In western culture both before and after the development of
scientific thought, humans have made a multitude of claims about what
makes our species unique. Tool use, communication, emotions, and
morality have all been stated as reasons humans are superior to other
creatures. While the accomplishments of our species are impressive, more
recent research reveals intelligence in other animals that we had not
previously considered. This has led to a shift in people’s understanding of
animal intelligence, revealed our previous arrogance, and impacted how
we think about other species.
The idea of human superiority has been ingrained in the way people
think for millennia. Consider the numerous psychologists and scientists in
the western tradition who filled in the statement “Humans are the only
animal that…” with their own theory about why our species is superior to
all others. Aristotle claimed that only humans have reason, and his ideas in
combination with those of other philosophers during the ancient and
medieval eras led to the widely accepted theory of the “scala naturae” or
scale of nature. This set of beliefs suggests humans’ superiority and
outlines a hierarchy of beings from the most perfect to the least perfect. At
the time this was often depicted as a ladder structure placing God at the
top followed by humans and then by other animals (Thinley). It was
deemed scandalous to even consider that humans were similar to animals
since it was generally accepted that humans were separate and much
closer to God than any other creature. Both past and ongoing
interpretations of Judeo-Christian scripture have found evidence of human
superiority in Genesis 1 and 2 and their statements that humans have a
supervising or dominating role and are the only creatures made in the
divine image.
An early-modern philosopher who speculated about animals’
inferiority was Rene Descartes, famous for saying, “animals are mere
machines but man stands alone” and for truly believing that animals
possess no feeling or intelligence (Cottingham). He theorized that they do
not have minds or souls, and this means they cannot actually think or feel
pain. This is an appealing belief to convince oneself of because it negates
any guilt over harming other creatures.
Modern scientific research has disproved these claims as well as
coming to the conclusion that other animals possess much more advanced
intelligence than we had previously realized. Charles Darwin was one of
the first to speak out against these ideas, stating “There is no fundamental
difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties”
(Hogenboom). However, the idea of animal intelligence was mostly
rejected until the 1960s.
In the past fifty years research into the topic of animal intelligence
has vastly expanded and is being covered by people in a wide variety of
professions, including scientists, psychologists, ethicists, evolutionary
biologists, and even people in religious fields. In order to be specific and
factual, the examples used here to demonstrate the general shift in
people’s thoughts on animal intelligence come from recent scientific
discoveries that have been documented and reviewed. Various studies on
animals ranging from chimpanzees to ants have found evidence of
previously unnoticed intellectual capabilities.
Jane Goodall’s work marked a major turning point in people’s
understanding of animal intelligence. Her studies on wild chimpanzees
provided the evidence needed for people to become convinced of advanced
intellectual capabilities in primates. Her discoveries included watching a
chimp bend and break twigs into the right shape to extract termites out of
their nest and eat them. While today the fact that many species of animals
use tools is widely accepted, at the time this was a revolutionary idea that
led her boss, fossil-hunter Louis Leakey, to famously say “Now we must
redefine man, redefine tools, or accept chimpanzees as humans” (McKie).
Tool use, emotional interaction, and communication had previously been
considered uniquely human, but Jane Goodall’s work proved chimpanzees
possess all of these traits. Additionally, she took an unconventional
approach in the way she conducted research. While observing the wild
chimpanzees she viewed them as having unique personalities and even
gave them names in her writing. Multiple scientists felt threatened by the
revolutionary idea of animals possessing emotions and personality and
rejected her work as unscientific. She was criticized by other
primatologists, such as Sir Solly Zuckerman who referred to her work as
“unbounded speculation” (Nicholls). People’s initial disbelief of her work
evinces the ingrained nature of the human ideas of superiority that
prevented people from acknowledging animal intelligence and emotion for
so long. However, today Goodall’s work is widely accepted and considered
an integral element in people’s understanding of primates.
While it is easier to accept that chimpanzees can have advanced
intelligence since they are closely related to humans, similar evidence of
intelligence has been found in a variety of species. Building on the
knowledge of previous generations of one’s species was another trait that
until recently was thought to be uniquely human. However, this
phenomenon, called cumulative cultural evolution, has recently been
found in pigeons. A study done by Oxford biologist Takao Sasaki found
that when pigeons fly in varying groups, one individual can pass on
information about the migration route to the others. Over time, as the
groups were switched up, the birds found more and more efficient routes,
which demonstrated they were passing down information (Pennisi).
Another impressive example of animals transferring information is a
population of deer in the Czech Republic that will not cross the border into
Germany. The reason for this is that over 20 years ago there was an
electric fence there. However, none of the deer alive today were living
when the fence still existed, which shows they learned of the danger from
previous generations (Michelson).
