[Please post all off-topic comments in the most recent open thread. They will not be post here]
Steve Hsu once estimated that if we cloned Neanderthals and raised them in modern times, they would average IQs of 70. Not sure how he arrived at that estimate, though he does mention their genetic affinity to humans.
I’d estimate a much higher figure:
It’s been reported that the genomes of humans and chimps are 98.8% similar, humans and Neanderthals are 99.84% similar, and that different human races are 99.9% similar.
On an IQ scale where white Americans average 100 with a standard deviation of 15, chimps score around 14. Thus a 1.2% genomic gap may have caused a 86 point IQ difference. Assuming a linear relationship between genomic gaps and IQ gaps and independent genomic effects, we might expect that (controlling for environment) white Americans and Neanderthals to differ by 11 IQ points and white Americans and other races to differ (on average) by 7 IQ points?
Thus if we cloned Neanderthals, raised them in average white U.S. homes, we might expect them to score 89 on IQ tests normed on U.S. whites (25th percentile of the U.S. white distribution)
Many Neanderthals might end up in jail since 90 has long been the average IQ of U.S. criminals, and the Neanderthal’s incredibly muscular build (enhanced by modern steroids) might give them the confidence and roid rage to engage in violent crime.
Pumpkin Person 
DNA predicts cloned Neanderthals would average 90 on IQ tests
no it doesn’t.
“Many Neanderthals might end up in jail since 90 has long been the average IQ of U.S. criminals, and the Neanderthal’s incredibly muscular build (enhanced by modern steroids) might give them the confidence and roid rage to engage in violent crime.”
If we cloned Neanderthals into the modern world I think they would be more likely to end up in jail because they never developed civilisation and the apparition of civilisation in humans is linked to a drop in testosterone levels and violent behaviours.
They would be unsuited to our modern society because too wild, a bit like negroid humans are.
But unlike Blacks I guess they would be more likely to have autism. Some neanderthal genes are linked to autism iirc.
Perhaps RR can comment on this article:
Scientists examining fossils have discovered that Neanderthals were exposed to more testosterone during development which is likely to make them more unreconstructed in their behaviour.
That means they were more likely to start fights over mates and hierarchy in the group and more likely top have multiple partners.
“It is known that the longer the ring finger is compared to the index finger is a mark of how much testosterone exposure there was in the womb.”
False.
“The team found that the fossil index fingers of Neanderthals were longer compared with the ring finger than most living humans, which suggests that they had been exposed to higher levels of testosterone.”
Disregardable; even then, there’s no consensus (leaning towards no of course) that exposure to more androgens in the womb is related to antisocial behavior anyway. Arguments of this nature (and more) were covered in my response to Ellis (2017):
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2017/06/18/ena-theory-testosterone-crime/
“DNA predicts cloned Neanderthals would average 90 on IQ tests”
Fantasy.
“Many Neanderthals might end up in jail since 90 has long been the average IQ of U.S. criminals, and the Neanderthal’s incredibly muscular build (enhanced by modern steroids) might give them the confidence and roid rage to engage in violent crime.”
Roid rage is a myth. AAS (ab)use is comorbid with other elicit drug-use. A strong association does indeed exist between self-reported AAS (ab)use and self-reported violent behavior. However those that (ab)use AAS also abuse other drugs as well, and when this is controlled for the association all but vanishes.
“We found a strong association between self-reported lifetime AAS use and violent offending in a population-based sample of more than 10,000 men aged 20-47 years. However, the association decreased substantially and lost statistical significance after adjusting for other substance abuse. This supports the notion that AAS use in the general population occurs as a component of polysubstance abuse, but argues against its purported role as a primary risk factor for interpersonal violence. Further, adjusting for potential individual-level confounders initially attenuated the association, but did not contribute to any substantial change after controlling for polysubstance abuse.“
http://sci-hub.tw/10.1111/add.12715
The NIH writes:
“In summary, the extent to which steroid abuse contributes to violence and behavioral disorders is unknown. As with the health complications of steroid abuse, the prevalence of extreme cases of violence and behavioral disorders seems to be low, but it may be underreported or underrecognized.”
https://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/research-reports/anabolic-steroid-abuse/what-effects-do-anabolic-steroids-have-behavior
https://notpoliticallycorrect.me/2018/02/10/steroid-mythconceptions-and-racial-differences-in-steroid-use/
It’s a myth and needs to die.
