How smart are we?
30/06/25 02:19
Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, is one of the world’s spectacularly beautiful places. For people who love mountain scenery like I do, the area is one of those “takes your breath away” places. A dam now controls the natural lake, covering about 50 square miles with stunning mountain scenes. Interstate 90 passes along the lake's northern shore and goes through the city of Coeur d’Alene, a city of about 50,000 residents with a wide range of tourist services and activities. Our church has a camp on the lake's southeast shore, near Harrison. The politics of the region are complex. For decades, the remote areas of north Idaho have attracted people with extreme political viewpoints. It is clear, however, that people of all different political perspectives are attracted to the region's natural beauty.
Stories are coming out of Coeur d’Alene this morning about a terrible shooting that occurred yesterday. Details are sketchy, and I don’t have any inside information about what happened, but firefighters responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain in the early afternoon. When they arrived and began to set up to attack the blaze, a sniper started shooting at them. Three were transported to the hospital. Two perished from their wounds. Because of the gunman, crews had to be pulled back from the fire as law enforcement officers were brought into the area. An armored vehicle was used to provide cover from officers receiving fire. An intense gun battle followed. By the end of the evening, a tactical response team discovered the body of a man with a firearm nearby.
The incident adds one more story of shooters armed with high-powered weapons aiming at innocent victims. According to Wikipedia, there have been 169 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. this year, with 216 people killed and 643 wounded. The Coeur d’Alene incident may not make that list, as a mass shooting is defined as an attack where four or more people, excluding the perpetrator(s), are shot in a single location at roughly the same time.
I don’t need to know the details, however, to know that what happened involved a human being with a human brain that forged a plan to target other humans. We humans are pretty proud of our brains. Our brains make up about 2% of our body weight. They are larger than most other animals, except elephants and whales. Anthropologists credit the development of the human brain with the ability to form communities, survive extreme conditions, and become dominant creatures on this planet. Greater intelligence has been associated with greater success in life. Humans frequently assume we are better than other creatures because we are smarter.
The prevalence of human-on-human violence, however, raises the question of whether or not our brains make for a better life. Discoveries about the communication and coordination of activities of other species of animals and insects raise questions about whether our large brains make us superior to other creatures. We may be too smart for our own good. Maybe human intelligence isn’t as great as we think it is.
Several authors have written about a concept known as the beekeeper’s dilemma. I have been pondering this question recently. It is time to start harvesting honey from the hives I tend, and spending time with the bees is always an amazing experience for me. This week, I have been reading Christina Baldwin’s 2024 novel, The Beekeeper’s Question, set during World War II, so I have been reflecting on the idea. The beekeeper’s dilemma is: “If humans are so smart, why can’t we learn to live and work together as effectively as honeybees?”
One obvious answer is that bees operate in a society of females. Male bees have only one function and are not major players in the rest of the life of the hive. We observe, as beekeepers, the industriousness and coordination of female bees. The answer is less than satisfying, however. Women in leadership positions have made poor decisions. Governments with women in charge have not proven inherently more peaceful than those headed by men. Although men are much more likely to perpetrate violence, there are rare cases where women have committed mass shootings. A 15-year-old female shot and killed two people and injured six more last December at a school in Wisconsin.
Justin Gregg, a senior researcher with the Dolphin Communication Project, has written a book suggesting that human intelligence is a big problem for humans and life on Earth. Published in 2022, “If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal” gives multiple examples of how human thinking has caused significant environmental problems, led to more mass extinction in a short time than asteroid strikes, and threatened the long-term survival of humans on this planet. He says that people often ask if humans are more intelligent than dolphins. He responds that it might be bad if dolphins were as intelligent as humans. Maybe human intelligence isn’t all that great. “At least,” he writes, “human intelligence isn’t the thing we should be comparing other animals’ way of thinking against.”
From a philosophical viewpoint, the idea that our way of thinking causes trouble is an ancient concept. Saint Augustine refined and promoted the idea of original sin. He posited that being born human made one a source of evil and needing redemption. Philosophers and theologians have argued the concept for centuries. While I am not convinced that humans are inherently evil, it is clear that we are capable of tremendous destruction to other species, to other humans, and ourselves. And that capability comes, in large part, from our mental capacity and ability to imagine.
A bee’s brain is tiny compared to a human brain. It contains about a million neurons and complex synaptic connections that produce sophisticated cognitive abilities. A human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons. Comparing them, however, is meaningless. We don’t know whether bees experience joy. It makes no sense to say that we are happier because of the size of our brains. We are different from bees, dolphins, and other creatures that display intelligence. That difference can make us more destructive. It also may make us more capable of discovering solutions to the challenges of our time.
Only time will tell whether we are as smart as we think.
Stories are coming out of Coeur d’Alene this morning about a terrible shooting that occurred yesterday. Details are sketchy, and I don’t have any inside information about what happened, but firefighters responded to a fire at Canfield Mountain in the early afternoon. When they arrived and began to set up to attack the blaze, a sniper started shooting at them. Three were transported to the hospital. Two perished from their wounds. Because of the gunman, crews had to be pulled back from the fire as law enforcement officers were brought into the area. An armored vehicle was used to provide cover from officers receiving fire. An intense gun battle followed. By the end of the evening, a tactical response team discovered the body of a man with a firearm nearby.
The incident adds one more story of shooters armed with high-powered weapons aiming at innocent victims. According to Wikipedia, there have been 169 mass shooting incidents in the U.S. this year, with 216 people killed and 643 wounded. The Coeur d’Alene incident may not make that list, as a mass shooting is defined as an attack where four or more people, excluding the perpetrator(s), are shot in a single location at roughly the same time.
I don’t need to know the details, however, to know that what happened involved a human being with a human brain that forged a plan to target other humans. We humans are pretty proud of our brains. Our brains make up about 2% of our body weight. They are larger than most other animals, except elephants and whales. Anthropologists credit the development of the human brain with the ability to form communities, survive extreme conditions, and become dominant creatures on this planet. Greater intelligence has been associated with greater success in life. Humans frequently assume we are better than other creatures because we are smarter.
The prevalence of human-on-human violence, however, raises the question of whether or not our brains make for a better life. Discoveries about the communication and coordination of activities of other species of animals and insects raise questions about whether our large brains make us superior to other creatures. We may be too smart for our own good. Maybe human intelligence isn’t as great as we think it is.
Several authors have written about a concept known as the beekeeper’s dilemma. I have been pondering this question recently. It is time to start harvesting honey from the hives I tend, and spending time with the bees is always an amazing experience for me. This week, I have been reading Christina Baldwin’s 2024 novel, The Beekeeper’s Question, set during World War II, so I have been reflecting on the idea. The beekeeper’s dilemma is: “If humans are so smart, why can’t we learn to live and work together as effectively as honeybees?”
One obvious answer is that bees operate in a society of females. Male bees have only one function and are not major players in the rest of the life of the hive. We observe, as beekeepers, the industriousness and coordination of female bees. The answer is less than satisfying, however. Women in leadership positions have made poor decisions. Governments with women in charge have not proven inherently more peaceful than those headed by men. Although men are much more likely to perpetrate violence, there are rare cases where women have committed mass shootings. A 15-year-old female shot and killed two people and injured six more last December at a school in Wisconsin.
Justin Gregg, a senior researcher with the Dolphin Communication Project, has written a book suggesting that human intelligence is a big problem for humans and life on Earth. Published in 2022, “If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal” gives multiple examples of how human thinking has caused significant environmental problems, led to more mass extinction in a short time than asteroid strikes, and threatened the long-term survival of humans on this planet. He says that people often ask if humans are more intelligent than dolphins. He responds that it might be bad if dolphins were as intelligent as humans. Maybe human intelligence isn’t all that great. “At least,” he writes, “human intelligence isn’t the thing we should be comparing other animals’ way of thinking against.”
From a philosophical viewpoint, the idea that our way of thinking causes trouble is an ancient concept. Saint Augustine refined and promoted the idea of original sin. He posited that being born human made one a source of evil and needing redemption. Philosophers and theologians have argued the concept for centuries. While I am not convinced that humans are inherently evil, it is clear that we are capable of tremendous destruction to other species, to other humans, and ourselves. And that capability comes, in large part, from our mental capacity and ability to imagine.
A bee’s brain is tiny compared to a human brain. It contains about a million neurons and complex synaptic connections that produce sophisticated cognitive abilities. A human brain contains approximately 86 billion neurons. Comparing them, however, is meaningless. We don’t know whether bees experience joy. It makes no sense to say that we are happier because of the size of our brains. We are different from bees, dolphins, and other creatures that display intelligence. That difference can make us more destructive. It also may make us more capable of discovering solutions to the challenges of our time.
Only time will tell whether we are as smart as we think.
