Super Smart Animals. BBC1 8.00pm.

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ringway

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I don't watch much television these days, but this is a must-see programme. :cool:

Super Smart Animals. LINK.
 
Sounds good, but could turn out to be naff.
 
Ok, it's not naff. That chimp is awesome.
 
The Orang Utan proved we are stupid...
 
Yes, watching the creative dolphins now....
 
There are times I just wish I was near a TV. Ah well, there's always iPlayer...

Judging by the comments, I presume this is an American programme (in that the animals are displaying intelligence, rather than just being well turned out)?
 
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No, it's a British programme. Hosted by that woman scientist from the "Big Bang" programme.

It's well worth looking up on iPlayer when it becomes available.
 
That chimp is disturbingly intelligent. Let's hope it doesn't start reading Dostoyevsky.
 
I expected this to be one of those cheese filled programs, I take it I'm wrong and it's worth a watch then?

Yes, it's a pretty intelligent program. Some of the animal behaviour might seem on the face of it a bit "tricksy", but when you put a little thought into how they're reasoning, it's very impressive indeed.
 
The chimp really is disturbing.

It memorises 9 numbers, in the correct order, that are blinked onto a screen in 60 milliseconds.

It was scary.
 
The chimp really is disturbing.

It memorises 9 numbers, in the correct order, that are blinked onto a screen in 60 milliseconds.

It was scary.

At first I wasn't even aware the numbers had appeared...truly remarkable.
 
Eerily similar to autism which might explain some things?
Sad that much of the exploration of dolphin and sea-lion intelligence is funded by the US department of defence?

Interesting programme all the same.
 
Just watched on iPlayer - very interesting indeed! It helps that it was presented by someone I like rather than someone with a droning voice too.
 
I thought that Parrot was impressive, probably more intelligent than our politicians :D
 
The chimp really is disturbing.

It memorises 9 numbers, in the correct order, that are blinked onto a screen in 60 milliseconds.

It was scary.

At first I wasn't even aware the numbers had appeared...truly remarkable.

It's very difficult to demonstrate 'intelligence' in animals (or humans), though in some cases the show was actually convincing.

With regards the chimps, however, their mental ability to press the screen in the right numerical sequence is one thing, the speed in which they memorised it is quite another.

The latter could simply be a better sensory system than ours, resulting from their living in nature, pretty much as dogs have far better olfactory system.

This is not to say that the chimps were not displaying intelligent behaviour - just that this particular experiment is inconclusive because the methodology is flawed. Unless, of course, the full experiment procedure did cover this point, but the producers simply decided not to trouble us with the scientific details. But as things stand this does not prove intelligence - just a better sensory system, perhaps also better short-term memory.
 

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