So neantherthals really would have higher IQs than southern europeans. Its amazing what science is telling us.
But was they evolved to learn written language**
If I am 0.1 percent different from any human including a human at Iq 170 the difference between his genes and mine is 30 genes. It takes 30 genes to go from Animekitty 113 IQ to IQ 170. What does that tell you about gene differences between humans and neanderthals which is a difference of 50 genes?
genome = 30,000 genes
99.9 human difference = 0.1
30,000 / 100 * 0.1 = 30 genes difference
99.84 neanderthal difference = 0.16
30,000 / 100 * 0.16 = 48 genes difference
Why should humans be different in 30 genes make the IQ 100 yet neanderthal is different from humans adding only 18 genes resulting in IQ 90? Why not higher IQ? The difference is relative to us but why not relative to them. What if the genes different from humans genes were superior genes to human genes? We need to know which genes different from humans makes them superior or inferior to human genes in the case of IQ.
Animekitty may have inferior genes compared to the 30 genes difference that gives an IQ 170 person an IQ of 170.
Cat these are average differences so in some cases the genomic gap would underestimate the IQ gap and in other cases it would overestimate it. Also, the typical 170 IQ person enjoyed a far better environment than you did. If you were both raised in equivalent environments, the IQ gap would be much smaller.
Homo erectus had hips that were imperfect for walking as early man. Slight changed made them able to run and sprint and few genes required. It does not take much to change bone structure and muscles. The jaw declined and to begin the opposable thumb. The gut diminished substantially no need to digest foliage. Anatomically these were very simple. But They allowed tribes up to 300 hunting and gathering.
Maybe like 20 things need to change in the brain to go up to 170. Structure and metabolism. Those at 170 are more robust because of their parallelism. If partial damage is done they have more subsystems ready to work together to compensate. I have less parallelism and need to repair what limited capacity I have. I m not so interconnected so must rely on crystallized intelligence to build up cognitive tools of analysis, to become an expert system that self-organizes based on experience rather than raw calculation. I work things out carefully with refinement until I get it right. But 170 already in interconnected enough that if a difference had shortened the gap as I would be more interconnected it still must be recognized that structure and metabolism mater. This leads to interconnectivity and parallelism. I would have more than I do now the same environment but they would still be 58 points above me. And my guess is that though I may be able to follow up to a point. The volume of information they understand is way to fast. I can only make predictions of the speed they can combine ideas by holding thoughts. But this comes from reading papers from IQ 135 people and making extrapolations.
I was told by a nurse I should ask a cognitive scientist about my ideas rather than a computer scientist. I think that is a good idea.
Thus we should expect cognitive science to (i) seek to uncover laws governing the workings of the cognitive mind; (ii) utilize such laws to explain cognitive phenomena; (iii) appeal to unobservable entities in its laws and explanations; (iv) utilize observation and experimentation; (v) confirm theories in a Duhemian-Quinean manner; and (vi) be born of yet to have moved beyond commonsense psychology. (Cain 2015: 26)
What laws govern the workings of the cognitive mind? Are those laws utilized to explain cognitive phenomena?
Just so stories…
”philosophy”***
what is it*
[rr’s IS anti semite, he HATE jus, but most of his ”heroes” are semites]
The genome has 19000 “genes”.
https://academic.oup.com/hmg/article/23/22/5866/2900773
I’m not really sure why your IQ is 113 where with other people I’m immediately aware. You can grasp high level concepts and you are a thoughtful person but when I show you IQ test questions you get them wrong, so it’s an unusual case. Perhaps it’s lack of mathematical education.
