Animal Intelligence and Evolution/Creation

The bible states that humankind was created as God's special creatures, and indeed this view is probably held widely even by biblical non-literalists. Afterall, common theistic beliefs state that humans have been tainted with original sin, humans go to heaven or hell, humans have a soul. The bible even explicitly states:

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Then God said, "And now we will make human beings; they will be like us and resemble us. They will have power over the fish, the birds, and all animals, domestic and wild, large and small." So God created human beings, making them to be like himself. (Gen 1:26-27)

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Research on animal intelligence, however, implies that we humans are not quite the special creatures that we sometimes think we are. It appears that various animals are capable of language, the ability to grasp some complex concepts, emotions, and self-awareness. Some argue that the difference between human and animal intellect is only a matter of degree; there is no qualitative difference that sets our intelligence apart from those of dogs, dolphins, and chimpanzees. This is no problem for evolution, which raises no barriers against the parallel development of intelligence in different animals. My question is, does this research pose a problem for theists in general, and creationists in particular? If not, how does one reconcile such research with their religious beliefs?

By the way, I invite everyone else to post additional, more insightful links on the nature of animal intelligence. Here's another one that I found on bird brains.

That's part of what I meant, but I was speaking about other beliefs as well. For example, I have heard it stated before that only humans have souls. But if animals are found to be intelligent, communicating, feeling creatures, then why should they not have souls as well? (For that matter, what is a soul? But that's another discussion entirely.)And I've received the impression that a dominant feature in Christian faith (for some) is that man is special. This is part of why there are objections to evolution; some feel that humankind could not have evolved from apes. This is also partly why there was resistance to advances in cosmology; the old Church couldn't stand the idea that the earth wasn't in the center of the solar system. An admittedly outdated but decidedly religious way of looking at it is that man stands near the top of the Great Chain of Being, right below God and above all the other creatures of the earth. Religious beliefs, and christian ones in particular, seem to promote a very human-centric world view, in which humans are qualitatively superior to other living things.But research in animal intelligence challenges this notion. For one thing, it suggests that the only difference is a matter of degree. There are sayings that our human ability to do so-and-so separates us from the animals, whether it be to laugh, grieve, use tools, control lust, or whatever. But animal research shows that animals are capable of doing many if not all of these things. They also raise the idea that animals may in the far future evolve to become as intelligent as us, if not moreso. And the number of intelligent species is surprising; dogs, primates, dolphins, birds, and squid/octopuses all display surprisingly high degrees of intelligence.In a way, perhaps this is a variation of the question on whether life on other planets is a problem for creationists. Even in that thread, the idea of intelligent life on other planets was raised as being more problematic to christian belief than non-intelligent life.

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Have you seen the dolphin rings?

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That's amazing! I'd always loved dolphins as a kid, and I used to read everything I could get my hands on, but I've never read about this before!

Umm, so animals do have souls, because they breath? I wouldn't dare disagree with theological definitions of soul or spirit based on established belief systems, but I was thinking along the more everyday, commonplace idea of a soul that most people seem to have. When people use the word "soul", it seems to mean "essence", some intangible yet crucial quality of people that makes them alive, intelligent, and feeling. Consider the word "soulless", which implies an unfeeling nature (not a non-breathing nature). At the same time, people seem to generally think that it's the soul that goes to heaven or hell. Ghosts for example are referred to as "lost souls" or "wandering souls." I couldn't begin to say what a philosopher or theologian of whatever faith would define these terms, but this is how I think ordinary, everyday people understand the term.This message has been edited by Aximili23, 02-13-2005 08:26 AM

Can you elaborate? Umm, are you saying that animal intelligence research supports the biblical references to talking animals?

Perhaps. But the most useful definition, and the one that's relevant to this thread, is the definition that people actually believe and use.I knew I shouldn't have inserted that bit about "What is a soul?" Now people aren't paying attention to my original post.

Thing about inductive reasoning is that the conclusions are not really proven by the premises/arguments. It can depend on personal interpretation, and on which bits of the evidence one would like to focus on. And very often, the inferred conclusion can exceed beyond what the evidence says. Inductive reasoning is like pattern recognition - you look at the data and make a generalization. But the only valid conclusion is a statement/description of the observed pattern. You can't use inductive reasoning to state what the pattern means. In this case, you can use inductive reasoning to say that humans are vastly more intelligent or sophisticated than animals. But it doesn't follow from this that humans are therefore qualitatively different or special compared to animals.Even in the link your provided on slothful induction, it states that "About all you can do in such a case is to point to the strength of the inference."

