
Stupendous intelligence of honey badgers - Petiver
http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/stupendous-intelligence-of-honey-badgers/
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jancsika
The term "badger" only appears twice in the article:

1\. As a throwaway: "But even here, other animals, insofar as they entered
into the philosophical discussion of mind at all, were just that: animals. Not
badger or beaver, bee or bull. Not geladas or gerenuk, chevrotain or fossa.
But just generically animal."

2\. As a juicy thread that is left completely unexamined. "But there are
plenty of less familiar examples: from zebra fish and moray eels to the
stupendous intelligence of the honey badger."

This is the quintessential example of clickbait.

Edit: Can anyone fill in the missing thread about the less familiar
"stupendous intelligence of the honey badger"? I've seen the well-known clips
of them escaping their area in the zoo. I'd love to read any other studies
that shed more light on their behavior.

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n4r9
I was excited by this title as I've heard about honey badgers in regards to
their fearlessness but little about their intelligence. Alas, the article
itself has nothing to a totally say on this matter.

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dnotq
Honey Badgers are pretty awesome. If I had another life to live I would move
to Australia and spend at least 10 years working with honey badgers.

PBS produced a great documentary on them called "Honey Badgers: Masters of
Mayhem", which exemplifies their intelligence, curiosity, and persistence. If
you are a ferret owner (or just like ferrets in general), you will immediately
relate to the honey badger and have an affection for them.

The documentary used to be on NetFlix but was pulled recently (not sure why).
However, it is available to watch on the PBS website:

[http://www.pbs.org/video/2365179375/](http://www.pbs.org/video/2365179375/)

Amazon also has it for sale (absolutely worth the $6 they are asking for it),
and of course someone posted it on YouTube. It is 53 minutes well worth
spending.

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bitwize
Honey badgers don't live in Australia, except maybe in zoos. They are native
to Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and India.

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ryandvm
It's gonna be a long 10 years.

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jacquesm
I don't know much about honey badgers, I've never seen them in the wild but
their very distant cousins (also in the 'dog like' sub-order) the raccoons are
incredible. On a property in Canada I found a raccoon family living in the
attic above the chicken coop...

It had been a mystery for a long time how the raccoons got in and out of the
chicken coop without leaving any traces other than dead or entirely
disappearing chickens. They basically set themselves up on top of a fast food
restaurant. Hungry? Let's go grab some chicken.

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joshuaheard
I couldn't help but think of the YouTube video about honey badgers: "Honey
badger don't care!"

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg)

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andygcook
This video about a honey badger in captivity is fascinating. The honey badger
figures out about 5 different ways to break free of it's cage, even using
tools to do so. Well worth the watch.

[https://youtu.be/c36UNSoJenI](https://youtu.be/c36UNSoJenI)

[edit: spelling]

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a2decrow
TFA isn't about honey badgers or their intelligence, but about the arrogant
stance of the common homo sapiens on other species.

End of the day, humans aren't anything special. They're just another part of
nature.

~~~
noir_lord
When it comes to intelligence humans are special, its silly to say we aren't.

By definition been the single most intelligent species on the planet makes us
special.

We get excited when other species display intelligence at a level we'd expect
to see in a toddler because its fascinating to us, hell the fact that we
systematically study other species itself puts us in another category.

~~~
a2decrow
Think about how dumb the average human is and then realize half of them are
dumber than that.

Humans have become the dominant species for two reasons:

1\. Our ability to reason

2\. Our technological superiority

Many animals can rival or exceed the intelligence of the average human, but
due to the fact that they're seen as "just animals" and that they can't
communicate with us in a matter we understand (nor care about doing it) makes
humans think they are superior in every way. Then, whenever scientific
progression proves that animals aren't as dumb as they look, humans have to
come up with new arguments to separate themselves from other species.

It's the typical arrogant and limited view of the common homo sapiens.

 _Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the
world. \-- Arthur Schopenhauer_

~~~
noir_lord
> Many animals can rival or exceed the intelligence of the average human.

That is an absurd assertion, the 'average' human being can use language at a
level far beyond what any other species that demonstrates language can,
complex tools, create even more complex tools from those already complex
tools, write down the things they have learnt and gain knowledge from the
things other humans have learnt and written down, create _sophisticated_
predictive models of the world and test them refining the models as they go.

Do animals have intelligence, absolutely, is it in the same realm as the
_average_ human, not even close.

The difference in vast, there were other species with intelligence comparable
to our own, they went extinct (and it's arguable that we are the reason why) I
refer of course to the other species in the Genus Homo, the neanderthal's and
others.

We had competition from other species and we eliminated it not intentionally
we just out-competed them (and interbred with them but since we where more
numerous the end result was the same though their genes are still present).

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a2decrow
What you are describing is called _education_ and _technological superiority_.
Take one of those away and see what happens.

And whether the extinction of neanderthals and other species close to ours is
due to intelligence or other influences can't be reliably proven. It's just
the way nature evolved and it could have gone any other way as well.

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yjftsjthsd-h
> education

Tempting, but no; we've tried raising primates like human children, and
teaching them sign language. Childrearing went fine until age... 3 or 5, I
forget, and then they hit a wall and stopped getting smarter. ASL went alright
but still falls short of human levels.

~~~
a2decrow
Trying to teach them human inventions that are developed by and for humans and
then calling them inferior when they don't succeed in using them to the
fullest extent is pretty short-sighted. You can't teach every human every
invention we ever made either. Some people suck at math, others excel at it.
Are the people that suck at it now intellectually inferior to those that excel
at math?

I also wrote _taking it away_ , implying humans, not giving it to animals.
Educate a dolphin all you want, I don't think you're going to get very far.