Fenoopy: I’m not really sure why your IQ is 113
on the wais 4
They combine the 4 indexes to get FSIQ
My highest and lowest index scores differ by 46 points.
concepts is really a kind of verbal (I got 132 on verbal)
(concepts is not a subtest)
matrix reasoning is not verbal (115 on matrix)
matrix in 1 in 5 tests for perceptual reasoning
You never took an official IQ test nor looked into indexes nor subtests so I might know more or different things than you do.
I would believe its 113. Most of the language he uses is from aspergers. Its well know autistic people tend to use technical language a lot when simple words will do.
my processing speed is slow
Anime, if you dont mind telling, can you tell your scores on all tests/ subtests of the WAIS IV?
Iluminattikitty,
do you already tried to confirm your results in real world contexts**
What is processing speed in real world*
I crush matrices effortlessly but I have trouble with verbal because they ask me retarded questions like ‘unscramble Dsejaubnuodsl’. How the fuck am I supposed to know? Verbal IQ is not IQ, it’s knowledge of language.
“I crush matrices effortlessly but I have trouble with verbal because they ask me retarded questions like ‘unscramble Dsejaubnuodsl’. How the fuck am I supposed to know? Verbal IQ is not IQ, it’s knowledge of language.”
This question is not verbal IQ. I don’t think you will ever encounter this type of question outside internet tests.
I have the impression you are always reducing things to your own personal experience.
Examples : asian and germanic people are dumb because they don’t think like myself. Verbal IQ doesn’t exist because I’m bad at it and I don’t see the point of the questions. Kabyles are the smartest ethnic group because I’m kabyle and I believe myself and my relatives (who are also kabyles) are very smart. I think I’m smarter than 99% of people therefore 99% of people are dumb. etc.
Unscrambling words is nowhere near being a verbal question, it’s probably closer to a matrices question if anything. Think about it, Feloopy. How does unscrambling a word test for verbal intelligence when the words are simple and the main point is to abstractly rearrange a string of letters into a word. You’re just retarded, Fenoopy. Verbal intelligence is a key part of memory, and memory is a significant indicator of a good mind, whether it tests intelligence or not. It’s called crystallized intelligence, dummy, look it up! Knowledge of things in general is probably a better indicator of intelligence than any matrices question. It, knowledge, is important to the development of thought, and I think most people would agree that a practical IQ test would measure your ability to think, use knowledge, and apply it than just rearranging patterns like the tests you perform well on.
Also, Lyrion sounds heavily low T. He’s so passive aggressive to begin with. Sounds like he has a flat affect too.
“Other examples of passive–aggressive behavior might include avoiding direct or clear communication, evading problems, fear of intimacy or competition, making excuses, blaming others, obstructionism, “playing the victim”, feigning compliance with requests, sarcasm, backhanded compliments, and hiding anger.”
I agree I can somewhat show passive-aggressive behaviours here but only because I’m not comfortable with my english. I prefer my comments to be clear rather than funny, the opposite of Santo.
You sounds like Fenoopy, and Thinking Mouse also sounds like Fenoopy. May be it’s in my head, tell me. Without mentioning that you 2 always appear from nowhere so that Fenoopy can make a point and develop his thought.
Funny in what way* ..
Indeed, people who know more about humanities, not in the way most humanity-students” understand, would be smarter in general/fundamental ways because space/geography, time/history and people–being/psychology are the most important chain of facts we need grasp, firstly. It’s part of my ”philosophical method” i’m writing.
“Funny in what way* ..”
I meant emotionally expressive.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
no guys, this article is to show that neanderthals are smarter than [provocative language redacted by pp, May 6, 2018]
!!!!!
then i guess they truly are sub-human….
provocative!
shocking!
Race Realist must now accept the scientific evidence as he has always said he believes only in evidence.
all motivated by rr’s discovery that northern italians think southern italians are africans.
sad!
There was no scientific evidence provided.
rr don’t know that ALMOST of his ”hypothesis & theories” are really ”just so story”. But people like to waste time with him.
But even most of sociological hypothesis and theories are not totally incorrect at least in its ideas to be called ”just so stories”. I like to call them ”primary logic”.
