In other words, is my cat smarter simply by hanging around me and observing me using tools? Is the neighbor’s dog smarter for having learned the word “Frisbee,” which would not have happened in nature? Obviously there are extreme cases, like Koko the gorilla, or a dog who is pushed to learn a hundred different tricks, but I’m thinking more about everyday pets, who passively observe communication and higher intelligence on a daily basis.
Is it possible that, through the pet/owner relationship, we’ve helped them to evolve more quickly? I admit, I like the idea that, should our bond with these animals last far into the future, we could help them catch up with the apes.
I would actually tend to believe the opposite it true. Living among us has generally made domesticated dogs dumber that their coyote and wolf kin IMHO. Cats I might agree learn from us but then again, we never really domesticated them. We got used to them and they tolerate us.
Even if an animal learned things from us, that wouldn’t be passed on to the next generation. But over time, I could see their natural abilities being compromised, since the animals too dumb to survive in the wild would still live long enough to reproduce, as pets.
And I can’t help thinking that we, on an individual basis, learn more from them than they learn from us.
It seems to me that you’re talking about two different ideas - the intelligence of your specific pet as a household pet vs if he were wild, and the effect of domestication on evolution.
On the first topic, I would say that our pets are simply using their brains differently as pets than they would in the wild. The ability to understand “Frisbee” or “down” or “food magically appears in this bowl over here” comes from the same level of intelligence as the ability of wild counterparts to understand “that thing will eat me” or “I can eat that thing” or “Hey! Someone around here wants to mate!” It’s the same intelligence, just applied differently.
As for the effect of domestication on evolution, there are clear signatures of domestication in the genomes of every domesticated species that we’ve looked at, from corn to dogs. Most of those have nothing to do with intelligence, and as we have yet to identify specific genes that control “intelligence” (whatever that means), it’s hard to say for certain what we’ve done. But I would argue that dog breeds make it clear that we have, in that case, messed with intelligence, and therefore it is possible. My Jack Russel Terrier, for instance, is orders of magnitude brighter than my mom’s Yorkshire Terrier, and I think that’s a general trend for those breeds. Most people would at least agree that there are differences in intelligence between breeds, and therefore, there must be a genetic component.
In terms of problem solving etc your dog, or the neighbors, is relatively retarded when it comes to things that are important to it’s survival as a wild canine. Dogs are bred (mentally) to PAY ATTENTION TO HUMANS and look to humans as superiors. This has caused man to breed for a number of juvenile/childlike characteristics. Most dogs are (effectively) immature wolves mentally.
Dogs are “smart” about humans, but other than that compared to wolves they’re mostly on the short bus.
I saw something neat on The Human Spark on PBS. They put a treat in one of two identical, sealed containers, with a chimp watching. The person then scrambled the containers out of view, then brought them back and put them down. The person would then point to the container with the treat. Chimps don’t understand this at all. They choose randomly. It’s a demonstration of their inability to think abstractly - one of the major differences between our species.
Two year old humans, on the other hand, understood quite easily and readily picked the correct container. The cool thing is, **dogs **have no problem interpreting the pointing either. Wolves are hopeless at it though. So in this case, it seems we’ve selected for an ability in dogs that is more “advanced” than the generally more intelligent chimpanzee’s capabilities.
I would think that the mice I sometimes see outside the house are becoming more intelligent. The dumb ones are removed from the gene pool by simple traps I might leave out. The smarter ones not only avoid them but also more sophisticated traps I might leave out as I accelerate my efforts. The most intelligent show remarkable insight into either how the traps operate or at least when amazing dexterity or restraint is required for survival, and their genes stay in the pool.
We went through an invasion of roaches while Celtling was a baby. One bleary-eyed early morning I entered the kitchen to see a juvenile munching on some spilled formula powder, and I did wonder whether the DHA and ARA would improve its intelligence and/or eyesight.
There was a recent thread which I started awhile back where I solicited examples of pets learning things from each other, and plenty of people chimed in. This type of cultural transmission has been documented in chimps, among others.
Small Hen Evolution cannot be ‘speeded up’. Dogs and cats are not somehow behind the apes. Evolution has no end goal.
Second, you mention Koko. There is serious debate over just how much sign language she knows and how much she actually communicates with humans.
Finally, as others have said dogs and cats are better than their wild relatives at things involving being housepets. They are much worse than their wild relatives at things involving surviving in the wild.
I don’t know about that. Could a wolf out-stalk a yorkie? I’m sure it could. Could a wolf do a better job of working as part of a group for hunting purposes? Probably. Could a wolf convince a random person on the street to take it home and let it sleep in their queen sized bed and feed it for the rest of it’s life? Probably not. The smartest thing the domesticated dog ever did was pair itself up with human beings. I’d say that puts the dog ahead of the wolf any day.
Which is actually a perfect example of what evolution does - it adapts an organism to its environment. Pets have adapted brilliantly to their environment - the human home - while wolves and other wild counterparts are brilliantly adapted to their wild environment. Passing judgment about which is “better” is a very human urge, for some reason, and utterly useless.
Domesticated animals I understand are believed to be less intelligent than their wild relatives since they have us to solve their harder problems. They do have smaller brains than their wild relatives.
That doesn’t matter; it may not have an end goal, but it is “going somewhere”. Evolution is change, and change can happen at different rates.
But you’re right about dogs and cats not being “behind” the apes, of course.
I wonder this too. Cars have been a commonplace thing for about a century now, and chipmunks live 2-3 years in the wild, so that’s 35-50 generations of chipmunks. If we compared a chipmunk from 1910 to one in 2010, would the latter be any smarter/more cautious on a road after 100 years of the dumber ones being run over by cars?
I’m thinking that if you do an analysis of how chipmunks meet their fate getting squashed by cars would be a very insignificant percentage of those killed vs those killed by predation. So no.