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Chimpanzee Intelligence Largely Determined By Genetics

As reported by National Geographic, intelligence in chimpanzees appears to be strongly heritable, according to research led by William Hopkins, a primatologist at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta, Georgia, who examined both genetic and environmental factors for a group of related chimpanzees with varying measured intelligence: To find out how much of that variability is due to genetics, Hopkins and his team assessed the cognitive abilities of 99 captive chimpanzees. They used a battery of 13 tests measuring various manifestations of intelligence, such as how the animals dealt with the physical world, reacted to sound, and used tools. The group of chimps tested had an expansive family tree, ranging from full siblings to fourth and fifth cousins. This allowed the researchers to calculate how well scores on cognitive traits aligned with genetic relatedness. Two categories of tasks were significantly heritable: those related to spatial cognition, such as learning physical locations, and those that required social cognition, such as grabbing a person's attention. Some chimps are quite clever, making kissing sounds or clapping their hands to draw an experimenter's attention, Hopkins said. "This one is a real measure of intelligence and innovative behavior."

11 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. This Chimanzee video amazed me... by bogaboga · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...Anyone agree? Have a look...
    Here...

    1. Re:This Chimanzee video amazed me... by Charliemopps · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You'll have to do some diging, because I don't remember where I saw it... but they now understand why they are so good at that kind of task. It has to do with "working memory" and some other kind of memory that we're good at. I forget which, but having working memory that good would actually hinder us. The chimps have their plan DONE in their mind when they start pressing buttons. They do not need to be able to see the numbers anymore, because they no longer matter. The chimp saw the numbers, decided a course of action and executed. Humans on the other hand decide what to do for each key press. We make a new judgement call and continue. This is what makes us so creative. If something were to happen to the numbers, like they get rearranged we'd still be about as good. It's just as much work for us to deal with the new state as the old. The chimps on the other hand would have to stat over. This is, at least how I remember it. I'd research if you're really interested.

  2. but i thought we are all equal? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    are you telling the stuff the jew professors at college told me about german engineers and black welfare moms being equal was a lie? why would they do such a thing?

  3. In Other News by sycodon · · Score: 5, Funny

    A chimpanzee named Fred was eaten by a tiger after recklessly clapping his hands and making kissing sounds, attracting the tiger's attention.

    Other members of the troop were unanimous in describing Fred as "not the sharpest stick in the jungle".

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  4. Re:Meanwhile In Humans... by Suiggy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Mass education isn't about making the masses of goyim more equal or intelligent. It's about breaking them away from the authority of their parents, selling them the opiate of "equality" and making them serve the will and authority of the modern state. It helps to increase tax revenues, thus enriching the elite. Nothing more or less.

    Now serve your masters, goy.

  5. Re:Meanwhile In Humans... by TheMeuge · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'll feed this troll.

    ...we're lead to believe with enough money for education everyone can be intelligent!

    Appropriate general education ensures that we all have a chance to get to a certain level. Surely some people are more intelligent than others at baseline, but like most characteristics it needs to be exercised and developed... in the absence of education, it's easy to waste what you were born with, and that's what general education tries to prevent - the waste of intelligence. The other important role of education is to ensure that no matter what your level of education, you receive instruction sufficient to let you integrate into society.

  6. Intelligence isn't always advantageous by aNonnyMouseCowered · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The corollary here is that intelligence isn't always an advantage. Or else all chimps would have evolved human class intelligence. The question I'd like answered is, what natural advantages does innate stupidity confer upon a creature that enables it to spread its just as efficiently or even bettera than an intelligent creature. Maybe the neurons required to be good at puzzle solving and the like are subtracted from the total needed for street or jungle "smarts".

    1. Re:Intelligence isn't always advantageous by duckintheface · · Score: 4, Informative

      The usual explanation is that large, active brains use lots of energy, which in some environments is better spent gathering bananas.

      --
      "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
  7. So this is how scientists research intelligence by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So this is how scientists research intelligence without hurting the feelings of people who believe everyone on the planet is as smart (individually or collectively) as everyone else on the planet. They study chimps. They publish their results. Left unmentioned is whether their conclusions might have parallels for the human race, but the fact that they specifically studied the acknowledged closest-related species says it for them. After all, drugs are developed by testing much further-removed animals like rats, and it's a process that seems to work great.

    If these scientists had tried to study intelligence in humans, well, let's just say they'd have been doing it on their own dime, and their results would have been largely dismissed.

  8. This just in! by sinij · · Score: 3, Informative

    This just in, intelligence also highly heritable in humans. Only it isn't politically correct to talk about.

    1. Re:This just in! by am+2k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      His father was an electrical engineer, but maybe he knew that a single data point is irrelevant in statistics.