Bias effect; motivation effect to do IQ or scholastic tests or slavery ”legacy” [to explain racial disparities]… Many of this theories are logically built even it’s mostly proven false/or predominantly infactual at the second and third glance.
“rr don’t know that ALMOST of his ”hypothesis & theories” are really ”just so story””
Examples?
I dont know PP, this is a huge claim. I doubt they would have been able to speak AMH languages.
Pumpkin can make science do anything!
Its an incredible ability.
I wish I had it.
“It’s been reported that the genomes of humans and chimps are 98.8% similar, humans and Neanderthals are 99.84% similar, and that different human races are 99.9% similar.”
Most sources say the gaps are much larger.
Just because Neanderthals no longer exist, doesn’t necessarily mean they were mentally inferior. That isn’t how evolution works, for example one of the ancestors of the great white shark was the megalodon and it had a much larger brain, yet it is extinct today.
Here is what you need to understand, brain size differences within a biological family do affect intelligence. You see wildly different animals have different neuron packing structures, this means that a very primitive animal with a larger brain didn’t actually have more neurons necessarily.
But humans of today have the same neuron packing order as Chimps, this means that we have the same neuron packing order as other hominids also, which means that if another hominid has a larger cranial capacity then by all scientific theories it would actually be more intelligent.
Brain shape can also make a difference, you see Asians have more round ball shaped brains, white people tend to have more oval skulls and more oval shaped brains which aren’t as effective in networking and Asians have slightly larger brains also than white people.
The Neanderthal had a similar cranium shape to white people, meaning oval in shape. But it was even more oval in shape than white peoples skulls though. So it wasn’t the most effective brain shape.
Neanderthal brain case size is 1,600 cm cubed.
Modern Africans have internal brain case sizes of around 1285.
Europeans of around 1368.
East Asians of around 1422.
If we go by brain size by race, it would suggest intelligence differences of nearly 6.5% between Africans and Europeans. And nearly 4% between Europeans and East Asians.
But after brain shape is taken into account, East Asians likely pull ahead to nearly 6% over Europeans. Because a globular mass is the more efficient at brain connectivity than a mass which is longer in one direction than the other.
These may sound like small differences, but these percentages mean the difference between climbing over someone in school, in being able to understand a certain concept that another person can’t etc.
Now by brain size alone Neanderthal should be 12.5% more intelligent than East Asians, and around 17% more intelligent then Europeans.
This would make the Neanderthal am absolute genius.
Though from it’s very long brain shape I predict that it’s intelligence difference may have only really been 1-2% above Europeans and pretty much being slightly less intelligent than east Asians.
There is no way Neanderthal was inferior though, and just because it doesn’t exist anymore doesn’t prove it was intellectually inferior. It actually bred into our ancestors and all non Africans have neanderthal DNA today. The fact that all modern humans have neanderthal DNA tells you that they clearly weren’t inferior.
Remember our non neanderthal mixed ancestors also don’t exist today, we are just a mix between them and neanderthal.
I believe that in the future, as in 4000-6000 years from now. That East Asians should keep selecting within their group and their average intelligence to keep rising. I believe that east Asians in this time will have skull shapes that are nearly entirely globular and brain sizes that are not even party longer in any direction than another. And that their cranium and brain sizes will have increased also.
I believe that east Asians in this future time will have internal brain case sizes of around 1560 cm cubed. And with the fine tweaks of en even more circular brain I believe they will be around 13% more intelligent than present east Asians, and having IQ’s just on average of around 122.
I believe that blacks in time and other groups will slowly be wiped out, they will only exist as being mixes in people and no longer exist in unmixed or even 50% mixtures etc.
I believe that as of today the Australian Aboriginals will be the first group to be entirely wiped out, then the Native American Indians, then it will be the Africans and Indians around the same times (China encroaches closer and closer to Indian land over time and north east Indians today already look like Chinese people nearly).
