Animal Intelligence

Digging through the archives at Ask Metafilter, I stumbled upon an awesome discussion from last month. User showbiz_liz writes:

What are the arguments for and against the idea that animals have self-awareness?
I’m in an anthropology class called Moral Consciousness that discusses human conceptions of selfhood. It’s a very interesting class, but I have one problem with [...]

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Lynn forwarded a story from Fox News about cultural transmission in chimpanzees. Charles Q. Choi reports:

In the wild, chimpanzee troops are often distinct from one another, possessing collections of up to 20 traditions or customary behaviors that altogether seem to form unique cultures.
Such practices include various forms of tool use, including hammers and pestles; [...]

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I am not a vegetarian. I love meat. I do not consider myself an animal rights activist. I’m just a guy who thinks that animals are far more intelligent than most people believe. In fact, I believe that some animals — dolphins, elephants, chimpanzees — have complex societies and rich emotional lives. They have language. [...]

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