Animal and Extraterrestrial Intelligent Design?

First off, I'd just like to say that my reading of the above exchange sees two very similar lines of argument; I'm not sure theres a lot of disagreement here.

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Back to computer models ... suppose you have two possible
mechanisms for something, neither of which require the supernatural
but one is more complex than the other.

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Both a complex computer model and a simple computer model can
achieve consistent results.

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What we can do is, take the sophisticated model and figure out how to break it in a manner that would not apply to the simple model. Then we can implement a similar scenario on the real thing, and see if it breaks that way. In so doing we can determine which model is more accurate.

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Phrases like 'human-scale intelligence' are founded in that
same self-superior bias.

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I'm not so sure about that. I'm very supportive of arguments to non-human intelligence; I do not think that human intelligence is special in any particular way.That said, we have a very high proportion of brain mass to body mass by comparison to many other organisms. This seems to suggest to me that we can at least consider sapience to be as mechanical property occurring in brain matter. In that case it would not be unreasonable to see ourselves as being unusually intelligent. All that it might mean is that some other animals with big brains, or good proportions of brain:body mass, might also be intelligent on our terms.I think the great apes are pretty smart. (probably) Not as smart as us, but smart enough that Jane Goodall and other Gorilla researchers have reported a profound sense of recognition passing betweem human and ape (or between ape and ape, we might say).I privately suspect that some species of cetacean are (at least) as intelligent as we are. I am aware this is still a controversial claim, but I expect that further research will bear it out eventually.Anyway, the point being that seeing intelligence as being fundamentally mechanical (which I do) and not a special property of humanity (which I don't) still allows us to claim quantitative distinctions without, IMO, massive injections of hubris. We do know that we don't live the same way as most animals, even those who are our closest relatives.

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If we don't give animals sufficient credit for their intelligence and capabilities, neither do we condemn them for acts we may otherwise consider reprehensible.

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Ah, but we have tried horses for murder and so forth in the late middle ages.Peter: Just to clarify that I was addressing the proportion of brain:body mass, not only the quantity of brain mass. My private thoughts on the brain see it as a computer - the question then is how much computational capacity is driving the meat, and how much is driving the mind. But this is not strongly supported; its just stuff I've seen discussed and which makes prima facie sense to me.It is also established that the brain can signidicantly re-wire... not entirely unlike internet packet routing. So in same cases significant brain iompariment might not produce a mechnistically predictable reduction in capacity. Hard to say.Many cetaceans, and elephants, have "unique identifiers" for individuals which, as above, we still rather hubristically IMO choose not to describe as names. Elepehants are also, of course, famously able to recognises people. Now I say if it has a name and identity, and can recognises other specific identities, we are talking about a consciousness that is substantially similar to ours. Just a few weeks ago, a herd of African elephants broke into a holding pen where some antelope were being held for disease research. The researchers expected the elephants would be after the silage, but instead the opened the gate and held it open till the antelope left the corral.
So maybe thats just an accidenthat RESEMBLES deliberate intervention... thats possible. But its not the only possibility. I'll not go so far as to defend non-humam sentience in the world here and now... just to support more research in that direction.