Are other animals intelligent?
438001
animals lack intellegence from my experiences !! however i been doing this model on animal behaviour it claims that animals have two ways of thinking !!\ninnate behaviour (which is genetically inhereted) like a spider is born knowing how to build a web ...etc\nand learnt behaviour (which is obviously learnt): this is what u can teach to an animal like training a dog to respnd to a type of whistle ...etc this varies in animals and more animals are able to learn more/ or less than others !! but intellegence, there is no intellegence there i tihnk. you wouldnt one day wake up and see ur cat has used ur laptop to browse the net and had just regestired on a monthly phone price plane with vodafone and payed using your debit card if u know what i mean
221449
Not really. You can get them to do what you want them to do with some sort of "tricks", but for the most part, you really can't train them in the sense you can train a mammal (or bird for that matter.)
451859
Depends on your definition of intelligence.They are most definatly able to problem solve and communicate but they cant nip down the shops for some fags and a newspaper.Although would you really say that a species that doesnt seem to have its own survival at its highest priority was intelligent?i think not.It depends on your definition!
402369
I think animals are way more intelligent than we can imagine, but certainly they are not as intelligent as us, but that's not like a reason to be dead or whatever, because they have a porpouse here you know, and it's how it's meant to be, they don't care that they aren't intelligent they just do what they are supposed to do, and it's not to think. Of course I wouldn't like to be a deer and the only thing that i could do was wait until I get killed by other animal. thanks god I'm a human
503004
We can never know how another species thinks, let alone another person.  We can only make assumptions based on similar brain activity (using MRIs, CT scans, and EEGs) among individuals.  For example, we can see different regions of the brain are more active during the REM stage of sleep, when people experience dreaming.  We can see the same brain regions active in other animals when they are sleeping, so we therefore come to the conclusion that they are dreaming. (transitive property, I think)
507131
Evolution is the result of natural selection acting upon random genetic changes.  We evolved to have large brains because they enabled us to out-compete other animals for environmental resources.  The animals with less able brains had fewer offspring while we had more.  It seems that our brains are engineered for problem solving and cooperating with other people.  \n\nAt the same time and in the same environment, other animals were succeeding by developing other abilities.  For example, antelope survive by running fast.  Ants survive by being small and numerous.  Dung beetles survive by eating stuff that most animals don't want.\n\nEvidently, sharks don't need larger brains.  They succeed by being able to swim fast and having sharp teeth--lots of them!  Also, the fact that sharks have existed for 200 million years does not mean that they have not evolved.  Other fish may have evolved from them to take advantage of ecological niches that sharks do not.  (I don't know whether that is the case with sharks, but certainly, other organisms have done this.)\n\nAlthough sharks aren't that smart, other ocean animals are.  Dolphins are extremely intelligent, at least as intelligent as chimps.  Octopuses are very intelligent and have extremely large brains for their body size.  A two-year old octopus, which is elderly for octopusses, can solve the same problems as a two-year old human.  One wonders what things would be like if their lifespans were as long as ours.\n\nAn even better example of an unchanged organism is the brachiopod (clam-like animal) Lingula.  It has remained unchanged for nearly 600 million years.  It lives in a very unfavorable environment--dirty water with little oxygen.  Apparently, it is so well adapted to that environment that no other organism can displace it.
386898
I had a bus driver that laughed at the fact humans are animals. Biblically, she said that humans are superior and can not be classified as animals, I believe that is ridiculous, since there not much that is different in us from animals. Of course we are more intelligent, but that is only because we define what intelligence is. Jelly fish or lions probably think that they are superior, so that is also relative. Another point that people may consider is that we have "souls," but that is only based on certain religions. In Hinduism, every living entity has a soul, therefore according to Hinduism both humans and animals have souls. The term human can be used just as a classification of the type of organism in the animal kingdom.
645628
A computer cannot be smarter than a dog.  Even artificial intelligence is just that - artificial.  All man-made.  A computer requires input from the start of it's existence in order to operate.  A dog is born with instincts, and always has a choice in what it does.  A computer is forced to do what it's told.  Even if it seems not to want to (due to errors, etc)...the fact that it refuses is still due to programming input.\n\nThough, depending on what you believe about higher beings and God, etc - the two things seem very comparable (i.e.  humans program computers - God programs life).  They seem similar, but are not.  Living things have a conscience and free will - a computer does not.
