Nova ScieneNow: interesting thought provoking concept on animal intelligence....

[Private S. R. Sexy Hehehe]

I watch Nova and Nova ScieneNow every week. Pretty good shows all around.

This week was on measuring animal intelligence and the ability of other creatures being able to learn (a sure sign of intelligence).

The closing statement went something like:

We try to understand animals and have trouble understanding their inability to grasp even the basic concepts or ideas that we find so easy. Or even communication. Just because we don't speak their language does that make them dumb?

Imagine if another race from another planet comes to earth and looks at us the same way? That even the most basic idea or thought of their's is just beyond our ability to understand? Would they look at us as being dumb just like we look at animals?

Pretty wild idea if you stop and think about it. Imagine if our most brilliant minds are no more than the equivolent of one of their toddlers?

 

[Michael Ferreras]

On another side note, a really interesting fact:

If self awareness is a sign of intelligence (and for the longest while it was thought that man was the only creature to be self-aware), then elephants and dolphins are self aware.

They put an X in tape on the head of an elephant and then put a large mirror in its pen. The elephant looked in the mirror and touched the X on its head. Indicating that it knew that the reflection was itself, and that the X wasn't supposed to be there....

They did the same with a dolphin. The dolphin would go up to the mirror and wave at itself and make faces.....stuff like that. It was pretty freakin amazing.....

In this aquarium they taught a pair of dolphins the word "different" and then set them off to create their own routine. They worked together, clicked and squeeked and did a co-ordinated mini performance......that blew me away.......

 

[Prometheus]

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/

 

[AmyV]

It's all relative. There are plenty of humans I wouldn't call "intelligent".

 

[?Lil.Miss.Odd.Bodd ?]

Well one would think that any extra terestrial life that managed to arrive here, would certainly be completely alien to anything we would expect. Thay could conceivably be more advanced than us as we are from plankton, or at best the encounter might be like any meeting of aborigional peoples and "advanced man"

what was that old sci fi film ...a book called to serve man"wasnt it a cook book ":

I remember being taught in uni that only man used tools, not other primates and that it was part of what set us apart....no longer thought to be true today I believe. I guess our understanding of intelligence is very species specific, as TBOY pointed out, maybe its our short coming that we cant understand this alien intelligence....we try and have them respond positively to test that would check human responces, maybe the theory behind the tests is flawded.

 

[Voistikiphete]

There's a segment in that PBS program that shows an octopus using a coconut shell as a house....he found one half, then went out and found another half, and put the two together.

As for the uni teachings, funny how knowledge changes what's being taught. I remember that in HS and have seen countless creatures using tools. Like a Chimp using a piece of straw to get termites out of their holes, a bird using a rock to break an oyster shell, etc.

There is also another series on smart materials. They've actually re-produced photosynthesis whereby they have created a membrane that when put in water, and exposed to sunlight, produces hydrogen gas.....at a rate that is 10x more efficient than any natural plant. They're in the testing stage to scale up production. If it works as planned, it is basically a "free" source of hydrogen with no polluting by products.

There is another device called a "bloom box" that uses an electrode instead of acid in a battery and a unit the size of a window airconditioner produces enough energy to power a 20,000 sq ft house. It does use natural gas to pass over the electrode but doesn't actually burn the gas.....Larger units are powering ebay's offices etc.....