How much smarter than animals are humans?

This is an interesting question and of course there are many ways to look at it. In fact, as you google around looking at this, you'll find there are tons of people trying to say how smart various animals are compared to Humans. This is consistent with the general cultural tendency. You need only watch a few minutes of any one of the thousands of nature shows and you'll find someone finding it remarkable that whales seem to be communicating with squeals and snorts. Or that otters use rocks to open shells - tools!.

But what blows me away is how huge the gap in general intelligence exists between Humans and the next nearest species. Oh, sure some apes can learn some primitive sign language - yippee!

Think about it. Isn't it amazing how much smarter we are than animals? Oh, don't give me that crap about animals being smart because they don't get caught up in the problems we humans create for ourselves. If only they had the brains. Everyone who has a high school diploma knows what 'smart' means. And animals are not smart - at least compared to humans.

I found one thoughtful article on the subject. They compared various attempts at measuring or putting a number at cognitive ability. They presented a few different approaches from brain size versus observed cognition to brain fold size etc. In every category; every time they came up with a measure, the human was FAR above the nearest 2nd place. The closest was the animal was 1/2 the Human. In the best measure - the interconnection between neurons - humans were 100 times the next nearest creature!

Truely, this is an amazing thing. And no one is talking about it. But try this and see what happens. Next time you are at lunch or a party with a group of people, ask them this: In terms of intelligence, if humans are 100 and stones are zero, where is the next closest animal to the human on this scale? The resulting conversation may surprise you.

So, can we at least say that we Humans are WAY smarter than any other animal yet discovered? I mean wouldn't the next closest animal be at most a 50? What's wrong with that? Why, as I type this, do I hear thousands of voices out there in the internet-sphere, clamoring to disagree and argue that this is inappropriate or wrong?

What animals have mathematics? What animals, pass even 1/10th the amount of learning from one generation to the next? How about this test: place the human and any animal you choose in a large cage with a loaded gun in the center. Who do you think will survive? Or, line up cages with all sorts of animals - one of which is human. Show a movie to all the animals describing how to open a device that requires a combination of things. Inside that combination is food appropriate for that animal. Any guess who gets to the food first?

Yet, no one is amazed by this. Why are all the other animals so dumb? Why isn't there another closer animal to humans in intelligence? And why are we not amazed by this?

Interesting. Something in the world today doesn't want us to acknowledge that we are the smartest animal - by far. Is it because people prefer to think of humans as only just another animal? Wonder why?

Of course, on the other hand, the same people that would argue that the animal is only slightly less intelligent (or maybe not even less at all!) are the same ones who would argue that the God, if he/she exists, is not very much smarter than humans.

No, I think that God created mankind in his image and therefore mankind is way smarter than the rest of the animals. And it's OK to be proud of that. God made us that way.

Ok, so if mankind is WAY smarter than the next nearest animal, what about the difference between mankind and God?

What if there is a deception going on where our society is coaxed into believing that man, animals, plants, etc - they all are about the same. Therefore, God is not much different either.

Wonder if we are smart enough to understand what's really going on around us?