The answer, much as I’d like it to be “cats” is actually “it’s a meaningless question.” Or so is the unbiased opinion of Higgs, the Answer Cat. Acting as a mouthpiece for his owner Faye Flam, Higgs has a new science column in Parade magazine, which comes as a Sunday supplement in many American newspapers.
Faye, as you may remember, was the science columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, and did a great job. She was one of the few journalists, for instance, to catch the phony report of arsenic-incorporating bacteria when even the reviewers of that report (in Science!) missed the problems. Flam and Higgs, a red tomcat, are, with their weekly online column at Parade, now reaching a gazillion more readers.
So what’s the answer to the burning question? In Higg’s/Faye’s first column, “Are dogs smarter than cats?“, we learn this, among other things:
Many dogs will fetch objects when you point to them, and a few dogs can memorize hundreds of spoken words, [behaviorist Debra[ Horwitz said. “Dogs have a more evolved social communication repertoire than cats, and that leads them to do things humans equate with being smarter.”
Note the nuance here, please. She’s not saying dogs are smarter—only that they do things that humans consider smart. You could argue that cats are smarter, because we don’t always have to do what humans want. Upon further questioning, Dr. Horwitz said cats like me evolved as solitary hunters. We’re good at stalking small animals such as mice, and our mouse and rat-catching skills were the primary reason humans started living with us.
We next put the dogs vs. cats question to Marc Bekoff, a professor of evolutionary biology and author of Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals and many other books. “As a biologist, I don’t consider that to be a meaningful question,” he said. “Animals do what they do to be card-carrying members of their species.”
Faye—I mean, Higgs—concludes:
On average, we cats aren’t very obedient, but we’re quick, stealthy, and capable of subtlety. When my assistant sleeps late and I need my breakfast, I gently brush my paw against her cheek. It’s a lot classier than slobbering on people, if you ask me. I’m glad I was born a cat.
You can follow Higgs (“cosmic tabby”) on Twitter here; he has lots of solid science tweets, especially about physics (Higgs’s staff has a degree in physics from Caltech).
p.s. I still think cats are smarter, for they’ve successfully parasitized humans to do their bidding without the degradation of having to do tricks, jobs, or performances.
Cats are of course the ultimate libertarians, since they do not recoginize any authority other than themselves.
Libertarians idealize voluntary exchange for mutual benefit among equals. Cats don’t fit this description at all. Cats are Nietzschian and Machiavellian.
Well, it depends on the type of libertarian you deal with. However, I agree with you that cats are nietzchian and machiavellian.
So dogs are marxists? And to think i was a cat person…
I dunno. My money’s on “None of the above.” In the twelve years my significant other and I have been together, I’ve really come to appreciate the intelligence of her parrots, in particular her African Grey.
Higgs has a very valid point about the relative classiness of the soft paw and the slobbering. I’m with Higgs basically, although if you want a tennis ball retrieved (albeit slobbered on) you may prefer a dog.
Sheesh! What about all that awful howling and screeching at night? And that carrying-in and hiding under one’s bed of dead birds and mice? How classy is that?
And what about dog integrity? There is a dignity in that that surpasses all the airs and graces of a lazy, deceiving cat.
😉
Dogs. And this is not because of the trick that my last dog could do (catching a biscuit off his nose on the count of three in any one of seven languages – that was the hand gesture that went with the routine).
But when I was a kid I had a dachshund, Jupiter. We were in a house that was under construction – the stud walls and roof were up, but no doors or windows. The house was cut into a hillside, so at the rear, the first floor was a story above ground. A workman was sitting in the relatively low, large opening of a rear window, eating lunch, and had one of those little (~15cm diameter) individual pies sitting on the ledge. Jupiter got up with his front paws on the ledge, flipped the pie off the ledge, and without any hesitation wheeled around, ran out the front door opening, down the ramp, around the house, and got the pie. The dismayed workman said, “If that dog’s that damn smart, he can have that pie.”
Cats prefer to steal on the sly.
In my experience, cats show some pretty impressive spatial reasoning skills on par with this. It is clear they form a detailed mental model of their environment and that they are able to conceptualize many different paths to objects within that environment. This includes paths that humans and dogs aren’t likely to think of, given our more terrestrial natures.
“that leads them to do things humans equate with being smarter.”
And since we’re the only ones doing the equating here, that’s apparently the final answer.
If other highly developed aliens come over who equate different behaviour (sitting in the sunlight, behind the window; annoy people in their sleep) with being smarter, then maybe there’s still a chance for the cat.
I am a cat lover and reluctant dog owner. It pains me to admit it but by any serious measure I know dogs are smarter than cats. Please forgive me.
Watchit! You’ll get yourself banned by Ceiling Cat.
[/takes out the popcorn]
I hear (I might be wrong) we can’t decide what intelligence is in humans, even if we can measure how well people answers tests.
Which is “to do things humans equate with being smarter.”
Maybe this will work:
– If we ask cats, what cats do cats equate with being smarter.
– If we ask dogs, what dogs do dogs equate with being smarter.
