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OfflineHematite
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
    #9099510 - 10/19/08 10:56 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Considering that crocodiles are virtually unchanged from how they were when the dinosaurs were around, you can see that animals don't evolve at the same rate, and they don't become more intelligent if they don't have to.




This is a common misconception. Crocodiles today are in pretty much the same situation the mammals were in 70 million years ago, the sole surviving lineage of what was once a much more diverse group. The syanpsids, the group that includes mammals, appeared in the Pennsylvanian and from then until the early Triassic they were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates. They had an enormous range of sizes, shapes and habits and occupied most of the niches later occupied by reptiles, including the large herbivore niche, which is the hardest one to fill. They suffered a calamitous mass extinction in the middle Triassic and were eclipsed by the previously marginal reptiles, surviving as a few lineages of tiny carnivorous shrew-like creatures. Syanapsids were directly replaced not by dinosaurs, but by crocodilians, which evolved a similarly diversity and remained dominant until they were replaced by the dinosaurs in the Jurassic. Crocodiles also evolved herbivory. When the dinosaurs took over most of this crocodile diversity vanished, leaving only a few lineages of secondarily qaudrupedal (early crocs were bipeds), aquatic and carnivorous forms. From then until the end of the Cretaceous both crocs and synapsids, in the form of mammals, stayed in the shadows (the mammals more so than the crocs) until the dinosaurs (except birds) bit it. Then, after a brief struggle against gigantic flightless birds, the syanpsids took over again.

The point is that 100 million years ago it would have looked like the synapsids were done for good. If anything, I would have bet on the crocodiles being the one that took over. At least they remained competitive with dinosaurs in some niches. I doubt that anyone looking at the condition of the world then would even have considered mammals as in the running to become dominant.

Of course today we can try to explain the success of mammals by looking at some "key" mammalian features, trace these features back to our scrawny Mesozoic ancestors, and then attribute to these features the ultimate success of the mammals. But, apart from the fact that it's really hard to find anything that mammals can do that reptiles couldn't do just as well (except maybe hearing), explanations of this sort are untestable because there always will be some difference between the winners and losers that, after the fact, we can point to as explaining the outcome. In fact, who wins and who loses in evolution (and in many other things) is most honestly and usefully explained as the result of pure luck.

The the OP's original question has some flaws. "Intelligence" is such a poorly defined word that's it's functionally meaningless in most contexts. But let's assume that there is a thing called intelligence that is required for spaceflight, or road building or whatever. It does not follow that all animals that possess intelligence will engage in spaceflight or road building. Intelligence supplies the means but not the motive. The motives may be, and probably are, qualities that could exist just as well in a 'non-intelligent' animal, things like restlessness and greed. These certainly exist in 'non-intelligent' humans.

The fourth book of Gulliver's Travels deals with this very well.

Edited by Hematite (10/19/08 10:59 AM)

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: TheFakeSunRa]
    #9102619 - 10/20/08 12:38 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

I think it's more likely to be the dog.  Already they have developed a higher intelligence than those who would build cages for them.









Needless to say they have exceptional problem solving ability.  Additionally I believe their close proximity to humans and our desire for them to display human qualities will end up with some far more intelligent animals than we have now.  Their was an article in New Scientist not long along ago that described how dogs had learned a sense of morality from their contact with humans than wolfs and other wild canines don't possesses.


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: HagbardCeline]
    #9102880 - 10/20/08 04:03 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

> Needless to say they have exceptional problem solving ability.

Compared to many other animals, not really.  For example, bird brained ravens are much better at problem solving than dogs.


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Offlinezouden
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
    #9102906 - 10/20/08 04:41 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Really? I know that birds are very clever, but so are dogs. Are they actually better though?


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I know... that just the smallest
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You know... I'm not a blind man
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OfflineWaxing Gibbous
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
    #9102932 - 10/20/08 05:03 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Starship troopers... nuff said.

But with exoskeletons they can only grow to a certain size before gravity would be too much. Maybe somekind of hive brain could evolve on another planet, but I doubt it would happen here as we are the apex of evolution at the moment.

Sayin that ants are pretty cool anyway they farm aphids and grow fungi which they crop for food.

Go ants!

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Invisiblewisp

Registered: 04/13/08
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
    #9102935 - 10/20/08 05:04 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

They don't only display problem-solving abilities, but co-operative problem solving too.

