comment: >
  
  Depends how you define smart. Can any animals do long division... no. Are they debating philosophy... no. Their brains are different to humans and work in different ways.
  However...
  Pigeons have iron-containing structures in their beaks, which allows them sense earth's electromagnetic field independent of their motion and posture, thus identifying geographical position.
  Elephants can keep track of up to 30 absent members of their family by sniffing out their scent and building a mental map of where they are.
  I bet you can't do any of that on your own. In other news...
  Chimpanzees have also been shown to be better at memory tasks than humans. Dolphins have biological sonars and Caledonian crows understand cause-and-effect relationships. 
  Some animals are definitely pretty smart.
context: They also overestimate humans. >
  
  Humans overestimate humans lol >
  
  Not really, we measure their intelligence by seeing what they are capable of doing which are usually things like problem solving and tool use which can indicate high intellect with a few examples of of highly intelligent animals like
  
  Cats
  Dogs
  Pigs
  Elephants
  Corvids
  Parrots
  Octopi
  Other great apes like Chimpanzees
  Racoons
  Dolphins and other cetaceans
  Fringed jumping spider
  
  And perhaps a few more >
  
  Ants dolphins rats >
  
  Added dolphins and thanks >
  
  Oh, primates and elephants. >
  
  ‘smart’ is complicated and nuanced and mostly subjective, and definitely relative. You are an animal. Are you smart? The gulf between humans and other animals only exists culturally, as in we’ve formed it like a religion in the recent few thousand years. >
  
  That has to be the dumbest thing I have heard. >
  
  I mean my guide dog is pretty smart in my opinion. Has saved me from being hit by silent deadly electric cars that make no noise more than once. >
  
  That is a very good dog. And guide dogs are more intelligent than other dogs. But your dog was trained to do it. It didnt figure it out on its own. It was normal that it did that because it's goal was to protect you. >
  
  I mean humans are also trained how to do most things no? Thats called school and parents. >
  
  Lol wtf. There wasn’t just “one guy”. It was tons of people who learnt from each other over 100s of years! >
  
  Same with animals genius… it’s called evolution. >
  
  Not what I’m referring to. Humans write things down and our knowledge is an accumulation of previous people’s findings. Dogs might teach their young pups some stuff, but not as much as humans do. We basically spend our first 20 years just learning about things people figured out before us. >
  
  Rubbish my cat could do a PhD in astrophysics if she wanted to. >
  
  Animals are very smart, they are extremely capable at surviving in their natural habitat with the means that are given to them. 
  People have this bad habit of anthropomorphizing things and holding them to human standards within human contexts.
  Wolves for example are incredible hunters, if you were to take away human tools and weapons most humans wouldn't even be able to compete against them. >
  
  I feel like surviving in your natural habit is a basic thing and not a sign of great intelligence. If you locked a wolf in a house it will die because it doesnt know how to open a fridge. >
  
  Definitely unpopular, because you’re incredibly wrong. Oversimplifying a massive topic, as eloquently as you have, may be the very proof of the possibility that humans aren’t the most intelligent living beings on our planet. Would you mind explaining your definition of “great intelligence” is it like the invention smartphones? Im pretty sure the natural world doesn’t waste its time on useless behaviors. 
  I’d honestly be curious to see (without your phone) how well you could navigate a 2500 mile migration from Canada to Central Mexico when compared to a butterfly. Monarchs do it every year. Arguably an insect is more intelligent and resilient in this regard to the vast majority people. Don’t even get me started with birds, sea turtles, whales…. Or even down to more basic forms of life like trees, fungi, viruses, bacteria.
  Human intelligence is not the only, or highest imo, form of intelligence on earth. We’re clearly not doing a great job at figuring out how to exist with nature without destroying it over the past 200,000 years. Intelligence of any species should probably be measured on how quickly they make their habitat uninhabitable and die off. Just because we have an understanding of what we qualify as intelligence (which is mostly hypothesis, theoretics, along with data based conclusions and laws), doesn’t and shouldn’t imply that it’s superior to massive parts of natures functionality of which we have essentially zero understanding or comprehension of. Animals have been here long before us, and likely for long after.
  To debunk your refrigerator theory, just go camping in an active carnivorous predator area with food in your car.. 
  Most predators would get into the fridge eventually…some much faster then others. Have you never been in an area with active wildlife like say, bears, wolves, mountain lion, lynx, fox, coyote, hell even racoons? Bears will straight up open a car door, house door, break through windows, tip dumpsters for any trace of food or trash left inside. Source: myself and everyone who’s been around wildlife at any point throughout recorded humanity.
  Edited for spelling >
  
