The question of intelligence ...

The other day I ran into a poll on www.msnbc.com asking people which animal they think is the most intelligent. I read through the poll and the discussion thread that followed and, no big surprise, most everyone voted for humans. Funny that this poll had much the same result you'd expect in polling the best of anything else. Ask a Texan what the best state is and they're likely to tell you Texas. Ask a New Yorker where the best city is and they're likely to tell you it's New York City. Ask an American which country is the best and most of us will say it's the USA. Then is it any wonder that "we" put humans at the top of the intelligence list?

I read a little something in a book by Stephen Hawking about mankind thinking for centuries that the world was flat. He wondered how mankind could have ever believed the world was flat when evidence to the contrary was staring them right in the face every night as they watched the curved shadow of the earth cast itself on the moon. That sentence impacted me more than any other sentence I've ever read anywhere. It took me about a second to realize he was absolutely right and it instantly fascinated me making me start turning over everything else we think we know. What other evidence is staring us right in the face now that we just haven't recognized yet? Like to what level intelligence exists in those creatures we're so certain are less intelligent than us.

I think real intelligence probably includes leaving some room in our thought process for the possibility that just maybe what we think we know isn't so at all.


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