At the risk of being slightly off-topic, isn't the obvious answer "yes"? Very intelligent creatures are more capable of manipulating their environment to suit their own survival. The most obvious example is humankind itself; the development of agriculture and medicine have allowed us to attain ridiculously high population levels for animals of our size. (Granted, considering what we're doing to the global ecology maybe this isn't such a great long-term survival trait after all.)

I agree with PS on this point; all you've convincingly demonstrated is that the uniqueness of humans is a matter of degree. No one's arguing that humans aren't vastly more intelligent, technologically advanced, or socially complex than other creatures. But animals DO exhibit intelligence, technology, and complex social interaction; and there's no evidence to suggest that they couldn't advance in these areas in the millenia to come. The only thing you've mentioned that I don't think animals do is worship God, but from an atheist's point of view, this just demonstrates the superiority of animals, not humans. So do rats, mice, and cockroaches. And each of those is infested by tiny mites by orders of magnitude. And each of those mites are colonized by millions of bacteria. If you're going to argue that these aren't global societies, consider the argentine ant (click here and here), which is taking over the world as one giant supercolony. And we haven't even begun to talk about the aquatic species (remember, the earth's surface is three-fourths water). I doubt that animal behavior scientists would phrase it quite so desparagingly. But more to the point, there's nothing to indicate that chimps are stuck at anything. In fact, the links that PS and Razd have posted indicate that chimp culture is quite dynamic, and vary both across regions and over time. But the degree of intelligence that you are looking for must take literally millions of years to evolve, and would only take place if the conditions are right. For example, human intelligence evolved because of the disappearance of jungles/forests that were the habitats of social, dextrous tree-dwelling mammals. Umm, not true. Small birds have a higher ratio - see here. No, it's because humans bred them that way. Wolves certainly would not have sacrificed their lives for humans. I can't speak for dogs, but Argentine ants are taking over most of earth's landmasses as one allied society. What the article I posted doesn't elaborate (I learned this on the Discovery channel, I don't have a link) is that different argentine ant colonies cooperate rather than compete, and are able to recognize each other universally. Thus, two nearby colonies will cooperate to fight any enemy ant species. And if you take an Argentine ant in the US and take it to Australia, it would be recognized and accepted by the colonies that are there. Humans don't even come close to this kind of worldwide cooperation. I'd say that counts as overwhelmingly unique.

Thanks for the clarification. In my defense, the whole "Argentine Ant from US to Australia" example was explicitly given in the Discovery channel show that I saw; I just don't remember if it was those two countries. It just goes to show; popular media is not the best way to learn about science.

Mike,You're correct to identify the definition of "natural ability" as a source of conflict in this debate. It seems to me that your idea of a natural ability or inability (and consequently, an instance where an inability is overcome) is not the same that for everybody else. And to me, your definition seems flawed.I gather that your idea of of "natural ability" is "what the organism's morphology is capable of." In this sense I see your point; pigs cannot fly (no wings), humans cannot breathe underwater (no gills), but humans overcome these morphologic limitations through technology (i.e. scuba, submarines). To you, animals do not.But the definition that you seem to actually be using for "natural ability" for animals is "anything the animal is capable of." Chimps and their tools, ants and their aphid agriculture, etc, all seem to be natural abilities to you, because animals can do these things. But this is a truism: of course an ability is something that one can do. If your idea of "natural ability" encompasses everything animals can do, then of course there are no examples of them overcoming their natural inabilities through technological means. Because their ability to overcome their inabilities themselves become natural abilities.To show the difference, take the example of beavers cited earlier. You state, correctly, that beavers have a natural ability to build dams, because of their teeth (morphologically determined ability). But this is already the example of overcoming the inability. What beavers cannot do with their morphology, which they overcome with technology, is block the flow of river water. They certainly cannot use their bodies to do that, but they overcome this by building dams, which they can naturally do. Same with chimps: they cannot use their hands (morphology) to get termites or open nuts, so they resort to sticks and rocks (technology).The problem with defining any kind of tool use or technology as a natural ability is that, if applied to humans, then all our technologies are natural abilities. We use our eyes and hands to build tools and machines, to make more complex tools, to make more complex tools, etc., until we can go to space and play with DNA. After all, building tools is clearly something our morphology allows us to do. If all of these things are our natural abilities, then clearly there are no inabilities for us to overcome. Thus, we do not overcome our natural inabilities, and we are not uniquely different. But more to the point, defining technology as a natural ability is a tautology. Neither humans nor animals can develop a technology that they are not naturally, morphologically capable of developing. Again, beavers have no natural (morphological) ability to block river water. They produce this artificially by building dams. Chimps have no natural ability to reach into termite mounds, or break open nuts. They artificially use sticks and rocks. Birds have no natural ability to house their young, or bees to house their colonies. They artificially build nests and hives. Ants have no natural ability to produce large quantities of food for the entire colony. They artificially used aphids.