In Gita Simonsen's article, how smart are animals?, she talks about the problems scientists have in testing
animal intelligence. One problem is defining animal intelligence. one of the methods is that scientist look at
human traits when studying animal intelligence, but in this way, they can't truly evaluate animal intelligence.
This method doesn't consider other aspects of intelligence used by animals, because humans don't possess it.
Another method is used with mammals: The weight of their brains is used to assess their intelligence. With
this method it has been found that dolphins are highly intelligent, but there is no way to prove it because
humans can't communicate with them. Another problem is that it is considered that humans must be smarter
than any other animal. In a study that found that bees outperformed human babies, scientists concluded that
it was flawed and that bees were just following their instincts. A new method consists in studying the neural
networks of animals to perceive what traits they are designed to allow. But with this method it is difficult to
study minuscule brains. Gita Simonsen concludes the article by quoting Gro Amdam. In which Amdam
mentions that scientists need to develop better methods to compare the brain skills of different species.