What do we mean by “intelligence?” I’ve known any number of people in my life who struggled in school, couldn’t read, and were worse spellers than I am. And yet, they could fix an old tractor out in the field with just a pair of pliers and a screwdriver while I struggle to fix the carburetor on my mower, even with the help of a YouTube video. So, who’s the intelligent one?
We know humans are intelligent, but how smart are non-humans? I guess we could start by looking at brain size. As you would guess, whales have the biggest brains…sperm whales to be exact. On land, elephants have the largest brains.
Both are smart, but maybe there is a better way to measure intelligence than just brain size alone. Maybe instead of size, we should look at the ratio of the size of the brain to the size of the…