How Smart is a Fish?

[Doc Harry]

Fish can't be stupid or they wouldn't survive.

We as a species have consistently and repeatedly underestimated the intelligence of other species -- and we've NEVER learned from our mistakes!

How smart does that make us?

 

[Jack Scuba]

I would say some fish demonstrate an ability to learn prey/predator behaviour more than others. But changing small behaviours to gain more resources (mates, food, habitat) speaks more to conditioning than intelligence.

Although the ones that show up when you don't have a camera are definitely smart!

 

[elmer fudd]

Fish can't be stupid or they wouldn't survive.

Lots of animals are stupid, yet they get by just fine. Sea Stars and clams for example don't even have brains and they do OK despite that. I've got a large lab mix lying of the floor beside me that seems to get by without a brain as well.

I think that we, as people, overrate the value of intelligence. It's a sort of anthropomorphism. Obviously for a human being, intelligence is one of the most important things you can have and it's part of what makes us human. The problem is, we tend to view animals with the same criteria as we view people, and animals frequently have been blessed in different ways. A person with a 70 IQ is smarter than any squirrel that has ever lived, yet if you left both of them out in the middle of the wilderness, the person would most likely be dead within three weeks, while the squirrel would most likely be thriving.

For us, intelligence and learned behavior are our primary survival mechanism so that's what we tend to judge everything else by.