Mind Matters Natural and Artificial Intelligence News and Analysis

TagStanley Coren

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Training of dog. Close up of pet keeper holding treats over blurred background of adorable golden retriever. Excited fluffy dog waiting for favorite snack while executing sit command

Science Writing: Dog Intelligence Compared With Baby Intelligence

It’s an odd question because what we should be asking is, “Are kittens and puppies smarter than babies?”
The comparison doesn’t really work but it underlines the *doctrine* that human intelligence is just another type of animal intelligence. Read More ›
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Border Collie puppies

Can a Dog Be Bred To Be As Smart As a Human?

An enterprising electrical engineer thinks it can be done

Within one hundred generations or roughly 600 years? That’s the project Payton Pearson, an electrical engineer who gives his affiliation as the Air Force Institute of Technology in Dayton, Ohio, has set himself: Artificial selection is a well-known phenomenon of selecting for certain physiological characteristics of various species of plants and animals, and it is something that human beings have been doing for thousands of years. A perfect example of this is the union and development of dogs under human stewardship since the beginning of the agricultural era of society. In that time, approximately 6,000 years [1], dogs have been artificially selected in such a way as to produce thousands of different breeds. From the stout Dachshund, a dog breed Read More ›