867281
Stop being hypocrites. We do the exact same to other naimals just as intelligent as dogs. But because they aren't so 'cute', it's not something that really bothers us. You mention the suffering of dogs, but don't forget the cruel treatment of countless other animals.\n\nI agree that it is wrong, but it's not only dogs we should be concerned about.
318878
The fact that 100% of dolphins are atheists, as opposed to only 10-15% of humans, leads me to think that they may be more intelligent that us!
449400
Supposedly, we are the most advanced animal upon this planet but, after reading some postings here on YahooAnswers I am starting to doubt that theory...\n...I am starting to feel that, even the penguins are more sensible than we, the homo sapiens, are...
355366
Did you know frogs are good bio-indicators because...\n1. they spend part of their life cycle on land and some in water\n2. have a permeable skin (which allows substances to move relatively freely into its body) and\n3. absorb and concentrate (make stronger) toxins (poisonous substances) in their fatty tissues\n\nDid you know that humans are also animals?\n\nIs a world population of 6 billion too many? Compare that with animals. There are more than a million animal species. There are 6,000 species of reptiles, 73,000 kinds of spiders, and 3,000 types of lice. For each person there is about 200 million insects. The 4,600 kinds of mammals represent a mere 0,3% of animals and the 9000 kinds of birds only 0,7%. The most numerous bird specie is the red-billed quelea of southern Africa. There are an estimated 100 trillion of them.\n\nMammals are the only animals with flaps around the ears.\n\nAfrican elephants only have four teeth to chew their food with.\n\n There are about one billion cattle in the world of which 200 million are in India.\n\nA house fly lives only 14 days.\n\nA dog was the first in space and a sheep, a duck and a rooster the first to fly in a hot air balloon.\n\nThe oldest breed of dog is the Saluki.\n\nThe bee hummingbird of Cuba is the smallest bird in the world.\n\nAn ostrich can run up to 70 km/h (43mph).\n\nAn annoyed camel will spit at a person.\n\nThe world's smallest dog is the Chihuahua, which means "tiny dog in the sky."\n\nPea crabs (the size of a pea) are the smallest crabs in the world.\n\n75% of wild birds die before they are 6 months old.\n\nThe pig is rated the fourth most intelligent animal but are mentioned only twice in the Bible.\n\nHerbevores (plant-eating organisms) have more than 1 stomach. \ntry googling. http://www.didyouknow.cd/fastfacts/animals.htm
454175
On the one hand, Humans ARE animals.\n\nOn the other, we are something "more" than animals because we are sentient and we are significantly more developed. Although all animals have SOME ability to communicate (even if only by stench), and many even know how to make tools, they are still incapable of the advanced feats of humanity.\n\nI suppose that it may by some slim chance be possible that animals are sentient, but I doubt it.
1153773
Although humans have evolved to have the greatest level of intelligence on earth,  intelligence is not only the preserve of Homo sapiens. Many physical and behavioural characteristics of animals occur among a disparate number of species for example, even though the Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger was a marsupial it had the physical and behaviour characteristics of a wolf. This is called parallel evolution. The same can be said for intelligence, for example, cephalopod mollusc's such as squid and octopus (the most intelligent invertebrates) and dolphins and whales have both evolved seperately to become highly intelligent within their realm. \nAs for a species being a 'threat' in the race for the most intelligent \nin the future, this is very unlikely as evolututionary processes work on the order of thousands of generations. It is also unlikely that humans will survive long enough for another species to supercede us as mammals as a species generally only live on the order of 1-1.5 million years (we have passed our due date!) say compared to insects that live between 10-15 million years as a species.\nThe biggest threat from an intelligent species is more likely to be extraterrestrial!?
83505
Humans like to think we are special and unique and different than our animal brethern, but are we?\n\n1. We share many characteristics, instincts, genetics, phenotypes etc with animals\n\n2. We use tools, but so do many animals, contrary to what was believed previously.\n\n3. We have languages, but the animals appear to as well, and appear to be able to understand some of language (dogs, horses, chimps). Some animals, like chimps, have been taught to use sign language and even type on computers, and some claim appear to use language creatively. \n\n4. Some animals have similar ratios of brain mass to body mass as humans, or even have better ratios. Many cetaceans might be as intelligent as humans, but not have the ability to manipulate the environment in the same way since they do not have hands. \n\nSo the entire premise of this question is a bit suspect, frankly.
1111314
when we first discovered they could do this,it was amazing.before this they asumed that a chimps brain was too small to do this.and they were wrong.and humans and apes are the only animals that can learn to use tools.
1095375
Every living thing has a soul. Our animals definitely do.