If a goldfish had arms and legs....

      So this is the blog for Friday's class - we worked on project proposals. It was a good workshop, I learned several things to add to my project to improve it. I wasn't really sure what to blog about this workshop though, so I have turned to "If a Lion Could Talk" for inspiration. The first chapter is entitled "Who is the smartest of them all?" Something I found really interesting was the idea that started with Darwin's theory of evolution that evolution is like a stepladder and that organisms are trying to progress up that ladder, say from insects to the top, humans. Humans were considered the "most evolved" and "most intelligent". In reality, all organisms are equally evolved. All have evolved to their niche - their habitat, lifestyle, etc. Another problem is how one defines intelligence - how do you measure it? How do you fit a bird's abiltiy to fly or a spider's ability to weave a web into a human idea of intelligence? Tests for intelligence are often biased - even among humans. So try testing hundreds of different species! A different test would need to be created for each species, perhaps even each individual. "Animals differ in temperament, perceptual abilities, social behavior..."
       Another point I really like is this - "we say a dog or horse is smart when it does what we want it to do" - humans have projected themselves so much onto animals....it is hard to separate our perceptions of the world in order to think about how animals might perceive the world. Something else to be aware about when judging an animal is their input and output ability. The author talks about how we judge animals that can see and do things readily as being more intelligent i.e. a monkey that can sign with its hands or an owl that can see great distances. But just because a golfish has limited eyesight and no limbs does not mean that it is dumb. So monkeys and owls might have greater ability to demonstrate that they are taking things in (greater input and output ability) but that doesn't mean they are the smartest animals around.
        So how does all of this apply to my project? I think it is really important to be aware of all these things before I go out and work with animals. I am really curious to see what kind of biases and stereotypes exist against animals in the zoo. Do the same biases that apply to intelligence apply to relationships? I mean do keepers not even try to develop relationships with certain species because they think it is impossible to have a relationships with them? Is it impossible to have relationships with certain species...probably yes, it would be hard to have a relationship with a snail or a butterfly, but I wonder.....I want to be careful to not assign intelligence to certain animals just because they behave in a human manner or have greater output and input abilities.