OK, so how about the fact that they haven't figured out how to heal broken bones? Is that my arrogance again, or is it that they would just prefer to flop on the ground until nightfall and then be eaten alive by coyotes?

And how are crows supposed to defend wounded fellows from coyotes? Or carry them to safety?

How about the fact they can apparently build compound tools from parts?

Your example isn't just about brains. It requires both proper bodies and arguably complex social behaviors, which are quite separate from intelligence itself.

I agree with missedthecue that this response is kind of ridiculous. We know things about anaesthesia, blood clotting, soft tissue, and our physical actions are informed by an amassed body of knowledge and an ability to reason from that knowledge and apply it with a degree of sophiscation that crows don't apply, even within the domains of things that are easy for them physically to do.

This is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if I'm missing the point. Is this sarcasm? Is this playing devil's advocate to prove some kind of point?

Edit: TDLR - There are many affirmations, assumptions, and a lot of confidence in those in many of the responses here. And I seriously doubt most of them are supported by anything more than gut feelings and certainties of unknown origins.

---

> We know things about anaesthesia, blood clotting, soft tissue, [...]

Actually, most of us don't know much, if anything, about any of this. Heck, for all most of us know, it could actually be wizardry powered by small elves running in hamster wheels.

> and our physical actions are informed by an amassed body of knowledge and an ability to reason from that knowledge and apply it with a degree of sophiscation [...]

That really doesn't match most of human behaviors I can observe around me, online or in the street. Actually, it seems that implementing informed and vaguely rational decision-making is a great way to improve many things.

It often feels like we merely are pompous and arrogant monkeys who are lucky some of their ancestors built most of what's around us.

> This is so ridiculous that I'm wondering if I'm missing the point.

That's my fault. I'll try to make it clear.

- Intelligence is hard to measure.

- Our biases, as individuals and as a species, are huge.

- Our knowledge, as individuals, on other living things' perspectives, is laughable.

- Objectives and desired outcomes are relative.

- Outcomes' prerequisites are many, diverse, and often unknown.

Meaning:

-> We really don't know much,

--> Unless approaching the subject with a scientific method and an open mind, any opinion could only be founded on pre-conceived notions, gut feelings, limited personal experience, and unfounded "common sense" and "cultural knowledge.

Thus:

---> Having and expressing any personal opinion on this subject, based on anything else than scientific experience, is both pointless and presumptuous.

And now we can go into the credit we should give to science, the limits of the scientific methods, and probably many other things.

What you're pointing out is human culture, not the wits of human individuals. For the vast majority of human existence and for most humans alive today there is no such knowledge or practice.

I don't think this rebuttal holds much water. Humans are capable of doing things that our bodies cannot. We domesticated beasts of burden in order to move heavy objects from one place to another for instance.

But consider very basic advancements. Communication for instance is something humans mastered from the outset. We are able to store and pass down information beyond the instinctual for generations, something no other animal has done. Imagine if humans needed to rediscover mathematics every generation!

There are plenty of examples I could give that would provide crows with an immediate improvement in the quality of life. I think the reason they have not done these things is because they cannot, rather than because they have chosen not to.

> I don't think this rebuttal holds much water.

I don't know if it does. But I surely ain't convinced by gp.

> Humans are capable of doing things that our bodies cannot. We domesticated beasts of burden in order to move heavy objects from one place to another for instance.

I would be curious as to how a crow is supposed to domesticate an ox. Or even a dog. Birds are extremely fragile.

As for communication, well, it's both a matter of intelligence and sociability. And they do seem to be able to communicate information "beyond the instinctual" (such as how to identify specific human individuals [1])

As for "can't vs won't", my point isn't that they don't want to. I don't know. I don't know what they can or cannot do. I don't know how their minds work. And I don't know what are the actual prerequisites for our species accomplishment.

And that is exactly my point: assuming anything about such radically different creatures, or the actual prerequisites for our species', solely based on our limited experience and insights, is both vain and presumptuous.

[1]: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2011.095...

Can you heal a shattered leg all by yourself with no one around? I guarantee you’ll lay on the ground until nightfall and probably be eaten by coyotes (since you’re a human, they /might/ leave you alone).

If you have someone with you, maybe they can carry you. Crows can’t carry other crows. If they wanted to fix the other crow, they’d have to do it where the crow fell. It would still get eaten by coyotes. They can’t protect the downed bird, so it will still be eaten. Ergo, why bother trying to heal the bone?

I think what's really at the core of this is whether crows would figure out such advances given sufficient evolutionary pressure to do so. One could reason that crows are smart enough to avoid most situations that would cause broken bones but if something forced them to adapt, would they for example evolve thicker, stronger bones. Or if their common predators disappeared, would that allow them to build more permanent communities where they had the spare time to learn about their environment enough to manipulate it?

Humans by and large, especially in less forgiving environments with harsh winters, are helpless without the ability to manipulate their environment seeing as they are hairless apes who without modern medicine could die from an infection from a mere scratch.

Basically, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison.

Why crows haven't invented stretchers to carry fellow crows to safety? Making a stretcher doesn't look more complicated than building a nest.

A crow can carry about 1.5 lbs in flight. A crow weighs at most 4.5 lbs. Let's assume a stretcher that can carry a crow by more than one crow to weigh another 1-2 lbs. At most, the total payload would be ~5 lbs which requires at least 4 crows. I don't think that kind of coordination is possible with that kind of turbulence in such close quarters.

So why bother?

Humanity couldn't for 99.61% of its existence either and apes in general couldn't for nearly 100% of their existence. If we were to rely on your criterion, then all humans before a few thousand years ago would be deemed unintelligent, whereas we know they are essentially identical to us.

Occam's razor suggests that "not capable" is a better explanation than "not interested in", when considering things that are clearly an immediate and strong benefit to a life form.

Then you must be fundamentally and essentially "not capable" of masonry since that's a much simpler explanation than your lack of motivation and opportunity.

I absolutely am capable of masonry, I just don't do it much because I'm also capable of getting (by using money) someone else who's capable and willing to do it for me. Same applies to just about any other thing anyone outsources in their lives, but the end result is the same - the advanced work gets done. Other animals don't demonstrate any of that.