Would it be possible to genetically engineer a dog, cat, etc., as smart

[raccoon]

as the average human, with the knowledge we have now?

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Well,

my cat would say she's smarter than the average human right now. She has a warm bed, is fed what she wants on demand, is given toys and recreation whenever she wants it.

But to answer your question seriously, I don't believe we can.

[baldguy]

2. Knowledge isn't encoded genetically, it can only be gained through experience.

As for increasing brain size, that will be possible once we know how the code works.

[Xithras]

25. Yes, but if you increase the brain size, would it still be a "dog" or a "cat"?

Simple mental exercise. To increase the size of the brain, you must increase the size of the skull. To increase the size of the skull, you must increase the size of the spine and supporting muscles. Since those muscles need attachment points, you'll need to increase the size of the upper body skeletal structure.

It's a good thing we're doing that, because this newly enlarged brain is going to need more bloodflow, requiring a larger heart, and more oxygen, requiring a larger set of lungs. All of these new large parts are going to need more energy to keep running, so now we're tinkering with the digestive tract too.

There's a reason why humans are all generally the same size, and why we're not all 4 inches tall, or 14 feet tall. By the time you finished modifying that dog or cat DNA to support its newly enlarged brain, you'd end up with something roughly the size of a human. It would be an entirely new creature as related to "cats" or "dogs" as we are to the great apes. They're related, but a completely different species.

[Cronus Protagonist]

33. Knowledge is not equal to intelligence

I often wonder why people conflate the two. I know quite a few people who have a lot of knowledge and they're also relatively unintelligent, and vice versa.

[AndyA]

3. I have a cat at home that I guarantee is smarter than the average Repuke.

He actually uses his brain, instead of just being told what he should think by others. It really proves the felines' superiority to Republicans. :rofl:

[Thor_MN]

18. I have a rock in my garden that never fucked up the economy

No doubt your cat is smarter than my rock, but you picked a really low bar to jump.

[Silent3]

4. Apart from the ethical issues...

...no, I don't think we know quite enough to do that yet. Besides, even if you did manage to increase what might be called basic processing or storage capacity of an animal's brain, chances are that what you'd get is a very different kind of intelligence, with different strengths and weaknesses, that you couldn't easily compare on a linear scale to human intelligence.

[Turbineguy]

5. They can probably clone

nematodes to be as intelligent as Rwingnuts.

They just haven't done so out of respect for their feelings.

[HillbillyBob]

6. I dont know about engineering one, but if you want a smart dog

get an Aussie Cattle dog, sometimes called Queensland Heeler , red or blue.
I have a blue heeler springer spaniel mix. looks like a spaniel smart like a cattle dog. They take lots of attention while raising from a pup, they readily learn to understand sign language, she is my aide dog. She alerts to seizures, migraines and has even alerted to heart attack and cancer.
And she talks somewhat hard to understand but she makes words.
My mom who is like dogs are dogs, freaks out when we go to visit and she says Pnut butter, its not that clear but if you listen you can understand her, Cookie , our names yea its hard for dogs mouth to form words , dont expect hard consonant sounds.
She also is miss gasolina , ooo iidee is goo ride..
She is about the level of a 5 or 7 year old.
We wanted pups from her when we asked her if she wanted puppys she said noooo and ran under the bed , we had her spayed a few months ago and she seems to be happier without pms. Though she hurt and cried after the surgery.
When Mamma Sadie passed from cancer she sobbed like a human person.

[eShirl]

7. how about chimanzees, gorillas and orangutans?

[TankLV]

8. Well, they certainly couldn't make one as dumb as bush* or ANY repuke, that's for sure...!

even if they tried, and tried...

[zbdent]

9. average human ... not likely right now ...

however, the average Faux believer ... probably ...

the average freeper ... likely already surpassed long ago ... and not with technology, but the average dogs in heat ...

[comtec]

10. YAY FURRIES!!!!

*finds a nice nook to curl up in*
hee hee =]

[mike_c]

11. no....

We know relatively little about mammalian developmental genes, at least not nearly enough to even suggest messing around with them. Customizing an embryonic central nervous system. Not even close.

[lazer47]

12. They are already smarter

[montanto]

36. I know, huh.

[Bigmack]

13. The hell with "as smart as"...how about

a dog that would live....not as long as us, but a whole heck of a lot longer than they do now????? Parting with pets is doggone difficult.....
Ms Bigmack

[Posteritatis]

14. We lack the knowledge, and they probably lack the CPU power

While brain volume and intelligence don't necessarily line up, you probably do still need a certain amount of available hardware before you could effectively uplift an animal, and below a certain size they just wouldn't have it.

The whole concept of uplift is pretty interesting, though.

[xchrom]

15. does brain size REALLY have anything to do with it all?

we have big brains -- but what we use? -- not so much.
would cats need a huge brain to gain lots more smarts?

[Orrex]

16. Please explain what you mean by "but what ue use? -- not so much"

Are you referring to the urban legend that we only use 10% or so?

