Researchers from the University of Adelaide in
Australia argue in an upcoming book,The Dynamic Human, that humans really
aren't much smarter than other creatures -- and that some animals may actually
be brighter than we are.
"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," the book's co-author Dr. Arthur Saniotis, a visiting
research fellow with the university's School of Medical Sciences, said in a
written statement.
"However, science tells us that animals
can have cognitive faculties that are superior to human beings."
Not to mention, ongoing research on intelligence and
primate brain evolution backs the idea that humans aren't the cleverest
creatures on Earth, co-author Dr. Maciej Henneberg, a professor also at the
School of Medical Sciences, told The Huffington Post in an email.
The researchers said the belief in the superiority
of that human intelligence can be traced back around 10,000 years to the
Agricultural Revolution, when humans began domesticating animals. The idea was
reinforced with the advent of organized religion, which emphasized human
beings' superiority over other creatures.
"The belief of human cognitive superiority
became entrenched in human philosophy and sciences," Saniotis said in the
statement. "Even Aristotle, probably the most influential of all thinkers,
argued that humans were superior to other animals due to our exclusive ability
to reason."
But reasoning, Saniotis and Henneberg argue, is just
one form of intelligence.
"The fact that [animals] may not understand us,
while we do not understand them, does not mean our 'intelligences' are at
different levels, they are just of different kinds," Henneberg said in the
statement.
Some animals leave complex scent markings in their
environment to communicate. Humans can't interpret these markings, Henneberg
said in the statement, but they "may be as rich in information as the
visual world."
Killer whales share a complex
language of their own, and dolphins have individual names -- just like we do-- based on whistle signals.
"This means that dolphins have a concept of 'self' and special
others," Henneberg told HuffPost Science.
Elephants, he said, grieve their dead and have excellent
memories. Beavers are able todam
rivers and build underground homes. Weaver birds produce intricate, multi-story nests. The list goes on.
What do other experts make of their argument? Dr.
Gordon Burghardt, professor of psychology and evolutionary biology at the University
of Tennessee in Knoxville, told The Huffington Post that he generally
agrees with the researchers' assertion.
"Generally the claim is made that with language
and now permanent record keeping we have a cumulative culture that allows us to
accomplish many things that other animals could not," Burghardt said.
"But that does not mean that individual humans are superior in all
abilities to all other species.
Just as a gibbon does not need a house, we have evolved in environments where we do not have to capture fish underwater with
our bare hands, but brown bears do, and can do so better than us."
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