If a chimp of average intelligence is about as intelligent as your average 3 year old, what’s the barrier keeping a truly exceptional chimp from being as bright as an average adult?

Question

That’s pretty much it. I searched, but I didn’t find anything that addressed my exact question.

It’s frequently said that chimps have the intelligence of a 3 year old human. But some 3 year olds are smarter than others, just like some animals are smarter than others of the same species. So why haven’t we come across a chimp with the intelligence of a 10 year old? Like…still pretty dumb, but able to fully use and comprehend written language. Is it likely that this “Hawking chimp” has already existed, but since we don’t put forth much effort educating (most) apes we just haven’t noticed? Or is there something else going on, maybe some genetic barrier preventing them from ever truly achieving sapience? I’m not expecting an ape to write an essay on Tolstoy, but it seems like as smart as we know these animals to be we should’ve found one that could read and comprehend, for instance, The Hungry Caterpillar as written in plain english.

In: Biology

Answer 1

I read a funny and sad comment at the same time. There was a question that went something like “why is there a problem to design a proper trash can” in one of the public wilderness parks. And the response from the forest ranger was that there is a significant overlap from the dumbest people and smartest bears. If that makes sense? English is not my first language so it might have been worded differently