How intelligent are living beings?

[Polar]

This question has been long engrained within my mind for quite a while now, so I decided to ask it here.

Most humans will automatically assume that they are the most intellegent species, but I do not agree. While we are quite high up the scale in terms of some forms of intelligence, other animals (even primative mollusks and arachnids) can be quite intellegent in other forms.

Most carnivores know how to use their environment to determine how their hunt will go, as well as what physical action they will take to get that prey, and for how long of an estimated time to acquire it.

We, on the other hand, know how to control (or corrupt) financial and societal systems according to our needs (or the government's needs, in most cases.) We also have ones who know how to make weaponry based on their environmental needs, and have ample knowledge of how to physically disarm the human body (all other animals have this knowledge for their own kind too). 

Social animals such as us, other primates, and lions know how to use numbers to their advantage, and to create a sort of hierarchy in order to not cause each individual member of the group (or pride) to assume the wrong position.

Heck, octopuses have been shown to escape out of closed aquariums and even count!

I think this topic is quite an interesting one. My postulate is to say that all animals (at least the non-insectoid ones) are different in how they express their intellegence, one not more or less than the other in total intellegence levels. It is one that should be discussed with scientific research and anecdotal evidence, if any. Reply