Charles Darwin, who attempted to explain how human intelligence developed, extended his theory of evolution to the human brain: Like the rest of our physiology, intelligence must have evolved from simpler organisms, since all animals face the same general challenges of life. They need to find mates, food, and a path through the woods, sea, or sky—tasks that Darwin argued require problem-solving and categorizing abilities.
Darwin went so far as to suggest that earthworms are cognitive beings because, based on his close observations, they have to make judgments about the kinds of leafy matter they use to block their tunnels. He hadn't expected to find thinking invertebrates and remarked that the hint of earthworm intelligence "has surprised me more than anything else in regard to worms."
To Darwin, the earthworm discovery demonstrated that degrees of intelligence could be found throughout the animal kingdom. But the Darwinian approach to animal intelligence was cast aside in the early 20th century, when researchers decided that field observations were simply "anecdotes," usually tainted by anthropomorphism. In an effort to be more rigorous, many embraced behaviorism, which regarded animals as little more than machines, and focused their studies on the laboratory white rat—since one "machine" would behave like any other.
But if animals are simply machines, how can the appearance of human intelligence be explained? Without Darwin's evolutionary perspective, the greater cognitive skills of people did not make sense biologically. Slowly the pendulum has swung away from the animal-as-machine model and back toward Darwin. A whole range of animal studies now suggest that the roots of cognition are deep, widespread, and highly malleable.
Just how easily new mental skills can evolve is perhaps best illustrated by dogs. Most owners talk to their dogs and expect them to understand. But this canine talent wasn't fully appreciated until a border collie named Rico appeared on a German TV game show in 2001. Rico knew the names of some 200 toys and acquired the names of new ones with ease.
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig heard about Rico and arranged a meeting with him and his owners. That led to a scientific report revealing Rico's uncanny language ability: He could learn and remember words as quickly as a toddler. Other scientists had shown that two-year-old children—who acquire around ten new words a day—have an innate set of principles that guides this task. The ability is seen as one of the key building blocks in language acquisition. The Max Planck scientists suspect that the same principles guide Rico's word learning, and that the technique he uses for learning words is identical to that of humans.
To find more examples, the scientists read all the letters from hundreds of people claiming that their dogs had Rico's talent. In fact, only two—both border collies—had comparable skills. One of them—the researchers call her Betsy—has a vocabulary of more than 300 words.
This posting is an excerpt taken from a March 2008 article
and published by National Geographic Magazine.
6 comments:
We had a border collie named Shiloh who had a huge vocabulary and better yet, could be taught to do anything possible in an incredibly short time. He was amazingly incredibly smart--and cute too, but also "naughty" and crafty about his naughtiness!
Interesting article. There was some dog I read/heard about a while back who was also very smart and capable of incredible intelligence based activities. We so underestimate other species. Most domesticated animals are bi-lingual - my cats clearly understand me when I talk - but I don't understand a word they say... who's smarter?
This amazing article (read the whole thing by clicking on the author's name) actually made me cry at one point, when the 30-year-old parrot Alex, raised entirely in captivity, utters one poignant question, "take me see tree?" We humans don't deserve to coexist on this planet with such beautiful and awe-inspiring creatures.
I used to raise Cocketiels. I had one that learned to speak with an American accent and a German accent, because my parents had a foreign exchange student from Germany staying with them. I had another that would say, "Hello Lori" when I got home from work in the evening. And last, [I actually have a dozen more stories, but I won't tell them all here] I had one who would only mimic the phone when nobody was in the room, because he knew that when the phone rang, people came in the room and paid attention to him.
My parents had Border Collies and they truly were brilliant dogs. Interesting post. JP/deb
Yes, Lori, and what about all the amazing things our pets do to TRY to communicate with us, and we are too unintelligent to understand!
Thanks very much for coming, Deborah, for what is the first (but I hope not the last) time to "Impressions...". I hope you have the time to visit some of the other sites in our "family", which are essentially laid out for you at "Everything in Particular", our home site. From there you may also click to about 50-plus other sites we like, too.
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