Hi All,
This is a subject near and dear to my heart, so I just gotta add my $.02 worth here...

Now first I have to agree with those who have already said, why do they have to be considered by us as intelligent to be considered equals. Humankind has adopted this attitude over the span of our time that if we're superiour to something, we have the right to control and manipulate it for our own benifit. How much damage have we as human's caused to other species, as well as our enviroment and our planet with this attitude? Why does "our" evaluation of a species intellect have to determine our amount of love and respect for that species?

Ansi said, "The intellegence to be useful to us in any way would be a start" and " It would also help if their demonstrated skills were useful to us"...why??? Why does something have to useful to -us- to be of value? Isn't it enough that something simply exists to have it's own purpose? Yes, humankind has achieved some impressive achievments due to our techinical skills, but does this make us "superiour" to other forms a life, let alone give us the right to impose our own values on them? More over, what have we done -for- them for us to be worthy in their eyes? Humankind has indeed achieved many great things, but we've also achieved great atrocities as well...no whale, dolphine, wolf, deer or other mammel of this planet has ever come close to destroying the planet (along with every other species on it) as we have with our great engineering skills.

Now back to the idea of animal intelligence...all and all I have to question "scientific" proof here again (sorry...it's my nature). Let's take my dogs for example (my wife and I have 3). Now each of them knows between 15 to 30 of my commands..."sit", "stay", "come here", "outside", "next commercial" (err...don't ask), etc., etc.. Comparativly, I only know maybe 8 to 10 at most of their "commands"..."I'm hungry", "I want outside", "I want attention", "I want to play", etc....makes me wonder who's actually smarter! The fact that they know more of my commands then I do of theirs suggests at the very least their better and faster at learning that I am! LOL! Now in fairness to myself and my dogs, I do usually have a good idea of whats on their mind. I've grown up with dogs and have always considered them to be smart and have a "soul" if you will...I've never looked down on dogs (or most other species) because I thought I was superiour. As a results, I have a pretty good understanding of how they do in fact communicate...you not only have to listen, but you have to watch and pay attention as well. I know when my dogs are happy, when their sad, when their concerned about me, etc., simply by the way the present themselves. From the tone of their barks, I can tell when their playing, when their frustrated or when someone is messing around outside the house. In addition, as an observer, I've seen my dogs do things that I find as really amazing...sometimes even simple things. When ever my 3 year old Chow/Elkhound mix hears the National Geographic theme for instance, she runs in front of the TV and sits there and literally watches the show with us! Our Golden Retriever mix who passed away last year once pulled a corn cob out of the trash and was laying on it with her tail wagging when I got home like nothing was wrong...she had done something she wasn't supposed to and was literally -lieing- to me about it! There are so many situations such as these that I've encountered over the years, I could probably fill a book! And these were just dogs I grew up and lived with! Lets look at other species...dolphins and certainly whales have much larger brains then we do as humans (and we don't even use most of our brains according to medical research!). Could this not indicate that there is at least a potential for superiour intellect even if they don't show it by our standards? We tend to evaluate our intellect as a species by our achievments, but is this really indicative of how smart we are? Lets take dolphins for example...they swim, they play, the mate, they eat, they raise their young and generally speaking, their at peace...they don't have wars, they don't have to worry about paying this months bills, they don't have to worry about being to work on time, they don't get frustrated if the cable goes out.....I dunno about most people, but that doesn't sound like such a bad life to me! Maybe it takes a superiour intelligence to know how to simply enjoy life. How do we know that we're smarter then they are anyways simply because they don't relate to us on -our- level? I would also like very much to add that dolphins don't have hands! No their not going to be able to "build things" the way they do, but with that in mind, why would they need to? A dolphin or a whale doesn't really -need- skyscrapers or nuclear power plants in order to be happy so even if they had the techincal abilities and physical prowess of say a "aposable thumb", would this mean they need to start building things to be happy? We as humans build things we need because we are able to, but we also build -a lot- of things we -don't- need....my house is filled with things that I don't really need. Many of the things are "modern convieniences" and many of them simply make me happy, but I don't "need" them in order to be happy let alone survive. We build things because we can, but does this mean we are any happier let alone smarter? Does this mean that dolphins are less intelligent then we are because their smart enough -not- to build things to excess and use up the planets resources? Maybe the fact that dolphins have learned to be happy and survive without the use of cell phones means their perhaps a little smarter then we are! LOL! Also in regards to the dolphin pushing the correct button with his nose....hey...at least he/she gets a fish out of it! What do we get besides a good giggle and some scientific data? Now granted, I'm not all that fond of fish, but if say, someone were to offer me a Hostess Ho-Ho or a Klondike bar, you betcha I'd puch that button a few times with my nose! LOL!!! What would -you- do for a Klondike bar? Hehehehe....


