Content
- What differentiates humans from other animals
- Do animals think or act on instinct?
- Do animals think?
- Animal intelligence: examples
Humans have studied the behavior of animals for centuries. THE ethology, which is what we call this area of scientific knowledge, aims, among other things, to discover whether animals think or not, since human beings have made intelligence one of the issues that differentiate humans from animals.
In this article by PeritoAnimal, we will explain the main concepts of studies that seek to assess the sensitive and cognitive abilities of animals. Does do animals think? We will explain everything to you about animal intelligence.
What differentiates humans from other animals
To reach a conclusion about whether the animals think or not, the first thing to do is define what is meant by the action of thinking. "Thinking" comes from the Latin will think, which had the meaning of weighing, calculating or thinking. The Michaelis Dictionary defines thinking as "playing the capacity to judge or to deduce". The dictionary points out several meanings, among which the following stand out: "mindfully examining something in order to form a judgment", "keeping in mind, intending, intending" and "deciding by pondering". [1]
All these actions immediately refer to another concept from which thought cannot be detached, and which is none other than the intelligence. This term can be defined as the faculty of the mind that allows learn, understand, reason, make decisions and form an idea of reality. Determining which animal species can be considered intelligent has been a subject of constant study over time.
According to the given definition, virtually all animals could be considered intelligent because they can learn and, in other words, adapt to your environment. Intelligence is not just about solving mathematical operations or the like. On the other hand, other definitions include the ability to use instruments, create a culture, that is, transmit teachings from parents to children, or simply enjoy the beauty of a work of art or the sunset. Also, the ability to communicate through language, even when using symbols or signs, is considered a sign of intelligence as it requires a high level of abstraction to unite meanings and signifiers. Intelligence, as we see, depends on how the researcher defines it.
The question of animal intelligence it is controversial and involves both the scientific and the philosophical and religious fields. That's because, by naming humans as homo sapiens, will be one of the factors by which one can understand what differentiates humans from other animals. And, also, which somehow legitimizes the exploitation of the rest of the animals, since they are considered, in a way, inferior.
Therefore, ethics in researching this issue cannot be ignored. It is also important to memorize the name of a scientific discipline, the ethology, which is defined as the comparative study of animal behavior.
On the other hand, studies always have the biasanthropocentric, because they are made by human beings, who are also the ones who interpret the results from their perspective and their way of understanding the world, which is not necessarily the same as animals, for which, for example, the smell is more predominant or hearing. And that's not to mention the absence of language, which limits our understanding. Observations in the natural environment must also be evaluated against those created artificially in laboratories.
Research is still under development and is bringing new data. For example, in light of current knowledge of the Great Primates Project, today these primates are asked to obtain the rights that correspond to them as hominids that are. As we can see, intelligence has repercussions at the ethical and legislative level.
Do animals think or act on instinct?
Considering the definition of thought, to answer this question, it is necessary to determine the meaning of the term instinct. The instinct alludes to innate behaviors, therefore, that they were not learned but transmitted through genes. That is, by instinct, all animals of the same species will respond in the same way to a certain stimulus. Instincts occur in animals, but we must not forget that they also occur in humans.
The studies carried out with the aim of resolving the issue of how animals think, in general, considered that mammals surpass, in terms of animal intelligence, reptiles, amphibians and fish, which, in turn, were surpassed by birds. Among them, primates, elephants and dolphins stood out as more intelligent. The octopus, considered to possess considerable animal intelligence, makes an exception to this rule.
In studies of animal thinking, it was also assessed whether or not they have reasoning ability. O reasoning it can be defined as establishing a relationship between different ideas or concepts to reach conclusions or form a judgment. Based on this description of the concept, we can consider that animals reason, as it has already been observed that some of them are able to use elements to solve a problem that arises without resorting to trial and error.
Do animals think?
The data exposed so far allow you to accept that animals think. As for the ability to feel, it is also possible to find evidence. First of all, it is important to differentiate between the ability to feel physical pain. For this, it was established that those animals with nervous systems they can feel pain in a similar way to humans. Thus, a good example of this argument is the bulls in the arenas because it is possible to notice pain.
But the question is also whether they suffer, that is, whether they experience the Sufferingpsychological. the fact of suffering stress, which can be objectively measured by the hormones that are secreted, seems to give an affirmative answer. The depression described in animals or the fact that some die after being abandoned, even without a physical cause, would also confirm this assumption. Again, the results of studies in this regard are a ethical question and should make us reflect on how we treat the rest of the animals on the planet.
find out what they are the freedoms of animal welfare and how they relate to stress in PeritoAnimal.
Animal intelligence: examples
The ability of some primates to communicate through the sign language, the use of tools of these species, of cephalopods and birds, the Problem solving more or less complex, the rats that stop eating foods that were harmful to their fellows or the use of hot springs that make the monkeys in Japan, are examples that were worked on in the permanent study that humans develop to resolve the question of whether the animals think or not.
To learn more, you can read studies by Desmond Morris, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Konrad Lorenz, Nikolaas Timbergen, Frans de Waall, Karl Von Frisch, etc.
Learn more about the origin and evolution of primates in this PeritoAnimal article.