I will sue the author for defamation!
Posted on 04/15/2007 6:26:26 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
ORANG-UTANS have been named as the world’s most intelligent animal in a study that places them above chimpanzees and gorillas, the species traditionally considered closest to humans.
The study found that out of 25 species of primate, orang-utans had developed the greatest power to learn and to solve problems.
The controversial findings challenge the widespread belief that chimpanzees are the closest to humans in brainpower. They also suggest that the ancestry of orang-utans and humans may be more closely entwined than had been thought.
“It appears the orang-utan may possess a privileged status among human kindred,” said James Lee, the Harvard University psychologist behind the research. “It is even possible that an orang-utan-like forager occupied a pivotal link in the chain of descent leading to man.”
Both orang-utans and chimpanzees share about 96% of their DNA with humans, although molecular studies suggest that chimpanzees are more closely related.
The study comes at a time when orang-utans are endangered as never before. Once widespread throughout the forests of Asia, they are now confined to just two islands, Sumatra and Borneo, and are highly endangered as a result of habitat loss and poaching.
Lee’s work involved collating a series of separate studies into the intelligence of different primate species. However, his research first had to overcome a much greater hurdle: would it be possible to compare different species of primates at all?
Spider monkeys, for example, have developed brains to cope with a fast-moving life in the tree tops, while slow lorises are small and leisurely nocturnal hunters.
The conventional belief is that comparing the intelligence of different species is meaningless because separate evolution over millions of years will have given them very different brains.
Lee, a junior psychology researcher at Harvard, found that in primates, at least, different rules seem to apply — the development of one set of mental skills seems to prompt the primate brain to develop other mental abilities as well.
“A primate genus with a high rank in an experiment testing particular mental abilities appears to have high ranks in all of them,” said Lee.
He also found that the single most important factor in deciding a species’ intelligence was simply the size of its brain: “The correlation of brain size with mental ability found in humans appears to extend throughout the primate order.”
This “remarkable finding” suggests, he said, that all primate brains work in much the same way, however they have evolved, allowing comparisons between species.
Lee’s research threw up some other surprises, too. Gorillas, for example, emerged as less intelligent than spider monkeys while baboons, often considered relatively bright, were ranked 14th.
Recent field work by Carel van Schaik, a Dutch primatologist who is now at Duke University, North Carolina, appears to bear out Lee’s findings.
Studying orang-utans in Borneo, he found them capable of tasks well beyond chimpanzees’ abilities — such as using leaves to make rain hats and leakproof roofs over their sleeping nests. He also found that in some food-rich areas the creatures had developed a complex culture in which adults would teach youngsters how to make tools and find food.
He and Lee both suggest that the key factor in such developments is the orang-utans’ life-style, spent mostly in the tops of trees where there is little risk from predators. This has allowed them to establish long and settled lives similar to humans’ and also to develop culture and intelligence.
In his own research papers, Van Schaik has suggested that since the ancestors of modern orang-utans split from the human lineage about 15m years ago, the seeds of human culture must go back at least as far.
Chris Stringer, professor of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, agrees that the sociable lifestyles of primates are the driving force behind the development of intelligence. “Primates and early humans had not got the claws and teeth of predators so they had to rely on brainpower to communicate and protect themselves,” he said. “They are sociable creatures and living in small groups seems to have driven brain development.”
The idea that sociability and intelligence are linked is borne out by research into the relative brain power of diverse animal groups including cetaceans (whales and dolphins) and birds.
Dr Vincent Janik, of the sea mammal research unit at St Andrews University, said that some dolphin species had developed the ability to communicate far beyond that of great apes. “Dolphins have some abilities that great apes don’t have, such as copying new sounds. No primate apart from humans can do that,” he said.
Additional reporting: Max Colchester
Non-human primates in order of intelligence
1 Orange-utan
2 Chimpanzee
3 Spider monkey
4 Langur
5 Macaque [don't say it in public]
6 Mandrill
7 Guenon
8 Mangabey
9 Capuchin
10 Gibbon
11 Baboon
12 Woolly monkey
while baboons, often considered relatively bright, were ranked 14th.
11 Baboon
Hmmmm ………………….
Somebody ain’t too bright!
Bwaaaaah-Hahahahaha!
LOL.....I'm still laughing.
13. Alec Baldwin
Some mornings, I really do hate all us primates.
Hey, where are the dolphins, parrots and poodles?
Self-awareness is determined by the mirror test. If the animal will groom its forehead fur by reflection it meets the criterion. The orangutan, chimp, and gorilla can do this. Humans would too, if they had forehead fur.
So THAT'S why they are known to go ape over, and even alledgedly occasionally rape, redheads!
(Ducking and running) ...may explain a few things about the doings in Irish pubs, too.
Odd how these studies and the expeditions finding new species all seem to have this common thread: either they, or their area, is a suddenly 'threatened as never before' species or habitat.
Oil palm plantations? Find 50+ new species living there!
"Global Warming" threatening Antarctic ice shelves? Quick; let's find a few dozen new species dependent on them!
It is no coincidence that most of said expeditions & studies are funded by aggressive, agenda-driven environmental organizations...though their motives are pure and unquentionable, since they don't take money from the evil petro-agro-chemical industrial complex.
The writer of the book, 'Anthony Burgess' , lived for a time in Malaysia. After returning to London his wife was assaulted by four American GI's during the black-out, thus giving inspiration to this story. In Malay, the word "orang" means man, [this is also part of the derivation of the word 'orangutan', the other half being derived from "hutan" meaning jungle] therefore, the title of the story is actually a pun on the British expression. Rather than a clockwork fruit, it is a clockwork man, which is, of course, exactly what Alex has become by the end of the film.
From the IMDB. "Welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, welly, well."
A little to the right of Jesse Jackson.
Well put.
OBLIGATORY Rosie pic ALERT!
Did he live ?
Oh Woe is me... Why's everybody pickin on me???
PERFECT!!!!
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