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People should be taught in school that humans are not that smart, and that there are many comparable species in intelligence. (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 3 years ago by to c/unpopularopinion@lemmy.world
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This opinion is based on reading people's thoughts on the internet and remembering what I was taught in my own time in school (where they essentially stumbled into teaching that humans were some kind of 'peak' of the evolutionary process)

I think people have waaaaayyyy too much faith in human intelligence and it's leading to the destruction of the world.

1- People keep thinking a scientist or a 'rich entrepreneur' is going to come up with some magic bullet to save the world, if we taught more about how other animals have tools, language, larger and older and more complex brain structures than us - People might realize it's similar to believing that dolphin will arise from the sea with some idea to stop climate change

2- we keep participating in these systems that have been created under the assumption that we are 'making progress'. I would argue that the minority of human invention represents real progress.

3- It leads to undervaluing the earth and taking it for granted. We worship ourselves as gods (literally). Almost everything you have wasn't invented by humans. It was the result of billions of years of selective design. Yet we teach as if things we harvest from nature were 'invented' by humans. In reality, we often have no way to produce or even of conceive of these things without a natural example.

Thanks for reading

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[–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

I don’t see any other animal making monuments and going to space

But these are weird ( and biased) ways to measure intelligence. I could also say I don't see other species besides Cephalopods with a body-wide distributed brain network that can reform it's entire body to mimic in a few seconds, not to mention regularly escape from entirely alien containment measures.

Even the mention of 'doing things we see in sci-fi' is weirdly human centric. Like dinosaurs lived on the earth for billions of years. How bout we accomplish that? There was a book that explored this idea that species are obsessed with themselves by Dan Quinn called 'Ishmael'. The whole book isn't really about that theme but it's got an allegory about jellyfish that explores it.

edit: this is getting downvotes so let me ask another way:

  • if 'accomplishing the things we see in sci fi' (like say, going to Mars) results in the extinction of the human species shortly after, do you think the remaining species on the planet will remember humans as 'smart' or 'obsessed with vehicles/exploration to the point of self-destruction'? If you could float above the remains of the civilization and make a judgement, would you think it was worth it?
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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    No animal shows anywhere near the range of neuroplasticity of humans. Humans can exist comfortably on almost all biospheres on earth and even space thanks to the technology we developed. Including the technology of language which features the word intelligence which we use for the way we grow and adapt. That's what we use our brains for and what we specialize in. We don't use our brains for sonar the way bats do, but that isn't intelligence.

    Does that make humans inherently superior or give us the right to render the planet uninhabitable? No, of course not, and animals are smarter than many people give them credit for. But calling animal intelligence comparable to that of humans simply isn't accurate.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    Other animals have language

    Edit: when I tried to research the nueroplasticity claim I didn't see the answer you're giving. I saw sources claiming many animals have this and that rats have shown more nueroplasticity than humans

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Other animals communicate. Language involves syntax and grammar which only humans are capable of. That also has nothing to do with the fact that intelligence is a human word to describe humanlike capacity.

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  • [–] [S] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/03/060322175201.htm

    We have known for quite some time that whales have language with syntax, in fact we now know they have regional dialects as well

    You are proving my point this should be taught in school more, here you are under the impression humans are unique in this regard

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    ...although the authors do not claim that humpback whale songs meet the linguistic rigor necessary for a true language.

    Despite the "human-like" use of hierarchical syntax to communicate, Suzuki and his colleagues found that whale songs convey less than one bit of information per second. By comparison, humans speaking English generate 10 bits of information for each word spoken. "Although whale song is nothing like human language, I wouldn't be surprised if some marine mammals have the ability to communicate in a complex way.

    Did you even read the article you submitted? I get it, you like animals.I like animals, even humans, some of them. But you're comparing other animals to humans at the things that humans are demonstratively best at. Its like saying that cattle are sometimes faster at running than cheetahs and maybe we've been defining "fast" or "run" wrong. If you move the goal post far enough apart and select the outliers you can find examples of anything, but you've proved nothing.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago)

    "Although whale song is nothing like human language, I wouldn’t be surprised if some marine mammals have the ability to communicate in a complex way.

    Are you the same person who claimed they didn't have syntax at all or someone different? Why claim that when they don't have syntax, and then move goalposts to bits of information?

    https://www.uw360.asia/the-difference-between-human-and-cetacean-brains/ Are you aware cetaceans have more lobes in their brain than humans ?

    This extra lobe of tissue has something to do with processing emotions, but also something to do with thinking that we humans just don’t have.

    This unique evolution of the cetacean’s entire limbic system, which is a combination of multiple structures in the brain that deal with emotions and the formation of memories, suggests that cetaceans have the ability to process more complex thoughts and emotions than humans. Since the system is so large in cetaceans, and the unique paralimbic lobe merges with the cortex, it is believed that the lobe may create a mixture of both emotional and cognitive thinking.

    Humans are always comparing animals TO OURSELVES and when they fall short we consider ourselves better, but we don't do the comparison the other way and subtract points from ourselves when we fail against animals.

    I think this is my overall point and why our estimation of ourselves and other life on earth is so flawed.

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