Hmm ... Rats Think Like Humans

Here is the article. It makes me wonder, what other animals may think this way, and we in our ignorance just assume that they can't because we haven't been able to dertermine that they can. I suppose guilty until proven innocent of stupidity applies here

Nah..Most humans don't think that well...

I believe it, the love junk food and Taco bell

Yes rats are very smart littler vermin but I think they are smarter

Next to humans, rats are the most successful mammal on the planet. Rats no doubt will be here longer than us.

Don´t see any rats driving arround in ferraris or inline skating.

Originally posted by Oblate Spheroid
Don´t see any rats driving arround in ferraris or inline skating.

Because we all know that driving a Ferrari or inline skating is condusive to ones ablility to think

Nice find.

All animals have spirit.







.

No coincidence the Chinese chose the rat as king of their zodiac.

The rat is the first animal in the Chinese Zodiac and next year will be the year of the Earth Rat. It runs in 12-year cycles through 5 elements.

BTW the dog and the pig are at the bottom.

BTW my Chinese sign falls under the rat, thanks for bringing that bid of information khunmoon.

I am proud to be a metal rat.

Maybe Douglas Adams was right. Oh, hey, the dolphin wants to speak with me.

He just said, "So long and thanks for all the fish!"

Maybe if they asked ppl who own and respect rats instead of experimenting on them so much, we could've told them earlier..

When I was a young squatter we stayed in condemned buildings -- and there were rats. We killed a few of them, or else could only watch them enter our quarters through a hole in the wall.

One day a rat got stuck in that hole, getting too fat to get through. It screamed like hell and eventually died.

We couldn't get the dead rat free of the hole and had to break down the wall to remove it. What we learned then was disgusting.

The half of the rat stuck inside the hole had been eaten by other rats. Then we better understood why it had screamed.

A parable on humans?

When I'm on the farm you I often here rats squeak and I'm certain that they’ve got themselves quite a language. Obviously not as good as ours but if insect like an ante can have 4 words i.e. “food, help, attack, danger” then obviously the tone or frequency of a rats squeak could mean a lot more. And this doesn’t even touch upon body language.

I wonder what the rats evolved their cognition for?
Is it possible one of their squeaks could be the “don’t know” meaning?

What I want to know is what “scientist” said rats don’t have cognition skills?
The logic of saying “because something has been proven means it doesn’t exist” would quite oppose just about every major scientific advancement. In fact I wonder how many other skills animals “don’t have” because they haven’t been proven yet.

The bad thing about animal’s abilities is that the more they have, the greater the margins of cruelty we commit against them on a near daily basis.

I personally want stronger poisons as the ones we use on the farm provide a truly agonising death, it takes literally hours for the thing to die, and I know one burns the rat’s stomach out.
The reason for their cruelty is because the government has legislated against the more potent poisons. However in this age of science surely we could have a more species specific, humane, rat poison?

In the mean time I prefer using the traps that keep them in boxes so that you can drown them. I know drowning is far more humane, better for the environment, and cheap (unless someone steels your traps; as has happened on a few occasions).

P.S Has anybody shown this article to the Iraqi President? I'm sure he’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that even if the rats invading the Bread Shed of Iraq’s oil wealth don’t have consciences, they at least have cognitive abilities.

I'm not a fan of rodents, but drowning has to be an agonizing way to go. It's just as inhumane as the slow acting poison imo. I kill them quick. No pain. I swiftly crush them after catching them in a trap and toss them out. The whole ordeal still gives me the jeebies, but me and the little fellers just can't co-exist in the same space. Esthetically speaking, along with cockroaches, they're like the manifestation of someone's nightmares and I'm overcome with the urge to be rid of them the moment I see them.

They are some smart bastards. They know how to run out and snatch stuff when you're not looking, do whatever they can to reach a food source,(including climbing curtains to infiltrate bird cages) and I've observed behavior that resembles "play".

Yeah drowning isn't the nicest way to go either. I agree they should produce some sort of poison which calmly puts the animal to sleep before stopping its heart.

