<story><title>A Cephalopod Has Passed a Cognitive Test Designed for Human Children</title><url>https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-children</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>40four</author><text>I agree with the main thesis of the article, stated in the first paragraph. That idea of &lt;i&gt;”how important it is for us humans to not underestimate animal intelligence”&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;I think folks in modern times are less &amp;amp; less prone to thinking animals are ‘dumb’. But 1 or 2 generations ago this was not the case. I think humans for a long time have regarded animal intelligence in an inferior light.&lt;p&gt;Cephalopods have proven to to be incredibly intelligent, and emotional. I think you could easily argue many of them are smarter than human children, maybe even a lot of adults :)&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend an episode of ‘Nature’ I saw recently on PBS about octopi. It’s called “Octopus: Making Contact”. It’s the story of a professor who decided to install a tank and keep an octopus in his home, and the relationship he &amp;amp; his daughter developed with it. Absolutely stunning!&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;octopus-making-contact-preview-a98u9n&amp;#x2F;19851&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;octopus-making-contact-previ...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;baby-cephalopods-first-moments-tzuuij&amp;#x2F;19380&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;baby-cephalopods-first-momen...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lurquer</author><text>&amp;gt; I think folks in modern times are less &amp;amp; less prone to thinking animals are ‘dumb’. But 1 or 2 generations ago this was not the case. I think humans for a long time have regarded animal intelligence in an inferior light.&lt;p&gt;Great post. Respectfully, though, I disagree with the excerpt above.&lt;p&gt;I find that urbanization has led to a disconnect between people and animals. In times past, a person would have regular contact with a host of domesticated animals (cattle, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, goat, chickens, pigs, etc.) as well as the wild animals that are a part of everyday life in rural settings (rodents, possums, armadillos, foxes, coyotes, snakes, deer, birds, etc.)&lt;p&gt;Without question, people in the past had a far greater appreciation of the ‘intelligence’ and behavior of animals than modern city-dwellers.&lt;p&gt;One need look no further than the numerous metaphors that have been passed down from these non-urban times: stubborn as a mule, wise as serpents, cunning like a fox, horse-sense, wise as an owl, etc...&lt;p&gt;In short, I’d suggest that the more modern (or, perhaps, urbanized is a better word) the LESS appreciation one finds for animal intelligence.</text></comment>
<story><title>A Cephalopod Has Passed a Cognitive Test Designed for Human Children</title><url>https://www.sciencealert.com/cuttlefish-can-pass-a-cognitive-test-designed-for-children</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>40four</author><text>I agree with the main thesis of the article, stated in the first paragraph. That idea of &lt;i&gt;”how important it is for us humans to not underestimate animal intelligence”&lt;/i&gt;.&lt;p&gt;I think folks in modern times are less &amp;amp; less prone to thinking animals are ‘dumb’. But 1 or 2 generations ago this was not the case. I think humans for a long time have regarded animal intelligence in an inferior light.&lt;p&gt;Cephalopods have proven to to be incredibly intelligent, and emotional. I think you could easily argue many of them are smarter than human children, maybe even a lot of adults :)&lt;p&gt;I highly recommend an episode of ‘Nature’ I saw recently on PBS about octopi. It’s called “Octopus: Making Contact”. It’s the story of a professor who decided to install a tank and keep an octopus in his home, and the relationship he &amp;amp; his daughter developed with it. Absolutely stunning!&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;octopus-making-contact-preview-a98u9n&amp;#x2F;19851&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;octopus-making-contact-previ...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;baby-cephalopods-first-moments-tzuuij&amp;#x2F;19380&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.pbs.org&amp;#x2F;wnet&amp;#x2F;nature&amp;#x2F;baby-cephalopods-first-momen...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>throwanem</author><text>&amp;gt; I think folks in modern times are less &amp;amp; less prone to thinking animals are ‘dumb’. But 1 or 2 generations ago this was not the case.&lt;p&gt;The naturalist Jean-Henri Fabre, in the 19th century, made an extensive study of solitary, spider-hunting wasps. Much of what he discovered, with regard to the surprising complexity of their hunting and nesting behavior, became well known in his day - he was one of the first writers I discovered when I started delving into the literature to feed my own burgeoning interest in the aculeates, and one of the reasons his work is so easy to come by is that it was popular, and thus well preserved.&lt;p&gt;It was very much new to me, though; to whatever extent it had entered common knowledge a century and a half ago, it has since exited again. If anything, I think that in recent generations we have become &lt;i&gt;less&lt;/i&gt; likely to recognize complex behavior and intelligence in nonhuman animals, not more so; that may be changing, but if so, I think it must have begun quite recently.</text></comment>