![]() ![]() “The octopus obviously has cognition going, because cognition is the processing of information,” says de Waal, “We should be asking…how does he solve the problems in his environment? And how it compares to humans is sort of a secondary issue in my mind.” Is Inky a genius?ĭe Waal argues that the trick to measuring animal intelligence, is not to use human standards, but rather the standards of the animal itself, whether it be an octopus or elephant or chimpanzee. Under the cover of darkness, he squeezed through a crack in the top of his tank, stretched his long body through a drain hole in the floor and slithered down a 50 meter pipe to escape into the sea. Inky the octopus recently made an astounding escape from his tank in the national aquarium of New Zealand. But the octopus is smarter than me in many other ways.” “Because I’m smarter than an octopus in things I’m good at, like language and technology. “It’s really the wrong question to ask,” says primatologist Frans de Waal. This article is based on a Science Friday interview and was originally published on PRI.org. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |