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well, to take the other perspective: little kids are not smarter than little animals. it's not like the typical 7-10 year old kid is a fountain of smartness. s

well, to take the other perspective: little kids are not smarter than little animals. it's not like the typical 7-10 year old kid is a fountain of smartness. supervision is still needed, it is not able to sustain its existence by itself, would starve or get killed through its own inexperience - which makes those little animals superior.

Drakim 12y ago
Survival can be a result of intelligence, but good survival abilities does not imply intelligence in itself. Tons of things survive without much intelligence at all, such as bacteria, or jellyfish. In short, survival skills are not a good metric for intelligence, you can have one without the other.
superuser2 12y ago
This is certainly true of the average 7-10 year old kid raised in suburbia by ordinary parents and educated and public school, but childhood and helplessness have been vastly prolonged artificially. Maybe not a 10 year old, but a 12 year old in the Industrial Revolution would have been earning enough to cover his costs and contribute to the family. A 14 year old could also be doing just fine as a mother. It's not as if teenagers' poor life-skills are functions of their age, we just choose not to let them have the requisite experience until they are "old enough." Children are technically capable of much more than we give them credit for, we just would rather they spend time gaining the education to be knowledge workers instead of replaceable cogs in factories. You couldn't just throw an average modern 10-year-old on the streets and expect him to be fine, but it's historical fact that it is possible for children not to be so helpless.
- JoshTriplett 12y ago
  A huge fraction of those historical self-sufficient kids also died young for preventable reasons.
  - superuser2 12y ago
    But is that because they were treated like adults, or because healthcare was primitive and unevenly distributed?
  - seszett 12y ago
    Well, a huge fraction of animals also die young for preventable reasons.
pcrh 12y ago
Unless they're your own kids, in which case they're really intelligent! It goes without saying that a 7 yr old human can do a much wider variety of intellectual tasks an adult crow, however.
rwallace 12y ago
There is a similar experiment showing pigeons outperforming Harvard students at an even simpler cognitive task. One response to this would be to conclude that it's not like the typical Harvard student is a fountain of smartness; it is not able to sustain its existence by itself, would starve or get killed through its own experience (true enough; the average Harvard student wouldn't survive a month lost alone in the jungle) - which makes little animals superior. A more sensible response would be to notice that humans actually are smarter than birds (I'm prepared to revisit that conclusion if any crows or pigeons can post reasoned arguments to the contrary), but that you can prove anything is superior to anything else if you cherry-pick the test carefully enough.

Drakim 12y ago

Survival can be a result of intelligence, but good survival abilities does not imply intelligence in itself. Tons of things survive without much intelligence at all, such as bacteria, or jellyfish. In short, survival skills are not a good metric for intelligence, you can have one without the other.

superuser2 12y ago

This is certainly true of the average 7-10 year old kid raised in suburbia by ordinary parents and educated and public school, but childhood and helplessness have been vastly prolonged artificially. Maybe not a 10 year old, but a 12 year old in the Industrial Revolution would have been earning enough to cover his costs and contribute to the family. A 14 year old could also be doing just fine as a mother. It's not as if teenagers' poor life-skills are functions of their age, we just choose not to let them have the requisite experience until they are "old enough." Children are technically capable of much more than we give them credit for, we just would rather they spend time gaining the education to be knowledge workers instead of replaceable cogs in factories. You couldn't just throw an average modern 10-year-old on the streets and expect him to be fine, but it's historical fact that it is possible for children not to be so helpless.

JoshTriplett 12y ago
A huge fraction of those historical self-sufficient kids also died young for preventable reasons.
- superuser2 12y ago
  But is that because they were treated like adults, or because healthcare was primitive and unevenly distributed?
- seszett 12y ago
  Well, a huge fraction of animals also die young for preventable reasons.

pcrh 12y ago

Unless they're your own kids, in which case they're really intelligent! It goes without saying that a 7 yr old human can do a much wider variety of intellectual tasks an adult crow, however.

rwallace 12y ago

There is a similar experiment showing pigeons outperforming Harvard students at an even simpler cognitive task. One response to this would be to conclude that it's not like the typical Harvard student is a fountain of smartness; it is not able to sustain its existence by itself, would starve or get killed through its own experience (true enough; the average Harvard student wouldn't survive a month lost alone in the jungle) - which makes little animals superior. A more sensible response would be to notice that humans actually are smarter than birds (I'm prepared to revisit that conclusion if any crows or pigeons can post reasoned arguments to the contrary), but that you can prove anything is superior to anything else if you cherry-pick the test carefully enough.