They can both be smart. (It is still a globally meaningless question. But we make dog owners and cat owned happy.)
Dogs (only) “do things that *humans* consider smart.” Well, fair enough — but as probably the most intelligent species to have ever arisen on earth, isn’t our perspective on intelligence likely to be the most valuable? All the perceptions of cats being smarter that aren’t just about physical grace — Faye’s “cats are smarter, because we don’t always have to do what humans want”, or Jerry’s “cats are smarter, for they’ve successfully parasitized humans to do their bidding” — all seem to rely on assuming cats’ actions to have some overarching *intent*, some overall, species-wide masterplan that goes way beyond the immediate rewards of food, shelter, and warmth that their individual actions are designed to ensure. The old human tendency to discern patterns and ascribe purpose to inanimate forces is surely also in play here in our tendency to over-interpret the instinctive reactions that are probably in play here as part of some larger and more subtle scheming. In addition, cats’ inscrutability — their relative lack of affect — in comparison to dogs intrigues and unsettles us, and again we over-interpret it as a deliberate attempt by cats to hide their true intentions. We mislead ourselves by ascribing to cats the motivations we would have if we behaved like them.
I think it’s instructive to see how cats and dogs typically respond if they’re injured and you try to help them. Even if you’re causing them pain by prodding around a bit to see what’s wrong (say with a broken limb), dogs generally bear it because they seem to understand that you’re trying to help them. Typically, a cat will lash out even at someone it’s known all its life simply because it interprets that person as a threat because they’re causing it pain. Both perfectly understandable reactions, but I know which one I’d consider exhibits a more highly developed intelligence.
From working with animal rescue for four decades, I can also tell you dogs will put up with being physically abused and starved by their “owners.” Cats, not so much.
It works for the specific case that you describe. So, let’s see if we can change the parameters while keeping the same overall structure and see if the conclusion holds.
A dog will happily allow a human to place it in an enclosed space with another dog designed so that the dogs will fight to the death or near death. The dog will allow that even when it has previously experience the fight ring. A cat would probably shred the human in its attempt to escape. Now which one is more intelligent?
The type of deception that works with dogs can also work on humans. For example, consider what Mitten was doing during the election campaign, telling each of his audiences exactly what he supposed they wanted to hear even though it was completely contrary to what he had said to another audience just days or weeks before. Nearly half of the USian voters fell for his deception, or didn’t care that he was doing it. Where is the intelligence in that?
A previous cat and the cat I live with now very noticeably do not scratch their companions even when panicked.
Example. Attempting to bathe the one cat, a female named Kitani, because she had gotten fleas. It was her first bath and she did not like it at all. Two of us attempted to control her while my wife did the bathing. Big, strong, killer screaming death cat from hell. She was in a crazy eyed fight or flight mode and she broke loose and frantically used my wife’s face and head for purchase to break completely free from us. Even though she was sudden death on four feet for any other animals, including other cats, and had all of her claws, she didn’t leave a single scratch.
That was typical of her, and for our current cat companion.
Thank you!
That’s not my experience. My cats accept treatment from me that they would not take from a stranger. In one case I had to give my cat daily sub-Q fluids for nearly a year, which involved poking an IV needle through her skin. She not only tolerated this treatment without resistance; she knew it made her feel better and came to remind me at the appropriate time each day.
Only if we’re careful to correct for our own cognitive biases. Even applied to ourselves, our intuitions about intelligence can often be wrong. Who’s smarter, the gregarious dilettante with a lot of superficial knowledge who talks a good line on many subjects, or the quiet guy who sits in the corner solving tough mathematical problems in his head? How would you know without some sort of objective metric that’s independent of our intuition?
I agree.
Cats are generally very good at communicating their moods & intents, you just have to be able to listen. Bad cat companions will interpret their actions as if they were humans, saying the cat is out for vengeance or jealous or insane or violent. In many cases the human will be acting like prey/attacker or be “playing” badly. They might be blind to the cues the cat is giving.
And when humans do improve, I’ve been impressed at how quickly cats area able to put aside a long history of mistreatment and accept the improvement.
I agree that it’s not meaningful to think there’s a single scale “intelligence” which you can rank different species. They do different things in different ways. In many ways, it’s a pretty dumb thing on the part of *humans* to assume that all species should behave like we do.
How about loyalty though?
Eg the dog Hachikō waited, unsuccessfully, 9 years for the return of his master at Shibuya Station, Japan. There’s a statue of him at the station. His master was a Prof too . . .
I had a cat once that would run to the door and growl anytime a person came to the door. Just like a watch dog.
And there’s this, from a couple yrs ago, about Russian subway dogs who ride the lines in search of food, and apparently help each other in that endeavor. Far as I can tell from the comments, this is not a bogus story. Fascinating!
Dogs simply want to please while cats don’t give a rat’s ass, although they’d happily eat a rat’s ass.
I taught the Dog Who Lives With Us Now two “tricks” in as many minutes; he’s part blue heeler, part german shepherd but I rule the dog. I’m the Alpha.