Another interesting research finding has been evidence of episodic
memory, casually referred to as mental time travel, in multiple animal
species. This is the ability to recall past events and apply those memories
to current or future events. This allows humans to very effectively imagine
themselves in a future scenario and plan accordingly. One example of this
in animals is a test done on rats in which they ran through a series of
mazes. Later researchers measured the rats’ neural activity and found that
they were replaying the past experiences of running through the maze in
their minds (Gregg). This study is still being debated and has had a range
of positive and negative peer reviews, showing the continued development
of our understanding in this area. A more definitive study demonstrated
episodic memory in bonobos and orangutans. After being giving tasks
throughout the day in which they had to use a tool to retrieve food, at the
end of the day the animals chose to take the tool with them to their
sleeping area and brought it back with them the next morning (Gregg).
While this may seem like a simple choice, it demonstrates advance
planning and the ability to predict that they would continue to need the
tool in the future.
Even insects have been proven to have much more complex
intellectual abilities than people previously realized. Two articles in
Science magazine explore newly discovered intelligence in wasps and
bumblebees. Paper wasps have very advanced recognition of individual
faces of other wasps and can make judgements about who is a threat to
their hive based on this (Handwerk). Digger wasps frequently use small
rocks to tamp down the dirt around their burrows, which is a clear
example of tool use (Pennisi). Bumblebees have been shown to have the
ability to learn by imitation and solve problems. Olli Loukola, a behavioral
ecologist at Queen Mary University of London, wanted to investigate if
“bees could learn to do something with an object they had never
encountered in their evolutionary history” (Morell). In one study a group
of bees observed others completing a task that involved moving a small
ball to a target in order to get a food reward, and the test group of bees
was able to successfully complete the task based on what they saw. When
the researchers changed aspects like the color of the ball and which ball
was closest, the bees continued to solve the problems and complete the
task (Morell). This demonstrated the bees’ consciousness of themselves
and ability to imitate other individuals, and the later part of the test also
showed adaptive thinking and problem solving. The ongoing research into
insect intelligence furthers the shift in human understanding of animal
intelligence and suggests that even creatures with very small brains are
capable of intellectual processes previously thought to be unique to
humans and other mammals.
Over fifty years after Jane Goodall began documenting the
intelligence of chimpanzees, scientist are still making new discoveries in
this field. Interestingly, though there has been an incredible shift in hunas’
understanding of animal intelligence since the 1960s, people continue to
be shocked by new discoveries in this area. Headlines on animal
intelligence in The Huffington Post have included “Who Knew Bears Were
So Brainy” (Freeman) and “Apes May Be Much Closer to Human Speech
Than we Realized” (Gregoire). While these discoveries have been amazing,
the continued shock people exhibit hints at a very self-centered view of
animal intelligence. In the past, most experiments have compared other
species to humans, and people have believed that the animals with the
most human characteristics are the smartest. However, this defines
human intelligence as superior simply because it is most effective for our
species.
Exploring insect intelligence provides an interesting view on this
dilemma because the intellectual processes and goals of these species are
vastly different from those of humans. The communication strategies of
ants and humans are a perfect example of this. Ants’ pheromones allow
them to effectively share information, and some people even refer to ant
swarms as superorganisms because of the synchronization of their actions.
Every individual in a colony can instantly pick up the same chemical
signals indicating things like intruders, territory, and social status. On the
other hand, humans achieve connection and shared information through
our technological advances. While these are vastly different methods, both
species achieve communication that allows them to effectively interact. If
both of these vastly different strategies are successful at transmitting
information between groups of organisms, it seems like a flawed
assumption to designate our strategy as the baseline for most intelligent.
In the long run, it could be more beneficial to shift to a view of different
forms of intelligence that are each most effective for their species. Recent
scientific consensus on the intelligence demonstrated by insects such as
wasps, bees, and ants indicates a shift in this direction.
The examples given here are a brief overview of thousands of studies
that have revealed impressive animal intelligence. As humans develop a
better understanding of this topic, our culture has shifted to incorporate
much more collaboration between species. One common example of this is
the increased use of dogs in roles like therapy, bomb sniffing, and caring
for the disabled. However, in more recent years collaboration between
humans and animals has expanded beyond dogs. The company APOPO,
based in Tanzania since 1997, trains African Pouched Rats to sniff out
landmines. The rats are able to clear an area in half an hour that it would
take a human with a deminer four days to clear, and because of their low
weight they cannot set off the explosives. They work with handlers in
remote areas, currently including Cambodia, Angola, and Zimbabwe, with
the goal of helping communities return to safety after experiencing the
tragedy of war. This organization exemplifies a partnership that respects
the intelligence and capability of another species, and the result of
landmine removal has benefited a vast number of humans and other
animals that live in these war-torn areas.
The shift in the way humans have viewed animal intelligence has
also resulted in changes to the way people handle treatment of other
species within our legal systems. The Animal Welfare Act was signed into
law in 1966, which regulates the treatment of animals in situations
including research, transport, and exhibition (Animal Welfare Act).
Nowadays there is an active animal rights movement, and protests against
using animals for medical and beauty product testing have become a
common occurrence. These movements have developed from humans’
increased awareness that, contrary to Descartes’ thoughts, animals are
clearly sentient beings possessing complex forms of intelligence.
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