laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/16/83)
I think that one has to make a distinction between dolphins killing fish to eat, and hypothetical turtles killing rabbits, not to eat, but because they compete for the same land resources. To my mind they are different sorts of killings (though from the point of veiw of the hapless rabbit or fish they may be the same). Dolphins kill sharks that attack the school, though -- I do not think that this 'self-defense' killing is the same as the planned extermination of another species. if you believe that planned extermination is the definition of intelligence then I'll bet you are worried about SETI. On the other hand, I suppose you must not believe that pacifist vegetarian monks qualify as intelligent. Or is intelligence something posessed by a species rather than an individual? Or perhaps you see that eating plants is indeed killing them. Now, we have, defined all animals and plants like the venus fly-trap as intelligent while most plants are not. All the protists that I can think of right now would also be intelligent, though a euglena would be an interesting case. I think that "killing things" is either too general or too specific (depending on your definition of killing and which things you admit to your list of "things") to be a useful guide for intelligence. What about having fun? Perhaps the ability to laugh is the dividing point between man (as a higher intelligence) and animals, who seem to have some appreciation for pleasure (if not fun) as distinct from plants and protists whose joy I have never seen measured. Dolphins seem to have a sense of fun as well, which is (to my mind) a very good thing. What this bodes for Mr. Spock, though, is not nice. And despite megabytes of net.jokes, this 11/70 isn't chuckling. :-) Laura Creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura