Question

“Surely animals cannot be intelligent—they can do only what their genes tell them.” Is the latter statement true, and does it imply the former?

Answer 1

The animals do what their genes tell them and the following characteristics prove that the animals are intelligent and can do much more if they are trained:

• ATTENTION: Sharing attention between stimulus features reduces the capacity to detect any one of them.

• MEMORY: The categories have been developed to analyze the human memory and the animal memory can be trained to respond accordingly.

• REASONING AND PROBLEM SOLVING: The animals from quite a range of species can solve a range of problems to involve abstract reasoning.

Comments

Just like intelligence varies from person to person, it varies from animal to animal. Thus, saying that animals have intelligence according to their genes is false. They can be trained to respond more intelligently

Answer 2

“Surely animals cannot be intelligent-they can do only what their genes tell them”, this statement is false because many animals can be trained and domesticated to act according to the situation. The animals are trained in such a way that that the patterns are recognized and respond accordingly.