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

One reason is that human brains and chimp brains don’t work the same way, they each have evolved to adapt to their environment and needs. Human brains are built to develop language and abstraction, whereas chimp brains are better adapted to agility and other chimpy things.

What this leads to is that chimps can easily get *really good* at simple tasks, but it would take a particularly special chimp to get anywhere near being able to read.
On the other hand, humans need a lot of practise for even simple stuff like walking, but we’re able to go much deeper and form much more complex models in our minds, which is why we can read and write, do mathematics, design machines, etc…