Why are humans smarter than apes?

Answer 1

It can be argued that the term "intelligence" is too broad and variable to be used as a base of comparison between individuals, let alone across species. However, there is not substantial evidence to say that the intelligence of apes (I assume you mean apes and not monkeys, being that apes are our closest relatives) exceeds our own. Rather, it can be equal to that of a human child's. This conjecture cannot be proven, though, because the different species of ape have their own cultures and customs, so we cannot say for sure how their intelligence compares to ours.

Answer 2

Animals are not "smarter" than humans. Animals do have a certain level of intelligence, and some are able to communicate in rudimentary ways, some in very complex ways that we have yet to understand. They are, however, not more intelligent.

Answer 3

Humans are the superior, more intelligent race, and these are ten reasons why: 10 Reasons that Humans are Smarter than Animals 1. Physical Attributes Many will and have argued that such things as changing skin color, being mammals and birds, being able to fly, having improved senses, and such, are indicators that animals are smarter than humans because they need to learn to use these abilities. I assure you that this is in no way an indicator of the relative intelligence of humans and animals. No matter how hard we try, we humans will never be able to fly, or to change our skin color, or become birds. Sorry, but it's true. This is a physical quality, and therefore does not say anything about the intelligence of humans or animals. 2. The Superior Species Humans are born with the following: hair on the top of their head, pale, fragile skin, soft fingernails, flat teeth, and duller senses than most animals. Why then, I ask you, are we the nth race? Well, it obviously hasn't been done by force, or the nth Earth species would be bears, or perhaps tigers. It also hasn't been done by sheer numbers, or the nth Earth species would be roaches or rats. It has to be because of superior intelligence. Most prey out there live in constant fear of . Their solution: run. In a natural world, we would have to fear such things as bears and wolves, but in daily reality, we don't. We have bonded together and built weapons and shelter to protect ourselves. Without our intelligence and what we have created, we, as humans, would not be in the position we are today. 3. Inventions One of the most obvious things that prove that humans are smarter than animals is the things that we have invented. No other animal has been able to manufacture nearly as much as we have. You may say that animals can make things out of mere twigs, mud, and leaves, but look at us? Do you think we started with anything more? In fact, today we are currently making more out of Natural Resources using not only the power of humans, but things that we, humans, have made to make life easier! And you say we're not as smart! You may also say that animals 'have no need' of things like this, but I say that that is not true. The most obvious is protection. Animals most certainly could find uses for things like cages, fences, and walls, to barricade themselves against predators. But they don't, because they do not have the mental capacity for such things. In addition, animals have no use for entertainment devices such as radio, television, computers, etc. but that simply proves that they have lower cerebral functions then us. Their brains function as such: Eat, sleep, breath, breed, die. Our brains have much deeper thought connections, thus higher need for entertainment. 4. Profiting from others' brilliance This is related to the last topic, but anyway. Some people may say that humans aren't actually that smart because they simply take the ideas that other brilliant humans have invented and use it themselves. Yet, is that not truly being smart? Let's say a deer on one side of the world invented something, say, a fence, to protect themselves. This would certainly be useful to other deer of the world, but since they couldn't share this invention around, as humans do, due to their lack of intelligence, nothing would come of it. Profiting from what other humans do is in fact a very smart thing to do. In addition, have you ever seen a bird, an elk, a dolphin, who invented electricity? Heating? Bricks, for that matter? No. So, even if their were only one brilliant human in the world, that's one more brilliant organism for our species than it is for any others. No other animal, not even the most brilliant of its species, could invent what the most brilliant human could. 5. Decisions, decisions If we're so smart, how come we destroy each other? That is what has been asked, along with other things. Why do we make bad choices? Simple. Because we have the capacity to make them. Sure, we make some bad decisions, like starting wars and such, but even people like Hitler put lots of thought into his reasons. Other animals do not actually have the intellectual capacity to create these choices for themselves. How do I know? I'll tell you. Take 100 humans from anywhere you will in the world. Ask them all an opinionated question, any opinionated question. I guarantee you that if you chose the 100 people at random, at least one of them would give a different answer than the rest. Now let's look at animals. All over the world, animals of the same species do the exact same thing. If you study one colony of termites, dolphins, monkeys, rabbits, you've seen them all. They make no choices, because they present none to themselves. They are not intelligent enough. Also, when talking about this, people often talk about humans like they are all violent, angry, evil creatures. We're not. Most of us disagree with war, violence, racism. Because we have the intellectual capacity to disagree. 