Are you smarter than an ape?

An interesting bit on a National Geographic documentary shows learning processes of apes and humans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIAoJsS9Ix8

What is fascinating is that human children copy unquestionably - while apes do what is practical to get the 'treat'. We often claim to be the intellectually and morally superior species, and perhaps with how far we have come we indeed are way ahead of all other animals. However, when broken down to basics - does it not seem that we as humans are silly obsessed with nonsense just because everyone does it - while animals tend to be more attune to their surroundings.

Are we really as smart as we think we are?

We're just full of arrogance and nothing else.

Have you ever seen an ape propose that we descended from their species? No, because nobody wants to have ties with our kind.

Originally posted by: Believe

Smarter than? I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. You said sorry, so I'm worried now, you never say sorry.

Originally posted by: Believe

Nice save. 😆 And I'm always smiling - kuch aur kaam nahi hai na.

Are homo sapiens the smartest species? I ve often wondered about that ! What exactly makes us think so? seeing the ant colonies, elephant herds etc on Nat Geo its clear that they hav well devp means of communication & also a social system..

Originally posted by: Believe

But who teach practical things to the Ape😉

Actually nature does. Most animals rely on natural instinct. Humans rely on imitating others. For example in the video I posted, the human children blindly followed unnecessary steps. The apes however, most of the time figured out and did only what was necessary.

Unlike in humans where we are taught skills and behaviors, animal parents rarely 'teach' such behaviors. For example turtles when they hatch instinctively swim to the sea despite no parents around. Birds learn to fly instinctively. Animals learn social norms and behaviors of the pack without being 'taught'.

The problem with the human species is that we do have intellect. We have a very sharp and complex thought process, and the ability to process compound information. However, we are out of touch with basic instinctive behavior and knowledge.

Another example of behavior is apes or dogs or cats in Africa will be able to communicate with apes or dogs or cats in the United States because they communicate not on a technically formed language but natural instinctive communication. Humans however, face huge communication gaps when we are out of our comfort zones. Its just surprising that we are the higher species when we do not have any real basic natural skills.

^^^ RTH ji, you consider mowgli as the smartest person on earth?😆