Don't Scoff at Animal Intelligence

Last night I read a spiritual writer discussing why animals don’t believe in God. My immediate thought was, How do you know what animals believe or don't believe?

Then this morning I found an article much closer to my own suspicions, dealing with a recent symposium entitled “Animal Smarts,” where attendees learned:

• Monkeys can perform mental math.
• Pigeons can select the picture that doesn’t belong.
• Some animals plan for the future.

"I suggest we humans should keep our egos in check," Edward A. Wasserman of the University of Iowa said last week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He said that, like people, pigeons and baboons were able to tell which pictures showed similar items, like triangles or dots, and which showed different items. This is the definition of a concept, he said, "and the animals passed it with flying colors."

In the last 20 years there has been a major revolution in the understanding of animals, added Nicola S. Clayton, a professor of comparative cognition at the University of Cambridge in England. Animals not only use tools, there is evidence that some of them save tools for future use, she said.

"Planning ahead was once thought to be unique to humans," Clayton said. "We now know that's not true."

Click here for the complete Associated Press article.