6. Pertaining to the Destroying of the Earth Yeah, we're destroying the earth, and we realized it, too! We analyzed the data that we have, we reached outer space, places that no other animal has been, out of our natural environment, and reached a conclusion. Yes, there are some people who continue to destroy the Earth, but look at economists. Heck, look at the Outdoor Education programs right in schools! Now that we've found the information, we're spreading it, trying to stop it. No other animal realized what the causes of the degeneration of our Earth are. Besides, we must be intelligent if our species alone has the capacity to destroy the Earth. I mean, take the whole population of dolphins in the world and tell them to destroy the Earth, or save it. They can't - they haven't the intellect to. We, humans, do. 7. Environment This may be perhaps the surest way of telling that we are the most intelligent of all creatures. Other animals must modify themselves for their environment. Many animals migrate because the temperature is not to their liking. Some animals die because they can't cope with environmental changes. Us? No. We have changed our environment to support us. If it gets too cold, we turn on the heating. If it gets too dark, we flick a switch and bam! Light. Yes, we do not need to change ourselves at all to reflect our environment. The environment is at our control! No other animal has done that, and that is a fact that is impossible to argue. 8. Change When animals die, they take all they know with them. They discover something, they themselves benefit from it, and then they die. Their intelligence is not passed on. Of course, you may say that it is, and we just have no way of knowing it, but there is proof. Many animals have been on the Earth since long before humans have, but they have not gone under such a behavioral change. Think about it. One guy, very long ago, figured out by rubbing rocks together (later known as flint), we can create heat and light. Today, we still know this. One guy, not so long ago, realized that we can use moving machinery to create vast amounts of writing. We still know this. We have change our behavior, whereas the biggest behavioral change in animals was to eat something else, live somewhere else, or migrate because they can't cope with their environment. In addition, we humans have paper and writing, an enormous intellectual advantage for us. There is no denying that no animal has invented a portable way to transmit information through writing. This is a great invention, and no other animals have it. 9. Culture Take a group of animals in the world, and compare it to another group of the same species. They are basically the same. They eat the same food, use the same mannerisms, and communicate in the same fashion. In fact, if you analyze the behavior of one animal, you can look at another one of that species and see that they behave in exactly the same way! Even in small human families, we behave differently from one another. But in the bigger picture, take a group of Americans from New York. Then look at a group of Chinese from Beijing. The difference is enormous! Why doesn't this happen in other species of animals? The answer is, quite simply, that they are not as intelligent. They cannot create change or communicate information in the same way humans do. Humans can change their own behavior so diversely that even two people raised by the same parents can have completely different behaviors when they grow older. In addition, we have languages. Every other species speaks all the exact same language - whatever it is. We humans have so many different languages, and not only that, but we can learn multiple languages at once! If you want to argue that animals of the same species could possibly have different languages, do so, but you cannot argue that they can only speak one so-called language at a time. They have one specific dialect that they speak, and they cannot change back and forth between dialects at their leisure, as humans can. It's very difficult to still say that animals are smarter than humans with this cultural gap. 10. Speculation Just step back a moment, and analyze what I am doing, and what inevitably you are doing if you are reading this. We are disagreeing, yes, and we are thinking, changing our beliefs, speculating, and proving our points. We think about things like this, wondering about things that exist in the world, which not only shows intellectual curiosity, but capacity as well. We question things like: Why are we here? Where are we going? Whereas animals think of nothing but necessities: Eat, sleep, breathe, breed, die. In fact, what we speculate, what we believe, and how we think may even change our actions, our behavior, every one of us differently. We not only think about such things, but we act on these things that we think about. That, I say, shows great intelligence.

Answer 4

Increased brain size via evolution.