Two good points you made there. However....

First, if going hunting is part of critical thinking then every cat for example who "decides" to hunt mice it doesn't need or want to eat must be thinking critically when it gets up off the chair in the living room and "decides" to go out and do its thing. Or is it only an uncontrollable "urge" simply because a human didn't do it.

Conversely I'm not convinced there is a lot of critical thinking (perhaps a small enough amount for a cat) in hunting. For a human with a gun the amount of brain power required is even less than for a cat. Someone who IS clever (i.e. the gun inventoer/designer) provides someone who could easily aford to be well below average intelligence the ability to overcome their physical disadavantages comapred to their prey by being able to kill it from a great distance and without any great strength or fighting skill).

If you give a chimp a gun it can learn to pull the trigger (just make sure you're standing well behind it :-)

Also, chimps hunt, sometime for reasons other than food, political and social reasons for example within their group. They even appear to show signs of pleasure when they are doing it.

On the second point of the average human being more intelligent than the average non-human. You are right of course, but I didn't realise that was the subject of the debate. If it is and I've misunderstood that

then there it is ..no more to be said.

However, the title of the debate is "how MUCH smarter are WE than animals". This implies two things...

1 -that it has already been accepted beyond doubt the "we" are. (i.e. the question is "how much smarter are we" rather then "are we at all").

So the question itself is based on an unproven assumption and everyone else here has incorrectly accepted that unproven assumption as taken for granted. To me the questioner was referring to all of us (i.e. an unqualified "we"). If so then the answer is still no "we" are not (or some of aren't anyway"). If the question had been "how much smarter are the top 3/4 of intelligent humans than the rest of life on earth" that would be a different matter entirely and the difference would be that between the least intelligent of the top 3/4 and the most intelligent of rest - obviously.

Finally, why does my point about infants and retards matter? Well, it PROVES that intelligence is independent of species.

Again the questioner is not asking "how much smarter are our human adults than animal adults and human children/retards than anuimal chidren retards" so suggesting that we compare them separately is not relevant.

My point remains that being "human" does not automatically define greater intelligence, so the original question is something of a moot point being based on a, frankly arrogant, false assumption if considered accurately and truly objectively.

You said...

"Animals do not build, do not invent, do not create, do not debate, do not inspire, do not become inspired, cannot rationalize, and are incapable of understanding even the simplest human emotions or thoughts"

With respect this is utter rubbish. Although it is possible you may be correct about not inspiring or becoming inspired ALL the other things in your list have been witnessed and documented in some animals (converselly there are many humans who are incapable of most, or even any, of these things - in fact we all are incapable of them for the first weeks/months of our lives even though we are members of the human species during that whole time, and some are never able to throughout their whole mentally retarded lives..sadly.)

First off, as we are also animals, like it or not, your traditional "them and us" attitude is outdated and inaccurate. Your facts are also incorrect...

Emotion - dogs pining themselves to death following the death of their masters - documented.

Build - ever seen a birds nest ? What is that if not something that was built ?

Invent - When a chimp takes small a branch from a tree and fashions it into a tool for hunting, eating, scratching etc. What else is he doing if not inventing tools for his particular needs, with forethought and planning. Visualising what he requires before creating it in accordance with that mental picture.

Create - both the above are also examples of this.

Debate - Definition: communicating opinions on a given topic with reasoned argument. Non-human example includes African Wild Hunting Dogs collectively reasoning on the best way of chasing a quarry, through vocal and visual communication (often followed by disagreement) and then resolution - all documented by scientists

Rationalisation - rational thought is required for debating and invention (above)

Simplest human emotions - fear, loss, joy etc. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that no non-human is capable of such things (too many examples to know where to begin here....dog pining, as above, elephants standing around the bodies of their dead famnily members for hours, even days lameting their loss, Otters observed enjoying play for the pure pleasure of it etc, etc) - all scientifically witnessed and documented.

You are generalising about humans and non-humans in much the same way as saying that for example "man are physically stronger than women". Yes, ON AVERAGE perhaps but their are probalby millions of cases globally of some whomen who are stronger than some men. The same argument applies with human and non-human animals. THere is no "them and us" you are far too simplistic.

A human-only trait which you SHOULD add to your list is steroetyping, which is what your post has done (and many others here). It is a dangerous, ignorant trait, and ironically often one of the few uniquely human ones left.

Not sure about your comment there...

"we are civilised and they are savage"

I've seen too many humans CHOOSE to kill and torture each other for relatively trivial reasons (money, land, political power etc).

Animals don't do any of those things except for survivial when they have no choice.

How does that make us "more civilised" ?

and which "us" are you referring to ?

I'm curious on two separate points....

1 - you give the impression that intelligence or lack of it should be a deciding factor in whether or not someone lives or dies. Why is that ?

I can see no logical connection between the two things.

2 - You also appear to be generalising about "we humans". Many humans can't shoot a gun, and even if they could how does that make them intelligent. Shooting a gun is not that difficult. INVENTING, DESIGNING and then BUILDING a gun takes intelligence, but then most humans wouldn't know how to do those things any more than a non-human. Could you ?? Could anyone on this forum ??

I agree with you on one of your comments though....

People often say that "we" are more this or that, but which "we" are they talking about? Most of the achievements people quote to prove any kind of superior intelligence (space exploration, ships, cars, guns, technology etc, etc.) were actually only invented by a very small percentage of the human population. THEY may be more intelligent than other animals (including the rest of us), but that doesn't mean every other "human" is more intelligent than every "animal", as if merely being a human is certain proff of being more intelligent than a non-human. thet is rubbish. Yet most people do it all the time. Why ??

What about a particular individual human with very severe brain damage, he or she may have no more intelligence than an earthworm, for example. A harsh reality, but true nevertheless. The same can be said of a two-day old baby; human but probably less intelligent than the average rat.

There are many overlaps, and when it comes to intelligence species groups are irrellevent. There are only "individuals" across all species.