I believe that then Arabs will be the next to go and around a similar time South East Asians also may look far more just like east Asians, after the majority east Asian ethnic people in south east Asia simply outcompete the south east Asians, if you look at the Philippines and most other south east Asian counties today you will notice the rich areas and higher class people look basically Chinese.
I believe that then finally European type people will go, I believe that European type people won’t exist in Brazil anymore in an unmixed form just within 200 years from now, I believe that in the USA that European type people will not exist in unmixed forms in about 400 years.
I believe that Australia will slowly become Chinese, Chinese and European Australians will keep mixing over time, Chinese already make up 7% of that country. I believe that in about 600 years that unmixed European Australians won’t really exist.
Russians are already mixed with Asian DNA, but I believe that their mixture will keep increasing over time as it always has. They will look literally half Chinese in about 400 years time I believe.
Europe will be the last to go, I believe that relatively unmixed European people will still exist in 1000 years time, even possibly 2000 years time. But in 5000 years time I honestly don’t see European people really existing in an unmixed form anymore.
And eventually from within east Asians there will be another group which arises from mutations, which will then surpass east Asians themselves. My guess is that group which mutates out of east Asians will still look quite a bit like east Asian people, but just have an even larger head. Babies are born more and more premature when the organism has a huge head, because the idea around it is that the mother will eject the baby while she still can. But because she is intelligent she can take care of it for weeks outside of the womb and make sure it doesn’t get hurt. This enables the baby to basically have a huge head size when it grows up.
Notice that the more primitive the creature, the more ready for life it is as soon as it’s born. Spiders and insects and fish etc are all ready for life straight away. They have to be this way as their mother isn’t intelligent enough to give them care and protect them after they are born.
Come on Pumpkin Person, a bit more effort would have been great here. This year we are able to explain 10% of individual human IQ with 500 gene variants. We should be able to explain far more than that group to group, rather than individual to individual. Thus, upon reading the heading, I became very excited at the prospect of trying this polymorphism approach on neanderthals, and giving the usual riders about being mindful that different genes might work slightly differently in different species.
Once we’re able to predict IQ of races from DNA, then we can try for neanderthals
Thanks for your reply, but even five years ago the following could be been used…
The titre of the domain DUFF1220 is highly correlated with the extracted interspecific g of nonhuman primates. If I use ln(DUF1220) to give an estimate of the difference between our two species, I find an expected difference of 0.18 standard deviations (of pan primate g that is NOT human g) in favour of neanderthals. If we treated them as the same species then we can use the following paper to find an even better estimate
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25287832
Note that for the best estimate we must differentiate between the CON1 and CON2 subtypes. When I last investigated that information was not available, but assuming that their ratio is the same as in humans, it should be in the order of 25IQ points to their favour. Of cause, that method is irritatingly crude and I am hoping for better.
If neanderthals are the less intelligent, it seems strange that the latest evidence is in favour of them having a significantly longer childhood than us. This is of the upmost importance to me because neanderthals have the second largest ratio of cerebrum to cerebellum to the sperm whale (incredibly, every other cetacean, including the dwarf sperm whale, has an allometrically adjusted cerebellum that is ABOVE the mammalian average). My website is about the many features that humans and sperm whales share to the exclusion of all other extant animals.
Wow! Fascinating research. Of course neanderthals & modern humans had the same brain size (in paleolithic Europe) so duff1220’s IQ correlation independent of brain size is most relevant
To me there is substantial evidence that neanderthals were at least our equals. I think much evidence has been filtered through the paradigm of their usage as a ‘known’ less intelligent hominin than us, and I fear that has generated confirmation bias, as it has also against the potential of sperm being our full equals. Let me use one example.
A couple of years ago it was shown that the same 32 symbols existed in caves across Europe, suggesting prehistoric symbolic representations that were stable for in the order of 10,000 years. Strangely, it seemed that we retreated from this state until a full writing system was developed about 3500 BC. This conundrum seemed resolved last year when dating showed that it must have been neanderthals who marked them,
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/feb/22/neanderthals-not-humans-were-first-artists-on-earth-experts-claim
but what interests me most are other clues that would have cued us to their true origin, was it not for this paradigm filter..