Or are you pointing out the much more readily verified fact that most people don't think enough to justify a whole big brain?

[xchrom]

17. we certainly use a lot more than 10% -- that's been proven.

but by the same token -- you don't need a brain our size to show sentience either --
so how much more 'cat brain' is needed for all kinds of stuff to start firing off and making connections?

[Sandrine for you]

19. Yes unless with great sacrifice , the dog are 6 times better than us for the odor

But it take alot more place in proportion with his skull.

And it's false that we use just a small portion of our brain, in fact, as we are, we work a lot of time just to supply the brain.

[TZ]

20. Not as much as people think

It has more to do with the complexity of structure. Some animals have large brains, but less complex structure. If you would compare the brains of whale sharks with say a toothed whale like the Sperm Whale you would see a whole lot of structural differences.

[Johonny]

23. In general

For mammals there is a pretty consistent trend between body size and brain size. Bigger animals have bigger brains. If you look at the animals that deviate the most from the general trend they tend to be primates. Such as humans and chimps (who have brains larger than you would expect based on their body size). So roughly speaking if you generate a dog with a brain on average that was bigger than it's body size predicts then you can guess it has the potential to utilize a larger capacity of the new brain size.

[Xithras]

24. The "humans only use 10%" thing is a myth. We use it all, and size matters.

Humans use nearly all of their brains, and use nearly all of it all the time. It's a popular myth, but has no basis in reality whatsoever.

The reality is that the cereberum controls our ability to think, reason, and learn. Neurons don't scale in size, so the size of the cereberum has a direct impact on the number of neurons a creature can have. The number of neurons in your brain directly limits your mental capabilities. The variation between humans is so small that it's irrelevant, but it's not possible for a cat cereberum (which is only a fraction the size of a humans) to learn and process the same amount of information as a much larger human brain. The neuron count simply isn't there.

[Vidar]

26. Implications for whale brains (almost 5 times as large)???

[Nihil]

27. That's a link that is simply too difficult for some people to face. (n/t)

:grr:

[TZ]

28. Intelligence does NOT correlate 100% with size of brain

So no, a whale brain being 5x larger than a human's doesn't mean they are 5 times smarter..Structures in the brain itself are the key.
Whale sharks have largish brains due to body size but they don't have the neural structures associated with intelligence.

[Nihil]

29. No need for tangents: I didn't claim that intelligence did correlate 100% with size of brain

Nor did I claim that a whale brain being 5x larger than a human's
means they are 5 times smarter.

Nor did I mention whale sharks (which obviously have little to do with
the similarities or otherwise between human & whale brains).

I just pointed out that some people really don't like to even consider
the issue of a large mammalian brain (e.g., 5x human size) in a creature
that is regularly slaughtered purely for financial gain.

Strange how you responded with the strawmen wasn't it?
:think:

[muriel_volestrangler]

32. To be fair, the thread up to this point has been about intelligence and brain and body size

not about whether we kill certain species or not. That may have been what you meant in post #27, but if you read the posts in the sub-thread through, and just take what you put in post #27, I think you'll see it wasn't clear that was what you meant.

[Xithras]

30. It's a ratio between body size and brain size.

The brain of the whale is 5x as large, but the whale body is about 500x more massive than a human body.

Whales do have a sufficiently large cereberum to potentially have a higher level of intelligence than some other animals, but the majority of their brain matter is dedicated to controlling and regulating their massive bodies. This limits their potential intelligence.

[xchrom]

31. right -- i've admitted that -- but efficiency of use would

make a noticeable difference -=- both in us and animals.

animals like cats with minimal expansion of their brain size would come even closer than they are now to what most would recognize as sentience.

more i want to reiteratethat animals have their own innate intelligence and we keep trying to compare the two.

even improving on a cat's intelligence doesn't mean we'd see it as smarter.

[tinrobot]

34. It's more related to the amount of folding in the cortex

Most of the higher functions happen there, and more folds means more surface area and more cells with which to perform those higher cognitive functions.

Human brain folds are a highly evolved trait. Only mammals have evolved this ability and amongst them only cats, dogs, monkeys, dolphins and humans. Other animals and mammals like rats are still have their 'primitive' flat, unfolded brains.

[caraher]

21. It would be at least as difficult as it would be pointless

even leaving aside all the questions of how to define "smart"

[Phoonzang]

22. Ask again in 50 years....

:)

[Odin2005]

35. Now, probably not. In the future, yes.

Sci-Fi author David Brin's "Uplift" novels involve a galactic civilization that does it all the time, and us humans are a shocker to them because there is no widely-believed evidence that we were "uplifted" to sapience like all the rest.

[scubadude]

37. I think Larry Niven wrote some Sci-Fi's about this.

I thing they were written 30 years ago or more. They were called the "Uplift Series" if my mind is working properly.

Some pretty good stuff. David Brin wrote a few similar stories, with a favorite being "Startide Rising". Very good indeed.

Scuba