News from the Natural World: Why Would Only One Mammal Possess Intelligence and Complex Emotions?
The Mammalian Kingdom was shocked to discover that humanity thought that there were only one species of mammal on earth that possessed intelligence and complex emotions. In typical human fashion, they placed themselves solely at the centre of everything. They used to believe that the world quite literally revolved around them. They even killed other humans for saying that they and their earth wasn’t the centre of the solar system. Over the years this self-centred arrogance has grown and grown, festering like some kind of vanity induced tumour. It has reached such suffocating heights that humans now deny any animals the rights afforded to themselves. Each time they define intelligence they completely disregard all viewpoints other than their own. Not to mind the fact that they also constantly change the goalposts.
First, it was tool use that set humans apart. Humans said that it was the use of tools that showed how intelligent mankind was. That no other animals possessed this ability. But then the humans started discovering Chimpanzees that used a leaf to fish for Termites. In addition, they found an Octopus that used shells and stones as tank-like armour. Furthermore, they saw Fish using rocks as rudimentary tools to crush molluscs. In fact, they discovered tool use was abundant in many species.
Why Would Only One Mammal Possess Intelligence and Complex Emotions?
So again they changed tact. This time they said it wasn’t tool use but rather a speech that defined human intelligence. It was the human language that allowed the growth of culture and learning that allowed humans to conquer the globe. It was speech that set humans apart. But humans saying that animals couldn’t speak was a bit like a French person meeting a Nigerian person and saying they couldn’t speak because they didn’t understand their language. Animals can speak, they just can’t speak human. In whales alone, humans have discovered not only speech and song but also distinct regional dialects. So it seems that speech is not a singularly human attribute. The human’s arrogance knew no bounds.
Take Fido the Dog for examples, he had this to say “Look if it was us Dogs measuring whether an animal was intelligent or possessed complex emotions we would definite it rather differently to humans. First, we’d look at their smellovision. It is our nose that enables us to see the world in 4D visuals of smell. That would be our benchmark for intelligence. How does a human nose stack up against a dogs nose? Pretty damn poorly. On that barometer, we would have to define humans as unintelligent.”