononomo 4y ago
    Apparently dogs have been objectively measured to be twice as intelligent as cats: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-brains-neurons-intelligence-study-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-b...
    - Lwepz 4y ago
      Dogs might might be better learners and problem solvers than cats but your statement doesn't make any sense.
    - zuminator 4y ago
      That's not what that article says. It says that dogs have been objectively measured to have twice the number of neurons as cats. And that is speculated to mean they are roughly twice as intelligent. With that in mind, dolphins have 2x and elephants have 3x the number of neurons as humans.
- belval 4y ago
  > It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to You can teach your cat to use the toilet, come when you call its name, roll and jump. They can even open doors which requires understanding how a door knob/rail system behaves. We had a cat that would follow us everywhere even if we went for a walk outside the house for several miles. Additionally, cats are not nurtured like puppies are. There are considerable amounts of information and know-how from breeders on how to socialize puppies to develop their ability to follow instructions and respect their master. Kittens on the other hand are mostly raised in small cages in pet shops and treated as glorified hamsters that can jump high and purr. Going further, canines are pack animals which are naturally predisposed to work with others and understand complex hierarchies. Felines are mostly solitary and only really get in groups during mating season. Another counter-example (unrelated to cats) are birds. Birds are incredibly intelligent, they can learn to solve puzzles, talk, and answer to their name. Yet if you ever get a budgie (or similar) you'll notice that your animal seems dumb as a rock. That's because birds require a lot of work in order to learn those tricks because they are naturally distrustful of humans. If you put ~1hr a day on training your budgie as you would with a young pup, you would see incredible improvements. As a final note, I would concede that a cat's intellect is no match to a dog's, but using "follow instructions" as a metric to define intelligence and concluding "cat are dumb" is an oversimplification.
- slfnflctd 4y ago
  Cats will let you know if they want to be petted, brushed, for you turn on the sink so they can drink from it, or of course be fed. They will also make it clear if they are excited or if they feel threatened. They can communicate just fine when they want to. There are animal handlers and zookeepers who have trained cats to perform complex tasks on obstacle courses repeatedly & reliably, just like dogs and other animals. I saw this first hand at a zoo myself (I think it was San Diego but I'm not positive). On top of all this, if you have interacted with a lot of cats, it becomes obvious that there is a ton of diversity in their personalities & behavioral patterns, even between siblings. There is no point in discussing 'smarter or dumber' here, their intelligence is just different-- it's unique to their species, as with pretty much every other animal capable of being trained.
  - slfnflctd 4y ago
    Forgot to mention, in a house with 10 cats where I once lived, each would respond individually & separately to their name. So they can understand verbal direction.
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  I think it's reasonable to go back to the original inquiry: How are we defining intelligence here? Is it reasonable to define intelligent as the ability to communicate with human beings?
jononomo 4y ago
"A team of researchers counted the number of neurons in dog and cat brains and found one had twice as many as the other." Guess which one! The answer is found here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-brains-neurons-intelligence-study-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-b...
- PurpleRamen 4y ago
  Isn't that as pointless as comparing clock rates of different CPU-families?
  - jononomo 4y ago
    No
    - PurpleRamen 4y ago
      Because all brains are working the same? No difference in "architecture", strategies, neurons, biology, chemistry, whatever?
      - navjack27 4y ago
        Yeah my brain is a netburst. Not even joking. Context switches make me have to completely flush my pipeline. But once I get going on something my pipeline is pretty deep and my clock rate can get pretty high.
- mirror_neuron 4y ago
  Neuron count is strongly correlated with body size, and does not necessarily correspond to what we like to call “intelligence” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244864 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244864
  - bpodgursky 4y ago
    Ok but body size also corresponds somewhat closely with what we call intelligence within similar classes of animal. Great apes are smarter than small apes. Big birds are generally smarter than small birds. Elephants are smarter than deer.

jononomo 4y ago

The inability of a cat to communicate with a human being is what makes cats unintelligent. People like to think that cats are above communicating with humans when the fact is that they're just too stupid. It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to -- it's that cat are dumb and they can't follow instructions.

