Ants making smart maneuver

[u/Natchos09]

[u/DontKnowIamBi]

Source

This is true... Holy shit..

[u/tsukiii_ → u/DontKnowIamBi]

Link doesn’t work for me :( what’s it about?

[u/LordLederhosen → u/tsukiii_]

I found a working link:

https://www.weizmann.ca/ants-vs-humans-putting-group-smarts-to-the-test/

[u/mbsmith93 → u/LordLederhosen]

Fascinating. Scientific evidence that ants get smarter when there's more of them, while humans get dumber. For that specific task anyways.

[u/breckendusk → u/mbsmith93]

To be fair, they did tell the humans not to communicate, or to reduce communications to resemble those of ants - ignoring the fact that ants still communicate with pheromones and are used to non-verbal, non-gestural communication whereas humans are not.

That being said, speaking over each other probably would not have been helpful either.

[u/NubDestroyer → u/breckendusk]

It only says in some cases they were told not to communicate and made not able to do so

[u/breckendusk → u/NubDestroyer]

Yes, but it isn't clear on whether or not that affected the results, which leads me to believe it made a difference that is not being reported on.

[u/NubDestroyer → u/breckendusk]

Yeah it's really weird that it doesn't talk about the difference between the communication and non communication tests. Simply just says they got even worse when not allowed to communicate

[u/LordLederhosen → u/mbsmith93]

I almost want to ask Sean Carroll on Bluesky if this is emergence.

Is it?

[u/Inevitable_gamer01 → u/mbsmith93]

this research seems too stupid to say humans are stupider than ants, humans were banned from all types of communication as well as gestures, and they had to cover their face and eyes, while the ants didn't have any restrictions, and the humans spent much less time on the puzzle as well as less time trying the same things overall, yet ants are smarter???

literally doesn't prove anything other than that when ants are given enough manpower and time will solve a puzzle, eventual but surely