Have a read of this article for an example:

Seed, Amanda M.; Clayton, Nicola S.; Emery, Nathan J. "Cooperative problem solving in rooks (Corvus frugilegus)" Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 275:1641 , 2008 , 1421-1429 .


The article is about rooks, rather than ravens, but it doesn't really make much of a difference.

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Offlinezouden
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: wisp]
    #9102937 - 10/20/08 05:08 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Interesting, I'll check it out thanks. Is this behaviour not seen in dogs?


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I know... that just the smallest
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You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

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OfflineSeussA
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
    #9102943 - 10/20/08 05:12 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

> Really?

Yep.  Dogs don't even make the list of top ten smartest animals.  Crows typically come in around #5 or #6 on the list.  When was the last time you saw a dog make a tool and use it to solve a problem?

Many MSM articles will list dogs and cats in the top ten, but when you look into actual research and published results in peer reviewed journals, dogs and cats don't make the cut.

The big problem with dogs is they have a very limited short term memory.  (This is probably why they are man's best friend... they quickly forget how cruel mankind can be.)  Set out three "cups" and a treat.  Show the dog the treat being covered by one of the cups with nothing under the other two cups.  Distract the dog for a second and then let it go find the treat.  It will have to use trial and error to find the cup with the treat under it, as it has already forgotten which was which.

Getting away from primates, octopus', crows, and elephants are all very smart animals.


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Just another spore in the wind.

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Offlinezouden
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
    #9102949 - 10/20/08 05:18 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

I wonder what they do with all that brain space?

Actually, the skull of a Chihuahua is much smaller than that of an Alsatian. Does that mean an Alsatian's brain is bigger? Or does the correlation between brain size and intelligence not extend to intra-species variation?


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

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Invisiblewisp

Registered: 04/13/08
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
    #9102958 - 10/20/08 05:24 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

That's a good question. I wonder if there are any studies out their testing intelligence between different breeds of dogs?

Quote:

Is this behaviour not seen in dogs?




Dogs hunt in packs and do so very effectively. I'm not sure if you would classify that as problem solving though. African wild dogs are the most efficient predators on earth (perhaps bar humans) and achieve that status through their highly developed pack hunting abilities.

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InvisibletrendalM
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: zouden]
    #9103022 - 10/20/08 06:41 AM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Or does the correlation between brain size and intelligence not extend to intra-species variation?

The ratio of brain size to body size is much more important.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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OfflineHagbardCeline
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
    #9104581 - 10/20/08 02:51 PM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Well, I started out making the post in a joking manner as a reference to my OTD thread about the dog.  Though, in comparison to the original poster's ant or crocodile, I firmly stand my assertion.

However, I would still disagree with your assessment.  Of course it's all relative, but it seems you're trying to dismiss the dogs ability because it isn't in the top ten in regard to problem solving.  They're still better than thousands of other species in that regard.  They also work far better together than most of the other animals you cited and I'm sure you recognize the importance cooperation    had on our success. 

Back to my original point though, no other animal has the intimate, large scale interaction with humans that dogs enjoy.  This interaction has developed for a long time, but I believe it has gotten much more intimate on a large scale in the past 100 or 200 years.  It has and will continue to significantly impact their development as well.  This was really the main reason I gave for making my claim.

Here's that link to the New Scientist article, though it's only going to be an intro if you don't have access to the website.  Dogs aren't stupid wolves; they are much smarter


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I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine

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Offlinezouden
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: trendal]
    #9104654 - 10/20/08 03:09 PM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

trendal said:
Or does the correlation between brain size and intelligence not extend to intra-species variation?

The ratio of brain size to body size is much more important.




Ahh... but I wonder why? Surely bigger brain = more neurons?
That said, the human brain has a highly folded neocortex, giving it that characteristic wrinkled look that other animals' brains don't have. That's because we fit so many more neurons into our brains for its size. So there's obviously a density issue too.


--------------------
I know... that just the smallest
                                                part of the world belongs to me
You know... I'm not a blind man
                                                    but truth is the hardest thing to see

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InvisibleLeftyBurnz
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Re: Could, like, ants evolve to be smarter than humans are now? [Re: Seuss]
    #9104886 - 10/20/08 04:09 PM (15 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Seuss said:
> The obvious and only answer.

Those of us that support Intelligent Design and The Flying Spaghetti Monster would disagree.  His noodly appendage is the only answer.  :pirate:




RAmen brother.


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