🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Dec24.050801.12346@news.media.mit.edu> minsky@media.mit.edu (Marvin Minsky) writes:
>In article <92Dec23.174104.27846@acs.ucalgary.ca> edstrom@hsc.ucalgary.ca (John Edstrom) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec16.4259.6389@dosgate> "andrew comello" <andrew.comello@canrem.com> writes:
>>>Newsgroup: sci.bio
>>>Subject: Norway starts hunting minke whales

>>>In my own opinion, I feel that if you placed all of the animals and
>>>organisms of the earth on an IQ scale, the cetaceans would run a close
>>>second to man... Since they have the greatest IQ besides man, It would
>>>be MORALLY unjust to kill them....
...
>>Really?  This sounds contentious.  I would have nominated the
>>chimpanzee as the runner up.  I'm not an expert but my impression is
>>that the chimp's intelligence has been underestimated and research
>>keeps revealing unsuspected abilities and complexities.

A couple people have already questioned "IQ" as a reasonable measure of 
anything, and I'd have to agree with them.  I think we need to define
intelligence before we figure out a way to test it.

>I have the impression that elephants are very smart -- never mind
>"IQ".  Does anyone know how they compare to whales and chimps?

Well, one indicator of something special going on in human, chimp, and
dolphin brains is self-awareness.  They tested this one by putting mirrors in
front of the animals in question, and seeing if they responded as if to 
another member of their species, or as if to an image of themself.  Humans,
chimps, and dolphins can tell it's not someone else, but as far as I know,
nothing else can.  However, there are obvious logistic problems with this
test for some species (it would take a pretty big mirror for a blue whale,
say), and no one may have gotten around to asking elephants.  My gut
feeling, for what it's worth, is that they don't have a self-awareness, but
try it yourself.  I imagine some untested animals can do it; orcas for
example.  I'm not so sure about other whales, though.

--Jonathan Dale