Sunday, June 8, 2014
Biology Week 4 Assignment - Animal Intelligence revisited
It seems pretty obvious that in general we do not understand animal intelligence and because their cognition and behavior is not exactly like ours we assume that they are not 'smart'. It also seems like there is a growing understanding that animals are intelligent creatures, with feelings, memories and attachments to family and community. The article on elephants was very interesting, what I took away from it was a greater appreciation for the necessity of elders in community, to create a foundation for offspring. Elephants recognize the sound patterns of different languages and have an emotional experience based on past interactions with those different language cultures. They are clearly highly aware beings, but because they do not speak our language we assume we are the superior... it is sad to me that animals are not accorded more respect and dignity, but things seem to be changing for the better.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
It is amazing how elephants can communicate with each other... and the need to keep the older elephants play a vital role in their adaptation....I really appreciate your statement about having hope for humanity in being able to change his behavior in the area of providing animals with respect and more dignity...
ReplyDeleteOh elephants, how I adore thee.
ReplyDeleteI really liked that this article brought up the importance of older generations in a community. I think we lack not only respect for elders here in America, but we are also missing a lot of our elders, especially in particular communities of people that do not have good health. This really points out a key thing that is currently missing here and it makes sense that we have trouble with our youth, we/they have no one left to follow. Even if the elder communities are alive, the younger people aren't listening, making it even harder for the elders to even share. There is obviously a purpose for everything, but I don't think our society can clearly see this. Especially in times of indivdualism, more and more elders are getting pushed to the sides. This is no good... for any of us.