czx4f4bd 4y ago
This is just flat-out incorrect. Scientists have found cats are plenty intelligent and simply don't cooperate with testing. https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-rival-dogs-many-tests-social-smarts-anyone-brave-enough-study-them https://www.science.org/content/article/cats-rival-dogs-many...
- jononomo 4y ago
  Apparently dogs have been objectively measured to be twice as intelligent as cats: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-brains-neurons-intelligence-study-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-b...
  - Lwepz 4y ago
    Dogs might might be better learners and problem solvers than cats but your statement doesn't make any sense.
  - zuminator 4y ago
    That's not what that article says. It says that dogs have been objectively measured to have twice the number of neurons as cats. And that is speculated to mean they are roughly twice as intelligent. With that in mind, dolphins have 2x and elephants have 3x the number of neurons as humans.
belval 4y ago
> It's not like cats could follow instructions if they wanted to but they just don't want to You can teach your cat to use the toilet, come when you call its name, roll and jump. They can even open doors which requires understanding how a door knob/rail system behaves. We had a cat that would follow us everywhere even if we went for a walk outside the house for several miles. Additionally, cats are not nurtured like puppies are. There are considerable amounts of information and know-how from breeders on how to socialize puppies to develop their ability to follow instructions and respect their master. Kittens on the other hand are mostly raised in small cages in pet shops and treated as glorified hamsters that can jump high and purr. Going further, canines are pack animals which are naturally predisposed to work with others and understand complex hierarchies. Felines are mostly solitary and only really get in groups during mating season. Another counter-example (unrelated to cats) are birds. Birds are incredibly intelligent, they can learn to solve puzzles, talk, and answer to their name. Yet if you ever get a budgie (or similar) you'll notice that your animal seems dumb as a rock. That's because birds require a lot of work in order to learn those tricks because they are naturally distrustful of humans. If you put ~1hr a day on training your budgie as you would with a young pup, you would see incredible improvements. As a final note, I would concede that a cat's intellect is no match to a dog's, but using "follow instructions" as a metric to define intelligence and concluding "cat are dumb" is an oversimplification.
slfnflctd 4y ago
Cats will let you know if they want to be petted, brushed, for you turn on the sink so they can drink from it, or of course be fed. They will also make it clear if they are excited or if they feel threatened. They can communicate just fine when they want to. There are animal handlers and zookeepers who have trained cats to perform complex tasks on obstacle courses repeatedly & reliably, just like dogs and other animals. I saw this first hand at a zoo myself (I think it was San Diego but I'm not positive). On top of all this, if you have interacted with a lot of cats, it becomes obvious that there is a ton of diversity in their personalities & behavioral patterns, even between siblings. There is no point in discussing 'smarter or dumber' here, their intelligence is just different-- it's unique to their species, as with pretty much every other animal capable of being trained.
- slfnflctd 4y ago
  Forgot to mention, in a house with 10 cats where I once lived, each would respond individually & separately to their name. So they can understand verbal direction.
PuppyTailWags 4y ago
I think it's reasonable to go back to the original inquiry: How are we defining intelligence here? Is it reasonable to define intelligent as the ability to communicate with human beings?

jononomo 4y ago

"A team of researchers counted the number of neurons in dog and cat brains and found one had twice as many as the other." Guess which one! The answer is found here: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-brains-neurons-intelligence-study-spd https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/dog-cat-b...

PurpleRamen 4y ago
Isn't that as pointless as comparing clock rates of different CPU-families?
- jononomo 4y ago
  No
  - PurpleRamen 4y ago
    Because all brains are working the same? No difference in "architecture", strategies, neurons, biology, chemistry, whatever?
    - navjack27 4y ago
      Yeah my brain is a netburst. Not even joking. Context switches make me have to completely flush my pipeline. But once I get going on something my pipeline is pretty deep and my clock rate can get pretty high.
mirror_neuron 4y ago
Neuron count is strongly correlated with body size, and does not necessarily correspond to what we like to call “intelligence” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244864 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4244864
- bpodgursky 4y ago
  Ok but body size also corresponds somewhat closely with what we call intelligence within similar classes of animal. Great apes are smarter than small apes. Big birds are generally smarter than small birds. Elephants are smarter than deer.