用進廢退可以用在智力水平上么？

05-11

中文字：1692，建議閱讀時間：2.5分鐘；英文字：1116

Can intelligence be lost

While animals in the wild show amazing ability, can that ability be lost. If you

compare a dog and a wolf, they do look different, but the dog has come from the

wolf, so this would mean that the dogs should have the same abilities as the

wolf. This doesn』t show, while wolfs like to hunt for their food, dogs will

scavenge for food. This is like comparing a man with and expensive job to a man

who begs for money on the street. How could an animal come from an amazing species like the wolf sink so low?

There are two types of thought of how the wolf lost this ability

Self-domestication

This is when a group of wolfs would start to live near human settlements because they realised that if they wait humans would leave food or give food to them. When

they found this out the wolfs would bring there young to human settlements and

because of this food giving to the young there is no reason to learn how to

hunt and begging and scavenging for food took over their natural ability to

hunt.

Human culling

This would be when humans would take in wolfs into the settlement and cull the wolfs that would show aggression and keep the ones that didn』t, this would create

offspring that are not brought up within a pack of wolves and would have to

rely on humans to give them food.

If anything is to be learned from this information is with the advancement of technology making our life』s easier its still worth learning how to do things without

technology as we might need the information if you ever get stuck.

Team work

While watching wolfs in the wild, it showed that wolfs don』t just attack an animal in

a big group. It seems they talk to each other and each wolf has a certain role.

The wolfs will stalk a certain animal and will depending on the animal they

will determine if they need more wolfs or less to conserve the energy of the

group. This shows that the alpha wolf

understands what each member of the group is capable of how best to use them

and even allows the younger wolfs to watch the hunts this gives the younger

wolfs the abilities to join in on the hunts when they are older without causing

many problems. This shows how well the wolfs use team work to accomplish task.

An experiment was done to check if dogs would communicate with other dogs to accomplishment task, the experiment had pairs of wolfs and dogs take the tests over 400 times. The experiment had a tray of food on one side of a fence and two ropes through the fence, the animals would have to pull on the ropes to bring the food close enough to get the food. so, for the animals to pass this test they must work together, at the end of the test the dogs tried the test 472 times but only accomplished the task 2 times. where as the wolfs did the same test 416 times and accomplished this task 100 times. This showed that the wolfs like to investigate the area they are in and communicate with each other on the situation.

Imprint learning While animals with high intelligence will look around their environment and judge the situation to learn new things, although there is a type of learning that happens at an instant and that is imprinting. Mainly fought to be only in birds it as also been found in humans in some certain situations, imprinting helps

animals find out who their parents are and how to survive from a young age and

allow the birds to find their future sexual partners. There are two types of imprinting

that there is known of at this moment, that is filial imprinting and sexual

imprinting

Filial imprinting

Also know as mental imprinting, this is when newly hatched birds will imprint on their

parents and learn a lot of their behaviours this is also why as soon as the

ducks are born they will follow their parents around in a line. Although this

is for survival since they will follow their mother to safety, it is also a

double edge sword as the ducks will imprint on any object moving and follow

that which will lead to the ducklings dying. The imprinting also teaches the

birds how to migrate in the winter without the mother they will not learn this

ability, one of the things people ask is wouldn』t the birds just follow other

birds if they didn』t imprint on the mother and the answer is no, as they what

ever the ducklings imprint on that』s what they believe they are. If a duckling

imprints on a ball it will think it is a ball, this can be stopped if there is

lots of ducks around and it will gradually realise it』s a duck.

Sexual imprinting

Sexual imprinting is different then filial imprinting, as the birds will choose their

sexual partner one what they first see, since the first thing birds normally

see is their mother the male birds choose a sexual partner that looks like

there mother when they mature. This becomes a problem if the thing they imprint

on something that』s not from the same species, many birds that are pets will

try and mate with humans as that』s who they think they should be mating with.Therefore, when people who raise birds from hatchings will have special hats so that when the bird has hit sexual maturity it with be able to mate with the human』s hat, this will stop the bird from having built up testosterone and become violent.

Imprinting in humans

It has been found out that imprinting has been found in humans, mainly on girls and their fathers.

A study found that girls who where adopted into a new family, if the new father

was very good to the daughter, the daughter would try and

find a future boyfriends and husbands that look like there adopted father.

Conclusion

Measuring intelligence can give us a better understanding of how animals feel and how we can help, with the rise of intelligence should also help the increase the

rights and welfare of animals. one of the main reasons why people don』t eat

meat is that the animal shows intelligence and can feel pain which is a good

reason not to eat meat. Although with that logic how intelligent must an animal

be before we can eat an animal, just because a chicken isn』t as intelligent as

a dog does that really give us a reason not to eat the dog.

