Aestu wrote:
What would you say to the examples and logic I laid out?
That they are highly specified and opinionated, ignore information(not necessarily knowingly or intentionally) that should undoubtedly be included and that neither of us (me more so) is qualified to speak on this to reach any credible conclusion. I'm sure if we argue about this for a week you'd end up in a stronger position by a significant margin but it wouldn't make you right, you just know more about it than I do. I'm sure you also know much more about cats than you do dogs and if you knew as much about dogs you could skew your argument in their favor.
To reach a satisfying and legitimate conclusion on which is smarter you would have run experiments and studies that no one has thought up yet, otherwise there would be verifiable information on which is smarter. The vision thing I'm still not sold on, cats might not be nearly as color blind but what I've read still suggests they are a bit color blind. I really despise the simple distinction of 'better' vision because of how different their eyesight is. They both developed the eye sight they needed to be able to hunt and if you switched just their eye characteristics they would both likely get worse at that, which means they both have more suitable eyesight for what they need it for.
Stray dogs aren't good at surviving because they are a more ferocious and dangerous animal, so they are way more likely to get shot or have animal control called. This doesn't convince me that cats are significantly better at getting what they need, what they need just interferes with us less. I concede this makes it possible for cats to survive where dogs cannot but I trust a pack of dogs to live longer in the wild of Canada than some cats. However in Moscow stray dogs seem to thrive, so while they don't make big appearances here they do elsewhere int he world. I'm not significantly impressed that cats in Boston have the same evolutionary trait, since that's how evolution works. I don't have a ready example of specific canine creativity but I'm not convinced one doesn't exist. Your position though seems to be that if dogs developed a physical deformity that ultimately would aid their survival if they knew how to use it, but they wouldn't figure it out, sounds ridiculous. Their current existence seems to suggest they have had this same thing happen numerous times.
Okay, dogs hunting mice is an AWFUL example. Dogs evolved as pack hunting animals and they catch bigger things with their teeth. Cats are solo acts when it comes to hunting and require the dexterous paw movements to be able to catch their small one-cat only meal. You don't get to just say "dogs cant catch mice" and call it a day. Show me a group of house cats that can bring down deer and than make that point. Why would dogs develop the ability to catch mice when it is insignificant, therefore a wasted trait, for them to do so? This would lend nothing to their ability to help their pack bring down big meals, so saying they are less intelligent for not being able to do it is insane. This is why comparing the intelligence of different species is so hard, there are very few if any comparable traits/actions you can draw conclusions from. Catching mice certainly isn't one of them as one spent millions of years developing this ability to the point it's at now while the other was developing other abilities.
I don't think there's any cats that herd sheep nearly as well as sheep dogs, clearly cats are less intelligent because of this. < That argument, like your mouse one, is completely biased and doesn't show one's intelligence over the other.
This discussion will never go anywhere because I firmly maintain there is no current scientific method of adequately comparing the two species intelligence with each other, and I'm sure ethologists everywhere would agree. I'm also certain that it would incredibly difficult to satisfyingly explain/contend/defend the point that cats are more or better evolved, thought that seems a hair easier than proving the intelligence part.
