Are humans really the smartest animal? Animal cognition expert Dr Justin Gregg thinks maybe not.
In his new book If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal, he examines our exceptional brain power and finds it wanting.
Sure, we can write novels and go to outer space, but our brains are also wired for existential angst and have put us on a trajectory towards self-extinction, he says.
Photo: supplied
The reason why human intelligence isn’t more prevalent in the animal kingdom is that other species are perfectly successful without it, he told Kim Hill.
Dr Justin Gregg is a senior research associate with the Dolphin Communication Project and adjunct professor at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
Nietzsche seems like an odd choice to feature in his book, given the philosopher was certainly somewhat exceptional, but Gregg says he’s in fact the perfect choice.
“I chose him specifically because he had this one passage that he wrote where he was talking about cows. And he was saying that he wished he were a cow, as stupid as a cow. So that he wouldn't have to worry about all these terrible things that humans have to worry about.
Photo: RNZ / Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
“But he also said he pitied the cows because they couldn't think about all these terrible things that humans think about.”
Human ability to think far ahead is a blessing and a curse, he says.
“Coupled with the ability to think about that far ahead, we can think of our own deaths. And that is a real source of misery for a lot of people and is explains a lot of our behaviour.
“And animals don't have that.”
He doesn’t doubt that humans are a successful species, but does question whether we are top of the evolutionary tree. Humans’ ability to ask questions, to invent, has propelled us forward and could be the key to our demise, he says.
“The whole reason that our climate is changing, and heating is because of the combustion engine and everything that went along with our ability to have these institutions and these engineering feats and marvels that have made the modern world possible.
“And that's all due to our cause and effect understanding.
“But it is so fundamentally dangerous, that it could cause the extinction of our species at some point. And that's true also of nuclear weapons, or weaponised diseases and those sorts of things.
“So, the things that are most dangerous to us, humans are actually the things that we create with our intelligence.”
But could this intelligence that has caused so many problems get us out of trouble, possibly he says.
“Depending on my mood, if I'm feeling particularly pessimistic, I think, Oh, it's too late, and we can't solve these problems.
“And then if I'm in a happy mood, have a glass of wine, I think, oh, yeah, we will get a handle on this. And our intelligence will solve the problems that we've created with our intelligence.”
Certainly, if we make ourselves extinct it’s hard to argue we’ve been a successful species, he says.
“We might not be as successful species, if we make our selves extinct within 200,000 years of existing, whereas a snail or a crocodile might be more successful because they've been around longer, and they might be around longer.”
A striped dolphin, one of four different species of dolphin identified in the Far Out Ocean Research Collective's 2021 survey off the Northland coast. Photo: Far Out Ocean Research Collective
Intelligence in some animals, such as the great apes, chimpanzees, bonobo and even crows, is well-documented, but Gregg says he finds dolphins particularly fascinating.
“The big mystery for dolphins is, why is this weird fish-looking thing that lives in the ocean, so similar to a human, when our lives are so completely different? And that's an amazing question. And it teaches you a lot about what intelligence is and how these cognitive skills evolved.”
They have quite sophisticated communication systems and even employ tools, he says.
“They will grab sea sponges off of the ocean floor and they will use those when they're digging in the sand for fish to protect themselves from stingy, stabby things. So that is tool use for sure.”
