Slavery...........

That is not proof at all. your statement is completely subjective. Consider this: A man and a lion were walking through Greece, arguing over which species was superior. They came upon a statue of a human killing a lion; and the human said: there, that proves that man is superior." The lion looked at it, and said 'Ah, but who made that statue; Man or Lion?"

Animals are able to live in balance with their environment. Lions know that if they kill all the zebra at once they'll have no food and will die. They kill what they need and no more. Humans take everything they can get, and consume at a completely unsustainable rate. Is that intelligent on our part? No. Humans kill other humans and creatures for pleasure/display of power. Animals do not (excepting baboons). Animals kill for food or in defence of themselves or their offspring only. Which is more intelligent? Consider these situations (all true):

Someone who lives in my village went on holiday to Africa with her husband. He had a habit of losing awareness of his surroundings and wandering off, so they really had to keep a close eye on him. Anyway, they went on a foot safari, and he disappeared, so they backtracked looking for him. They found him near a tree staring up at a bird in it, completely oblivious to the fact that he'd wandered into a pride of lions, who were completely ignoring his presence. They were intelligent enough to know he wasn't a threat.

There was a woman who had just had a baby living in North Africa. Her baby wouldn't stop crying, so she put it down and went into the house to get something. When she came out, she found a lioness standing over her baby and she would not let the mother approach, but she was not doing any harm to the baby. The mother called the police, who darted the lioness and took her a long way away and released her. A few days later, the mother saw the lioness watching her from a distance. The lioness watched her for a week before disappearing. This was a misunderstanding between the human mother and the lioness; the lioness had found the baby crying and the mother absent, and assumed the baby had been abandoned, then would not let the mother approach because she (the lioness) considered the mother unfit to have a baby because she abandoned it. After she was released she returned to the area to make sure the baby was being cared for properly.

In an area of North Africa where kidnappings are/were rife, a young girl was kidnapped by a group of men (the reason escapes me now) Somehow she managed to escape from the house she was being held in, and being in completely unfamiliar territory ran out into the bush crying. she happened to run into a pride of lions, and the men chasing her did not dare approach them, as they crowded round the girl to protect her. Someone else in the village called the police, thinking that the girl needed help, and being completely unaware that she was a kidnap victim. One of the attending officers recognised her as a missing person, and called her parents. The parents came, and only then did the lions allow anyone to approach the girl. She had been with them for hours and they hadn't touched her. They may not have understood exactly what was going on, but they understood that the girl was distressed and running from the men that were following her, and that the men did not have benign intentions. They also connected her with her parents, and allowed the parents to approach their daughter, even though they had not allowed anyone else to.

As someone who has had the pleasure of working with wild animals, and who has experienced their intelligence first hand, they are considerably more intelligent than humans give them credit for; at least as intelligent as humans. As khaislash said above, humans are the most knowledgeable, not the most intelligent.

To answer his statement about what humans invented, humans invented planes in order to copy birds (i.e the ability to fly). and boats/wheel were born out of a necessity. Animals do not need the wheel, or boats, therefore have not invented them. Most animals can travel faster than humans on foot, and they are generally stronger and have more stamina than humans, thus can swim instead of needing a boat. Electricity was discovered by accident. (a frenchman playing with frogs legs from memory)

Animals understand human speech perfectly, and they answer. We just don't listen to them. George Adamson proved this 30+ years ago. After Elsa died, he spent his life living among wild lions and they never harmed him; they even let him treat their wounds. Virginia Mckenna didn't raise a lioness from a cub, yet she too is able to walk among lions as one of them; as was her husband before cancer took him in 1994.

When I was in South Africa, I went to a sanctuary where I adopted one of their rescued lionesses. I was with a whole group of people, yet that particular lioness paid no attention to anyone but me. She understood that I had adopted her.

 

We certainly don't deserve the high opinions we have of our species.

 

It certainly applies to mammals, and probably to other groups too.




George and Virginia


George and Virginia's husband, Bill.


George treating a lion's injuries.




The lioness George and his wife raised from a cub, then rehabilitated into the wild. After living wild for over a year, and dying of a disease that at the time had never before been found in a lion, she chose to return to them and died in George's arms. Despite one of their servants pushing the car to its limits, Joy (George's wife) did not make it back to the camp before Elsa died.


George said losing Elsa was like losing his child.

Real enough for you?

 

not many, that was the first ever and it was only 30-40 years ago. Both George and his wife were murdered, however Virginia is still alive (in her 70s now) and is still friendly with lions; though all the lions she knew in George's day are long dead.

BTW, for those people who've seen the 'Christian the lion - reunion' youtube video, the lion in the background of the picture where George is treating another lion, is in fact, Christian.

 

I'm tax exempt so that's irrelevant. See how long a human would last in the wild with only the clothes they're wearing and no technology of any description. Not long, I'd bet. its about adaption to the environment in which a creature lives. animals are perfectly capable of doing maths etc, they just have no need to; so it is not something they know how to do. That does not make them less intelligent. Similarly, the fact a human would not survive in the animals' environment does not make them less intelligent, just less adapted to that environment.

having said that, you attitude is typical of humans, and stereotypical of Americans, so I'm not surprised that is how you reacted. Me, Me, Me. and conveniently dismissing other people's viewpoints.