  I wouldn't call an incorrect opinion unpopular. >
  
  How so? Typically people (should) base their beliefs, or  opinions, off of facts found by empirical evidence…  Incorrect opinions are often times unpopular as they’ve been repeatedly debunked; say flat earthers or people who believe birds aren’t real. I see what youre saying but the terms aren’t mutually exclusive. >
  
  The way I see it opinion and beliefs are different things.
  If you have an opinion on something it may be subjective or unpopular, but it's your personal idea of something (like someone may think coffee is the inferior breakfast beverage), it's not something that can be factually wrong.
  Whereas a belief is something more akin to a fact, or an idea that is objective (like the fact that bird exist).
  Maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but I've always thought that they were different things. So, with this reasoning, an opinion that is just factually wrong isn't unpopular and wrong, it's just wrong. >
  
  Like I said before- I understand what you're getting at.. Where I agree with you is really the spirit of this board- Subjective opinions- like your example of coffee. There's no inherent truth on ones preferences in this case, or many of the actually engaging posts on this board. Unfortunately, there's been a ton of opinions flooding this board based off of false beliefs as of late.
  Where we don't agree is that beliefs are typically based off of facts. It's actually quite the opposite. Beliefs are convictions based off of ones personal values/enviornment/behavior/character. By definition, beliefs are permanently subjective. From belief structures, you draw your own opinions. Take for example religion, or the validity of vaccinations, or Hilary Clinton being a "Lizard Person".... Very weird times lol. Many people hold false beliefs that color their also false opinion. 
  Another example is a child believing in Santa Clause. They also hold the opinion that Santa Clause is real. Spoiler alert-  >! Santa isn't real !< . So, in cases like these their belief is false, and so is their opinion. 
  In intellectual settings like the medical field, these words hold incredibly different values (when compared to this board), because they should be based off of data/statistics collected by empirical evidence collected through research studies. >
  
  They are very smart... For an example; ants can make bridges to cross massive water bodies they couldn't do by themselves. That's pretty intelligent. Or how dolphins literally are  second only to us humans in smarts >
  
  
  dolphins literally are second only to us
  
  That’s means nothing. In any given ranking system, there is always gonna be a second place… what’s your point. It doesn’t mean they are anywhere near first. >
  
  Some explanation of what 2nd place is capable of, so you can compare with 1st:
  Tool use, region specific language and accents, utilising environment for hunting, utilising prey biology for hunting, complex social systems, grief,surfing, drug use, sentience, self aware, tool use, teaching skills and language to the next generation - a form of culture. Etc.
  Seem pretty damn smart to me >
  
  My vote is on orangutans. They use tools. Observe and copy behavior, and then decide they want to continue that behavior. Like for example, they will steal soap bars to use on themselves. >
  
  And drive golf carts! >
  
  I think many animals are very smart but i also agree some arent and we call them smart.
  Like how we do toddlers, or our children. 
  But like the saying goes: "If we judge a fish for its ability to climb a tree, we'll think they're stupid." >
  
  The first thing I've ever learned in Artificial Intelligence lessons was "Intelligence is ability to survive in given environment."
  So, fish is super smart in water. But super stupid outside. >
  
  When people call an animal smart, they mean they are smart in the context of animals, not in the context of humans. You are just misunderstanding people and then disagreeing with them because you misunderstand. Perhaps it is you who is not smart my friend. >
  
  Humans are animals still. Yes no animal comes close to human interms of intelligence but i think its more of the fact people keep forgetting or don’t want to accept humans are animals >
  
  Yes, obviously. I haven’t forgotten that humans are technically a part of the animal kingdom, the term ‘animal’ is just commonly used to mean species in the animal kingdom that are not humans. I think my meaning was fairly obvious, and I’m not sure why you care so much whether people refer to humans as animals or not. >
  
  Not that i care but im mainly saying this because when people talk about animal intelligence they tend to think humans are some o different entity entirely >
  
  That's because the gap is so enormous. The main difference between us and other animals is our ability to share knowledge in the form of writing. We stand on the shoulders of giants