As already mentioned, those symbols appeared to be an ideological precursor to writing, yet it would have to have been a skill we completely forget for thousands of years before rediscovering that possibility around 3500BC.
These 32 types of character were found across Europe at a time when mobility was low, so, to explain their distribution, these must have been conserved and passed down the generations for thousands of years. Such extreme stability is atypical of any human culture know to me. Such impetus for change can be seen, even in that era, in our stone age tool kits. By contrast the Mousterian tool kits showed greater stability, notwithstanding that many claim that they are harder to make than any produced by their Cro-Magnon contemporaries.
For more than a hundred years something very odd had been noticed about hand stencils, that constitute 2 elements of those 32: their missing fingers.
http://pressblog.uchicago.edu/2006/02/27/paleolithic-handprints.html
Missing fingers is, however, common among chimpanzees. This propensity to bite off another’s digits is so ingrained in their nature, that it makes sense to place their fingers in another chimps mouth as a sign of reconciliation after a fight. To them it proves trust. Genetically speaking, modern humans are only just outside the chimp genus, yet, to us, biting off another’s finger doesn’t make the same natural connection to aggression as, say, punching does. By contrast, Neanderthals used their mouths in a greater variety of ways than we did. Such use is often described as vice-like, or like a third hand.
Now returning to my main interest (the possibility of sperm whale – human equivalence), we should have noticed the following. The homo genus has by far the lowest allometrically adjusted cerebellar quotient (CQ) of any primate. It makes sense that the neanderthals were lower than even us, since their rare primate tendency for reduction in semicircular canals implies that balance wasn’t exceptionally important, whereas dancing could have played a major role in Cro-Magnon mate selection, thus driving our CQ back a bit towards the primate mean. By analogy, all other measured cetaceans have a CQ>1 (including the dwarf sperm whale), whereas sperm whales have the lowest CQ of any mammal at 0.60. Then it would become obvious that they have undergone the same extreme change as us, and their should be great curiosity as to why.
There is a theory saying that AMH evolved into current form factor between or after 120 to 70 thousand years ago if i remember the year dates correctly. So its likely that neanderthals would have been advanced than AMH before that, but AMH could have pulled ahead after that.
Only the ladder like figure was likely drawn by a Neanderthal, and it’s unclear if that’e even a symbol, let alone evidence of writing. If Neanderthals were smarter or even as smart as us, why no representative art and why no agriculture? As for sperm whales, their encephalization quotients are way too small to have had anything close to our intelligence.
Thanks for the interesting reply. You obviously know more on that research than me, and I admit that it would subvert my expectation if it was only the ladder figure, which was the most geographically confined of the 32 ((from memory, just parts of Spain). Thank you for putting me straight, and here’s hoping you haven’t extrapolated too much.
By contrast I know your old encephalisation quotient argument has been shown as incorrect from the time we first gained empirical data, though text books still pass down this wild guess from the early days of research into animal intelligence. Deaner et al. were first to show that a interspecific primate g existed, and 62% of variation in their 2007 meta-analysis was accounted by raw brain size. Even that must be an underestimate, as I get the same figure from their data implying that they made no adjustment for random error (these multi-species tests are almost always given as the proportion of species members that passed a pass/fail test)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17510549
An indication as to how closely brain size might really approach primates general intelligence probably comes from Heldstab et al., where they build an index of food manipulation complexity in a wide range of primates,
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep24528
of which nearly 80% of the variance is explained by figures I found for brain size.
It should be noted that at least three quarters of this explaining power is destroyed by adjustments for body size, and even what is left of it, I believe to be artificially bolstered because the slope of primate brain size against body size is much steeper than that for the mammals in general upon which EQ slopes are calibrated. So, you may well wonder if there is any empirical evidence for body-size adjustments, and the following is were I really need your help.