On the issue of communication...
Now lets be honest here...with all of our wonderous achievments, we humans often have trouble communicating with each other even when we speak the same language! I challenge anyone on this board to tell me that they've -never- met a person who has misunderstood something they have said. Now if you take a person who speaks nothing but English and put them in a room with a person who speaks nothing but Chinese without an interpretter, in the course of time (years) yes they will find common references and learn to communicate with each other, but it's not going to be easy to say the least! Now this is two members of the same species who simply speak different languages...of course it's going to be more difficult to communicate with a different species...especially if we try to make them communicate with us. I've had a long time interest in "whale song" both as a person who apreciates whales and as a musician. I discovered many years ago that with an electric guitar and a few effects, I can mimic (pretty closely) the sound of humpback whales. I've often wondered if given time and the proper access to whales, if I could perhaps learn -their- language....it would be a facinating experiment to say the least. Language occurs on -many- levels...look at some of the problems that occur on the internet (such as those between Dave Mitsky and myself) when you remove everything but the words. Language is also conveyed in tone, body language (including facial expression), etc.. There are certainly things we take for granted, until you remove them and the result can be much less then effective (and again my apologies go out to Mr. Mitsky). In many animals even things such as smell may come into play...certainly something that we as humans arn't all that capable of. We as humans take communication for granted...it's easy to do. We're raised with communication from the moment we're born, we're submerged in it by the media, many of us are almost surgically attached to our cell phones, etc.. But how many of us really understand communication? It's a -very- complex issue even amoungst ourselves. Perhaps in order to communicate with other species, we should get past ideas such as "what do they have to offer to us" and work more on issues such as "Hi...how are you today?"

I recently read an article (sorry, I forget where) that in a nut shell said that if we're going to try and communicate with other species from other worlds, that perhaps a good place to start would be right here in our own back yard. Human's until recently have had this underlying thought that when we meet other intelligent species that they may look similar to us. This is very probably -not- the case. If you look at the wide diversity of life on this planet then consider what other kind of life could be "out there" it really boggels the mind. Take the concept of the late Dr. Carl Sagan's "Floaters" for example...how would we as humans attempt to communicate with such a species? Maybe a species that is technologically more advanced then we are will have developed a "universal translater"....or even have discovered the "babble fish", but until then we had better be prepaired to learn to work with other species on their level and not expect them to be able...or want... to communicate with us on ours. There are many animals that -are- intelligent here on our own world...whether that intelligence is equal to our own and whether they have something to offer us is irrelivant. It's how we get along with them and how we treat each other that counts and this is something that we have to learn before we head to the stars. If we as humans can't learn to respect and apreciate the life forms of our own world, it unlikely that we will have any respect for those of others regardless of whether their smarter or we are.

Mother nature and the planet provided a very natural balance to things long before we were around. Things progressed as they should without our intervention and life as a whole was probably quite happy about it. After man came around though, things started to go a little haywire...at first we were in harmony with our surroundings, but we got pushy...we started taking more then we needed and developed the idea that it was some how our divine right to do so. Maybe instead of trying to decide if other species are intelligent and have something to offer us, we should take a few steps back and try and see how we look thru -their- eyes...I wonder if we would find ourselves worthy?


Are animals intelligent...yes, most certainly and they deserve our respect regardless of how we view their intelligence or compair it to our own! If we as humans are going to consider ourselves superiour, then perhaps we should also acknowledge the responsibilities that go with that superiority. Maybe we should start taking better care of our planet and -all- of it's various forms of life and instead of being so judgmental (myself included) perhaps we should simply learn to co-exist in harmony for the benefit of all.

As always, please forgive my spelling, typing, grammer and my unusual ability to ramble endlessly!

I wish everyone bright blessings and gentle breezes,
Jim


"Wonderous is our great blue ship that sails around the mighty sun and joy to everyone who rides along..." - Jeff Lynn