Then there’s my Alpha who is Kink the Cat. I do Kink’s bidding. He wants food, he gets food. He wants out, he gets out. He wants in then out then in, he gets in then out then in.
I am weak and powerless in his presence.
So, in summary, I trained the Dog and Kink trained me. Oops, must run! Master calls.
And it seems the three of you are happy with the situation, so good for you!
Maybe Kink has been trying to teach you a new trick that you’ve been having trouble learning. So, it’s back to the basics of what you have demonstrated a minimal ability to comprehend. Open door, shut door. Open door, shut door. “OK, you’ve got tha,t so we can move on to the next trick. Oh, jesus christ on a stick, you are letting your mind wander back to that silly tap, tap, picture, picture box, AGAIN!”
It has been pointed out that dogs have masters, cats have staffs.
Which are smarter – tigers or lions? If sociability is a measure, should we say lions?
Fetching is not unique to dogs. I’ve had at least two cats that loved to play fetch. They’d drive you crazy when they wanted to play.
And, yes. They typically brought whatever it was back to you. Over and over.
Me, too. I had a blue point Himalayan who liked to chase ping pong balls, and catch them on a ricochet. Repetitively. Ad nauseam.
And a cream Persian who would fetch a piece of wadded up paper. Repetitively. Ad nauseam.
And a blue Persian who would sit and beg exactly like a dog for chocolate chips. Repetitively. Ad nauseam
Go figure.
I like both species; they both make great companions.
Just one more.
A previous cat of mine, Kitani, used to play a game with me that I thought was pretty smart for a cat. I would often lay in bed reading at night before going to sleep. There was a dresser adjacent to the bedroom door, and the switch for the bedroom light was just above this dresser. Kitani would jump up on the dresser and sit there and watch me. I would attempt to keep an eye on her, but inevitably my attention would become wholly focused on what I was reading, and at that moment she would reach up, flip the switch off, and then run.
I would then get out of bed, yell at her (in fun), turn the light back on, and then get back in bed. Within moments she would be sitting on the dresser watching me again. Just waiting for the moment my attention wavered. Over and over until I couldn’t take it anymore!
Cats remind me of people who don’t talk much, so you think they are smarter than they really are. Dogs are like loud, clumsy people who seem dumb, until you get to know them. This guy has a bad cattitude. Sorry.
http://i.imgur.com/Aa6MoYr.gif
I’ve never had a cat so I can’t comment on their intelligence. I have been a dog owner for most of my life. My current pooch, a 5 year old Labby, has learned an impressive number of words over the years.
Interestingly, I once asked him to lick my daughters head and he walked right up to her and dit it. Mind you I never taught him this. Is it possible he could abstract meaning from a collection words he already knows?
In addition we’ve done the finger pointing excersize described in this post. That’s a really cool result. As I understand it not even Chimps are capable of doing this.
On the other hand, true to his retriever breeding, he’ll keep fetaching a ball till he drops dead from exaustion. And he eats deer feces from the backyard so maybe he isn’t that bright.
I don’t think it’s been mentioned yet that there are Guide Dogs and even Guide Minature Horses, but AFAIK there’s never been a Guide Cat.
My cat guides me all the time. She very insistently guides me to the pantry whenever she feels like eating. And she will demonstrate whether she wants the dry food or the wet food by yanking it off the shelf.
And there are many instances of cats serving as guide animals for other species. Even dogs.
It’s not which species is smarter,it’s who they are. Cats are persons, they have “free will” (oops, am I starting an argument, maybe I should have said “cats have minds of their own” . . .oh well). Dogs are slaves, they’ll do what you tell them to, usually.
Just because we don’t have an easy way to find out the answer doesn’t mean it’s a meaningless question. I don’t think it’s meaningless to ask “Which is smarter, a human or a mouse?” Certainly we can’t do mousey things very well, but does that mean a mouse is smarter in its own way? I don’t think ability necessarily implies intelligence.
If it’s a meaningful question for a human and a mouse, then it’s a meaningful question for a dog and a cat. If we tested and scored each species on its members’ ability to complete every possible task we can think of, and averaged the scores, that seems like a decent measure to me.
But “every possible task” is a multidimensional space. You can’t reduce that down to a single score without some coherent theory of what intelligence is and how the different tasks measure it. Lacking that, any attempt to compare scores is indeed meaningless.
Yes. You have to first do a whole lot of explaining about what you mean by the term “smart”. And when you try to do that things will quickly get very complicated.
It is relatively easy to determine who, or what, is better at a very specific cognitive task. It is a whole other story trying to go from there to a general comparative assessment.
It totally depends on the individual. Any one of my samoyeds was way smarter than Wylie the german pointer. Summer-the-little-stripey-cat, whom I bottle-raised from a week old, is much more clued-in to people and therefore appears to be more intelligent than the other cats around here. But as to cats vs. dogs? meaningless.
As a long term cat lover I’d like to salute the person who said…..
“Dogs have masters, cats have slaves.”