Those who concentrate of human intelligence often imagine a small adjustment for body-size advantageous (much less than that for EQ), though I can’t find a single test of that hypothesis, and if I try corresponding with them, I get comments about these adjustments not making much difference and being largely a waste of resources. Of cause that is no concern to me, my real concern is that doing such adjustments in some papers lends weight to a hypothesis that never seems to have been tested, even if the author reverts to no adjustment in subsequent papers. It seems obvious to me that such insignificant adjustments might be due to obesity and random error, giving rise to persistent dangerous assumptions. Do you know of any paper were the hypothesis was tested?
Perhaps in primates, absolute brain size better predicts intelligence than encephalization, however absolute brain size fails to explain why humans are so much smarter than elephants or why crows are at least as smart as apes. So while it might make sense to use absolute brain size when comparing closely related animals, I would use encephalization when comparing wildly different animals.
I should point out that my interest focuses me on the inherent intelligence of neanderthals, whereas yours should be on their actual intelligence. One example of this is that neanderthals were more inbreed, and this would depress their actual intelligence relative to that which is inherent in their healthiest physiology more than it does Cro-Magnon. Also, that we know that humans produce more advanced stuff in areas of higher population density. Such ‘extelligence’ should be all that is obvious from the archaeology, and for my purposes, it makes sense to adjust for both effects.
Yes but if the healthy Neanderthals were smart, why did their population decline to the point of constant inbreeding? I would expect a smart species to have mastered its environment, thus creating a large genetically diverse population.
Firstly, let me state that I’m doubtful that birds have a strong principle component to their intelligence, as I believe will soon be proved for mammals as a group (and as it already has been for primates). This makes discussing bird intelligence difficult, but I will point out this – despite much testing, no crow species has ever passed the mirror self-recognition test. Also worth pointing out is that when empirical data becomes available, the animals subject to the most laboratory testing consistently seem to prove the most overrated by experts. To my mind, the elephant example, being mammalian, is by far the more serious. .
I could point out that the brain of the African elephant (the genus for which we have good data) is an extreme outlier among mammals, 97% of its neurons being contained in its cerebellum. Suzana Herculano-Houzel has built a convincing case the general intelligence of a (warm blooded) tetrapod is closely related to its forebrain neuron count. If we use that metric then crows should be as intelligent as the equally overrated Capuchins and the African elephants should have an intelligence between that of a chimp and human. Sure, there has been criticism of the placement of Asian elephants at the great ape level, but these arguments are largely invalid for their African cousins. There are even hints that their level might well be in this gap, such as that African elephants, don’t just morn death (as Asians do) but also understand its permanence.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1617198/
They also seem to spontaneously create art in the wild – a phenomenon that has lead to their Asian cousins being trained to perform similarly. I suspect that when Asian elephant data is available, they will prove to have significantly fewer neurons, thus resolving this conundrum.
As for whales, few neuron counts have been done, and all by older less accurate stained counts. Nevertheless, one of these (pilot whales) has almost certainly more neurons than humans. We have very good reasons to believe that unihemispheric sleep lowers the efficiency of a brain, so this may overstate its intelligence slightly. Anyway, I have gone on long enough. Please ask for more details or references, as required, as I believe this to be of the upmost importance.
To further clarify, the gracile Capuchins that are lab favourites are overrated. By contrast, robust Capuchin belong to another genus, and actually do show stunning levels of intelligence as seen below
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/animalia/wp/2016/07/11/in-brazil-scientists-unearth-a-trove-of-ancient-stone-tools-used-by-monkeys/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.efe7d5aa3173
Strange how memory works. On returning to the figures to check, I found that crows have twice the forebrain count of gracile Capuchins, and are right up there with robust Capuchins (with their complex tool kits) and just below Macaques, a genus of incredible intelligence, that leaves gracile Capuchins in the dust in most tests. This is quite stunning and by Suzana’s criteria would place them as high as you claimed. The implied equivalent primate z score would be well above dwarf gibbons, and just below siamungs among apes. So you may well be right about them having ape levels of intelligence, but, even given the modularity of their intelligence, I am confident that they will eventually be placed well below the great ape level.