Are Tigers 'Brainier' Than Lions?

[Amnon242]

What I said:

1. Africans are more social.

Polar said "African people are more openly social and expressive (more like Americans), but Japanese people are just as social within their close-knit group. Basically the latter has more barriers and barricades when it comes to introducing people, much like many Europeans."

I basically agree. Although I think that african people have better verbal skills (they seem to be better at communication - japanese mentality is more introvert). And I think that this can be compared to social behavuiour of lions and tigers (who are in fact more social than it seems at first sight). Anyway...as I noticed, even within ther close-knit groups japanese (or asian) people behave more like introverts, their communication is much more quiet and not that intense. And for japanese people (as well as for some nordic Europeans) is typical high number of people who live so solitary life, that it can be regarded as some kind of social isolation (but discussion about the mentalities of human races or nations is not my intention). Anyway, I still believe that my statement that Africans are more social is at least to some extent correct.    

2. Did I say that Japanese are more intelligent than african people? No. Did I say anything wrong about any people? No. 

3. What is my point? Social skills are only part of what we call intelligence. Open, expressive, extrovert, communicative etc. people are (as a group) not overall more intelligent than introverts (better communication skills of extroverts are often compensated by better skills of introverts in other fields). If one group is more social, it doesnt make them more intelligent than the other group (which can be characterized as more solitary).

I used that simple illustrative example with african and japanese people, because for me they represent opposite poles when it comes to extrovert/introvert or social/solitary mentality. Why I used this exapmple? To show that more social beings (animals, people) are not automatically more intelligent than more solitary beings. On the other hand I belive, that on average, skills of extrovert/introvert people or social/solitary animals is distributed in somewhat different way.

I could use different example - extrovert communicative managers vs introvert (sometimes anti-social) programmers. Who is overal more intelligent? Hard to say - probably equal. Are there any differencies in the distribution of abilities? Probably yes.

Lions are more like managers, tigers are more like experts. Reply