> We know that apes remember past events in detail and plan for the future; they are masters of mimicry, learning to use human tools simply by observing; they can understand spoken language and communicate with gestures and abstract symbols; they methodically cooperate to hunt and defend their territory; they maintain unique cultures, passing down particular toolmaking techniques, dialects, and habitat-specific survival skills from one generation to the next; they form lifelong kinships, mourn their dead, and are just as dependent on social intimacy as we are; they can recognize their reflections and have a sense of self. They are, in sum, highly intelligent, self-aware, autonomous individuals.

All of that can be said about many other species -- certainly about dolphins or elephants, for example.

Just because an animal shows intelligence doesn't mean we're cousins, or, more to the point, animals don't have to be closely related to humans to be intelligent.

In just a few years, Youtube has done more to help understand animals than all of Western philosophy, from Aristotle to Descartes.

Some cows can open barn doors with their tongue. Birds play. House cats prepare and implement pranks against fellow cats, or dogs.

Although it's a sign of progress, it's bothering that we are only looking for signs of intelligence into creatures that most ressemble us morphologically.