Science proves it again: Chimps are smarter than YOU
| There was quite a bit of research showing that chimpanzees can form their beliefs in response to evidence. The experiments usually involved chimpanzees deciding which of the two boxes contained a snack. When the researchers shook both boxes and there was a rattling sound coming from one of them, the chimps almost always chose the box where the rattling came from.
| But no one has ever looked into their ability to revise beliefs in rational ways. There are so many irrational ways of responding to counter evidence—you know, “I’m gonna keep believing what I believe, I’m not gonna switch my mind,”
| Engelmann and his colleagues tested whether chimpanzees can revise their beliefs rationally based on the same setup, where the animals chose between two containers. “It turned out, when they first got the evidence that the food was in one of those containers and they made their choice based on that, they could later change their mind when we offered them evidence to the contrary.
| The team started by classifying evidence presented to the chimpanzees as either weak or strong. Weak evidence included things like crumbs around one of the containers. Strong evidence pointed to the food more directly, like the rattling sounds used in previous studies. The first two experiments relied on giving chimpanzees weak evidence pointing at one container, strong evidence pointing at the other one, and manipulating the order in which the evidence was received.
| When the first piece of evidence was weak, the chimpanzees were way more likely to change their choice when they received strong counter-evidence later. When the order was reversed and the strong evidence was followed by the weak one, they usually stuck to their initial belief. “Quite frankly, I think many other animals would pass this test,” Engelmann says. “But then we moved on to making things more complicated for the chimpanzees.”
| The goal of the final experiment was to see if chimpanzees can figure out if the evidence they’ve just received supports or contradicts other pieces of evidence they had. “They understand evidence about the evidence—more colloquially, they understand that the evidence can be misleading,” Engelmann explains.
| In the first step, the chimps got the auditory evidence, the same rattling sound coming from the first container. Then, they received indirect visual evidence: a trail of peanuts leading to the second container. At this point, the chimpanzees picked the first container, presumably because they viewed the auditory evidence as stronger. But then the team would remove a rock from the first container. The piece of rock suggested that it was not food that was making the rattling sound.
| “At this point, a rational agent should conclude, ‘The evidence I followed is now defeated and I should go for the other option.’” “And that’s exactly what the chimpanzees did.”
| The team thinks rationality is not an on/off switch; instead, different animals have different levels of rationality. “The first two experiments demonstrate a rudimentary form of rationality,” Engelmann says. “But experiments four and five are quite difficult and show a more advanced form of reflective rationality I expect only chimps and maybe bonobos to have.”
| In his view, though, humans are still at least one level above the chimps. “Many people say reflective rationality is the final stage, but I think you can go even further. What humans have is something I would call social rationality,” Engelmann claims. “We can discuss and comment on each other’s thinking and in that process make each other even more rational.”
| Sometimes, at least in humans, social interactions can also increase our irrationality instead. But chimps don’t seem to have this problem. Engelmann’s team is currently running a study focused on whether the choices chimps make are influenced by the choices of their fellow chimps. “The chimps only followed the other chimp’s decision when the other chimp had better evidence,” Engelmann says. “In this sense, chimps seem to be more rational than humans.”
| it seems even chimps are more rational than rightoids
| Thank you, /news/ can always remind me that I'm normal and sane.
| >>1077861
Normal and sane people don't go around shitposting vapid comments on science articles, just so you know.
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| When Aristotle claimed that humans differ from other animals because they have the ability to be rational, he understood rational to mean that we could form our views and beliefs based on evidence, and that we could reconsider that evidence. But he was wrong. Chimps can take in new evidence, evaluate its strength, and change their minds.