Discovering Darwin

 In this episode we discuss Chapter 3: The Mind from Darwin's Descent of Man. We are joined by a very special guest - Dr. Ellen Furlong from Illinois Wesleyan University who studies cognition in dogs. In this chapter Darwin spends some time going through a litany of traits that he associates with intelligence. His goal is to get the reader to recognize that humans, although very intelligent, are only different in degree and not in kind when compared to other animals. The list of traits Darwin thought indicated intelligence were:CuriosityImitationAttentionMemoryImaginationReasonProgressive ImprovementTools and weapon useAbstractionSelf-consciousnessLanguageSense of BeautyComplex emotions Belief in God, superstition, etc.Darwin started off the discussion clarifying the difference between instinct and intelligence and noted some researchers proposed that instinct and intelligence are an inverse ratio to each other, the more your behaviors are dictated by instinct the less intelligence, as defined