中文翻譯：

動物在野生狀態時，會顯示出驚人的能動性，但是經過圈養後，這種能力會退化么？如果你將一條狼與一條狗進行對比，你會發現它們在外表上的差別，但是我們知道，狗的前身就是狼，這就意味著狗與狼有著共性，但這也並不能表明狼更樂於進行捕獵，而狗擅長於討要食物。這就像拿一個有著高工資的人與街上的乞討者相比。但我們不禁想問，一個原來向狼一樣的物種是如何一步步退化至此？

有兩種觀點認為是影響了狼的智力發揮

自我馴化

當有一群狼開始生活在人類生活的區域後，發現人類會對它們進行餵食，於是這些狼就把它們的後代帶到人類居住的區域，於是這一代就習慣了餵養，因為已經沒有理由需要再學習捕獵技術，人工餵養剝奪了它們狩獵的能力。

人類的定向篩選

這點在於人類做出的偏見選擇，當人類想要挑選狼時，就會留下那些不具有攻擊性的狼，它們產下來的後代，也會由人類幫助餵養，能力進一步減弱。

人類也能從中有所啟發，高科技讓我們的生活變得更便捷，但是我們依舊要學會在沒有科技下的生存技能，以防我們某天陷入困境。

團隊協作

當觀察狼群在野外實施進攻時，會發現他們並不是一擁而上，而是每個團隊的成員都有其固定的職責。它們會根據狼群中成員的數量，有選擇地跟蹤獵物，最大程度的節省體能。這一切都有賴於領頭狼對於團隊中成員能力的了解，如何充分調動團隊，甚至允許小狼從旁觀戰，以備不時之需，這一切充分顯示了狼群的團隊作戰能力。

有一次實驗試圖發現狗之間是否會通過交流來完成團隊任務，作為對照會同步對狼進行同樣的實驗，分別測試400次以上。實驗中會在圍欄另一邊的脫盤裡放置食物，並且由兩條繩穿過圍欄連接脫盤，該實驗需要動物們一起拉動兩條繩子才能將脫盤拉近圍欄，進而才能夠著食物。在對狗進行的472次實驗中，只有2次完成了任務，而在對狼進行的416次實驗中，有100次完成了實驗。通過對比發現，狼更擅長研究它們所在的區域，並且與同伴互相分享心得。

印刻學習

高智商動物會根據身處環境，來衡量自身處境進而學習一些新技能，但是有一種學習能力卻是發生在一瞬間，那就是印刻。這種現象大部分出現在鳥類中，一些特定的條件下，也會發生在人類身上。印刻這種能力幫助動物們定位誰是自己的父母，如何在年幼時生存下來，以及幫助鳥類尋找另一半。因此印刻現象可以大致被分為兩類：遺傳印刻與性印刻

遺傳印刻

遺傳印刻也被稱為心理印刻，剛剛孵化出來的鳥類會模仿自己的父母，學習一系列的行為動作，這也就解釋了為什麼鴨子一生出來就會跟著自己的父母排成一隊。儘管這樣的模仿讓幼鳥更易成活，但印刻的能力也是一把雙刃劍，因為這種能力會讓鴨子模仿任何出生後第一個看見的移動物體，這個移動物體有時會導致鴨子死亡。印刻能力也能讓鳥類學會在冬天遷徙，如果沒有了母親它們就學不會這個能力。人們可能會這樣問，如果剛出生的鳥類不能向自己的母親學習，是不是就不能向其他鳥類學習？答案是否定的。正如鴨子那樣，它們印刻什麼東西，它們就認為自己是那類東西。如果鴨子印刻了一個球，那麼鴨子就認為自己就是一個球，只有當它身處在一大堆鴨子中時，它才會漸漸意識到自己其實是一隻鴨子。

性印刻

性印刻有別於遺傳印刻，因為鳥類會將出生後第一個看見的東西視作為自己的性伴侶。通常鳥類出生後第一個看見的就是自己的母親，所以幼鳥長大後會選擇長相類似於自己母親的，作為另一半。這個帶來的問題就是，如果它們出生後看見的東西，並不屬於它們這一類的物種，就會帶來繁衍的問題，許多鳥類曾經都把人類視作另一半。因此，人類會用一種特殊的帽子對鳥類進行孵化，為的是當鳥類達到性成熟後，將帽子視作為性伴侶，這樣能夠抑制雄性鳥類長出睾丸，變得更溫順。

人類身上的印刻現象

在人類身上也會出現印刻現象，主要發生在女孩和她們父親之間。據研究發現，小女孩如果被一戶新的家庭收養，如果這個父親對這個女孩非常好，那麼這個女孩在將來選擇伴侶時，也會挑選類似於她養父這樣的。

總結

評估動物的智力水平能讓我們更好得理解動物的感受，並且明白如何更好地幫助它們。高智力的動物也應該讓它們擁有更多的權利與福利。人類之所以不應該吃動物，從它們的靈性角度來看，又可以給出一個理由，那就是越是智力高的動物，對於疼痛就越是敏感。