That's apart from the fact that killing anything is bad enough, this world was meant for every living thing and just because we humans have infrastructure and science it means that other creatures have to suffer. I guess it's just the harsh price that they have to pay for us in the end.

Originally posted by Liberal1984
What I want to know is what “scientist” said rats don’t have cognition skills?

I don't think any scientist asked that question. Scientists are studying the cognitive abilities of numerous animals not because they think they don't have cognition. In fact, it's usually quite the opposite, but science doesn't work on hunches. One has to make an observation, conceive a hypothesis, test it or gather evidence to support the hypothesis, and then come to a conclusion. It wouldn't be very scientific of a scientist to say, "Well, I think rats think like humans because I've seen them do smart things, and people tell me stories about rats doing intelligent things." No, rather, they should say, "How do rats think? Let's do some tests to find out."

The bad thing about animal’s abilities is that the more they have, the greater the margins of cruelty we commit against them on a near daily basis.

I personally want stronger poisons as the ones we use on the farm provide a truly agonising death, it takes literally hours for the thing to die, and I know one burns the rat’s stomach out.
The reason for their cruelty is because the government has legislated against the more potent poisons. However in this age of science surely we could have a more species specific, humane, rat poison?

In the mean time I prefer using the traps that keep them in boxes so that you can drown them. I know drowning is far more humane, better for the environment, and cheap (unless someone steels your traps; as has happened on a few occasions).

P.S Has anybody shown this article to the Iraqi President? I'm sure he’ll be pleasantly surprised to learn that even if the rats invading the Bread Shed of Iraq’s oil wealth don’t have consciences, they at least have cognitive abilities.

Why don't you use cats? We bred them purposely to chase after the buggers after all. Hell, cats are well known to take pleasure in killing small animals. I've seen many just play with a small animal for its own enjoyment.

This is from the methods of the actual article. Note that 5 of the 8 (very low N to begin with) were not used at all. The actual N of 3 is so low that statistical analysis is rather difficult and the findings hard to support. Interesting preliminary finding, but not really proof of anything. If this study were replicated and used a much larger N, the title of the article would be much more appropriate. N = number of subjects/animals used.

Animals
Eight male Sprague-Dawley rats (Harlan, Madison, WI; 249 g, 85 days old) were individually housed in a room with a reversed light cycle (light offset at 07:00, onset at 19:00). The rats consumed 45 mg pellets (PJAI-0045, Research Diets, New Brunswick, NJ) during testing sessions and a ration of 5001-Rodent-Diet (Lab Diet, Brentwood, MO), which was adjusted so that total daily intake was 15–20 g. Water was continuously available. All procedures were approved by the institutional animal care and use committee and followed guidelines of the National Research Council Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Five rats rarely declined to take the duration test (M = 97.8%, SEM = ±0.01%). The performance for these five rats was likely to be a result of response bias because it appeared that these rats failed to learn the experimental contingency of the nose-poke apertures. As a result, these five rats did not provide evidence for or against metacognition. The rats had participated in a pilot study, in which they received a similar training regimen to that described below, during which the reward sizes and intertrial interval were adjusted. All subjects (n = 3) that learned the experimental contingency are included in the data analysis.

Reference
Metacognition in the Rat • SHORT COMMUNICATION
Current Biology, In Press, Corrected Proof, Available online 8 March 2007,
Allison L. Foote and Jonathon D. Crystal

Technology is so tremendous to watch grow expedentially. Did anyone get the latest Popular Science with the new F-35B , or Joint Strike Fighter? It can slow to a stop in mid-flight and set down anywhere. Able to withstand extreme G forces, and its lightweight titanium and carbon fiber air frame is beautiful to behold! If you saw it at night or from a distance yould think it was a UFO.

Funny how one of the first things we think of when looking back at out technological acheivements is the ability to destroy ourselves in newer and more interesting ways.

Originally posted by SteveR
Nice find.

All animals have spirit.

.

Thanks Steve
I agree, I believe animals have spirits as well.

[edit on 10-3-2007 by kleverone]