Naked Science Forum
General Science => General Science => Topic started by: Herman Melville on 18/06/2009 14:36:01
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Can it be measured/proved?
In my opinion, cats are far more intelligent than dogs. They do what they like, when they like. No need to bother with that silly chasing-a-stick-to-please-the-owner business.
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I really don't know about intelligence in domestic (or any other ) animals. I have a feeling that we anthropomorphise too much to be truly objective about it. Cats can be really dumb sometimes and we interpret this as them being 'inscrutable' and dogs, with their apparent 'daft' behaviour can be manipulating us shamefully.
There is such a huge gap between us and all of them that I think it's very hard to make serious comparisons. We agonise enough over the validity of human intelligence / ability testing and it's clear that there's no satisfactory answer. With cats, dogs and chimps we're dealing with such a wide spread of factors that it's too much to expect a single scale (a la IQ) as a measure of animal intelligence.
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It is difficult to compare two different species for intelligence.
I have enough issues differentiating between men and women....women are not human...they are...women !
Cats do have this uncanny knack of getting their owners to do their bidding !...In fact last night Deano (our boy cat) successfully forced me to give up my comfy leather chair for an el cheapo crappo chair..This was great amusement to my family to see me siting uncomfortably typing here at the computer whilst Deano revelled in luxury at my discomfort .I even took a photo for another post that I will create soon..whereas a doggy will probably just want to hump the chairs leg.
This is something though that Deano is not capable of doing...so..does that make , in this instance, a doggy have a skill.... an intelligence that a cat does not have ?
Dogs seem to be far more trainable than cats (as mentioned in another thread) though myself have witnessed a trained cat too !...it seems to be concluded that the more intelliegent a dog is,the easier it is to train...
I really do not know though, if I were to fall and break a leg..... I would prefer to rely on a dog to bring me the phone in an emergency rather than a cat who would probably just insist that I move over because it wants to sit there.
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I see you have found the thread i was referring to ! [;D]