Monkeys perform arithmetic as well as college students

Monkeys perform arithmetic as well as college students

www.physorg.com

Researchers at Duke University have demonstrated that monkeys have the ability to perform mental addition. In fact, monkeys performed about as well as college students given the same test.

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Chimps Have Better Memory than YOU

Hot on the heels of recent research by Kyoto University scientists on chimpanzee memory, these group of US researcher have now come up with evidence that simians can outperform college kids in basic maths.

Incredible! Is this the result of lowered educational standards? Or is it the result of drunken frat parties? Will these simians eventually take over our jobs? Our world?

"You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

www.physorg.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Incredible! Is this the result of lowered educational standards? Or is it the result of drunken frat parties? Will these simians eventually take over our jobs? Our world?

No, it's the result of our incredible misunderstandment of the animal kingdom and of life in general, our biaised definition of intelligence and the common belief that we are apart from all the other mammals.

Is it that surprising that other apes perform so well in intelligence tests? that they are self-aware? that they can learn sign languages and understand spoken words? that they feel and express emotion?

Maybe they were just really really smart monkeys.

I don't see monkeys taking over the world anytime soon...

Monkeys already have taken over the world, sir. Arrogant, egotistical, violent, sadistic monkeys from Hell.

Somehow i don't quite believe this or maybe its exaggerated to the max. could these monkeys have been trained to give pre set answers?

Common sense tells me that If Monkeys had even the most basic mathematical knowledge then they wouldn't be living in trees and scoffing on bananas.

Then we can look at things on an evolutionarily scale, what need do Monkeys have for math? Maybe enough mathematical knowledge to count there siblings im not so sure about adding difficult sums together they just have no need for it.

[edit on 18-12-2007 by OnTheFence]

Originally posted by DarkSide

Originally posted by Beachcoma
Incredible! Is this the result of lowered educational standards? Or is it the result of drunken frat parties? Will these simians eventually take over our jobs? Our world?

No, it's the result of our incredible misunderstandment of the animal kingdom and of life in general, our biaised definition of intelligence and the common belief that we are apart from all the other mammals.

Is it that surprising that other apes perform so well in intelligence tests? that they are self-aware? that they can learn sign languages and understand spoken words? that they feel and express emotion?

Exactly!!! I find it disturbing when speaking to others about the animal kingdom when they indicate that animals don't "think" and therefore do not feel pain like humans.

I am a firm believer, from experience, that animals can see into realms beyond our own. Hmmm, I wonder why we may not have been given this "gift".

I'm sure they were trained monkeys, just like the college students have been trained for 12+ years.

And this is all about basic mental math. Like 5+8 or 15+34. Given a piece of paper and a pen a monkey would be useless. Most likely because of lack of dexterity.

And even if monkeys had the ability to do advanced arithmetic, who's to say they'd want to leave the life swinging in the trees. Maybe they know something that we don't. Maybe they realize that all of this BS that we deal with every day isn't worth it and that it's better to live in a tropical environment eating fruit and lounging all day.

Isn't that what we try to do when we get time off?