Still Think Humans are the Most Intelligent Animals?
In the book The Dynamic Human, it is argued by a group of researchers from the University of Adelaide that humans aren’t the brightest crayons in the box. Co-author and research fellow, Dr. Arthur Saniotis, said “For millennia, all kinds of authorities — from religion to eminent scholars — have been repeating the same idea ad nauseam, that humans are exceptional by virtue that they are the smartest in the animal kingdom. However, science tells us that animals can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings.”
How can this be?! No other animal can think or communicate like a human, so clearly no other species can match our intelligence!
Well, while humans, as a species, are pretty smart, it’s impossible for us to claim the title of “most intelligent” species. After all, we still have many questions left to answer about our own brains, before we can truly compare them to that of another organism.
While primates are often used in studies on animal intelligence because of their similarities to humans, cetaceans are frequently used as research subjects as well. Looking at the brain of a cetacean, it is clear that perhaps dolphins and whales are much more complex than previously thought.
According to a comparison of cetacean to primate brains from Michigan State University, “They have the distinct advantage over us in that their primary sense is the same as their primary means of communication, both are auditory. With primates, the primary sense is visual and the primary means of communication is auditory.”
Communication is so great in cetaceans that there is a strong possibility they are able to project (yes … literally project) an “auditory image” that replicates a sonar message they may receive.
The process is a bit confusing, but MSU describes it in this circumstance: “So a dolphin wishing to convey the image of a fish to another dolphin can literally send the image of a fish to the other animal. The equivalent of this in humans would be the ability to create instantaneous holographic pictures to convey images to other people.”
If they are in fact able to do this, there would have to be a natural tendency to break down stylized and abstracted images into words. Meaning, cetaceans, like people, use a series of signifiers to discern the exact objects they want to communicate about. We might say “tree” and think of a picture of a tree in our minds, but cetaceans can skip this step by simply projecting the image to other cetaceans.
Not fascinating enough? Well did you know that, with several sound producing organs, cetaceans are capable of conveying and receiving “20 times the amount of information as we can with our hearing”? This surpasses the amount of information we can perceive based on vision (a human’s primary sense).
Interesting article via OneGreenPlanet:
http://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/human-intelligence-versus-whales-and-dolphins/
PR:
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news67182.html
#research #evolution #humanbrain #intelligence #cetaceans
Thanks.....
ReplyDeleteIf dolphins had opposable thumbs, we'd be in trouble...
ReplyDeleteThe dolphin brain almost looks to have a smaller, more flattened version of our brain underneath their large hemispheres... Very interesting indeed. I've always wondered just how intelligent they are.
ReplyDeleteJay Han that's the cerebellum. Its primary function is to regulate and coordinate motor activity. We have one too, but its hidden ventrally in the photo, while the Dolphin's is almost posterior to the forebrain.
ReplyDeleteAbove dolphins in the intellectual pecking order are mice... according the my guide to the galaxy at least. We learn more from them than they do us after all
ReplyDeleteThey are the most intelligent animal on the planet, and their lives are spent in the pursuit of fishing and mating. We have a lot to learn.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me the most in this photo is not the size of their brain, there are a number of animals with brains larger than ours--brain size is often related to body size, but how many more convolutions the dolphin brain has. The structure and density of these cortical folds are reguarded as being far more important than brain size when one is talking about potential brain power or efficiency.
ReplyDeleteEven as a child I felt this was true. I think the only thing that we can claim as our own, is our imagination. I think we're the only animal who deals with "what is not" and "what could be" rather than what is. Other animals may tell their stories, we don't know, but they don't imagine up how it could be instead of how it is, that is clear. They create, build, admire beauty, love and hate, figure out clever solutions and tools, and stand up to enemies, but they don't appear to reconfigure their environment on purpose like we do.
ReplyDeleteI think if one spoke with animals one would find their conversation very mundane. It would consist of current events directly related to the animal, and communication about relationships between animals. You can ask a child about the future and get a lot of wild images, but an animal, I think, would simply ask you to explain what the future is. If they grasped the concept, they'd imagine it would continue pretty much as it currently is.
of course, while I personally believe I've had these conversations psychically, I recognize it could all be in my imagination, so I propose this all as speculation, rather than as the facts it seems to me to be.
ann kiszt They might not need to. Right now, most of the people reading this post are just sitting and staring at a lump of semiconductors. The thing that is engaging our attention is the exchange of information. If cetaceans have that kind of capacity for communication, they might have the bandwidth to maintain a similar communication network. It would make oceanic noise pollution tragic.
ReplyDeleteThen again, I bet we don't taste so good to them or they would have eaten us already.
ReplyDeleteIt's horrible to think what our activities do to their acoustic universe, since sound is so important to their senses, and their communications! The treat us very well, considering how humans have treated them and their environment!
ReplyDeleteAlthough people often think of them as cute and playful,, they are actually very powerful and can be aggressive; for instance fending off sharks, or even capturing females from other pods..
ReplyDeleteThis article doesn't directly specify whether it's whales, odontocetes, or just sperm whales, but it sounds like they see in black and white, and I'm guessing the sonar picture is more like an x-ray.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/03/youre-eye-to-eye-with-a-whale-in-the-ocean-what-does-it-see/274448/