Why Are Evolutionists Surprised at Animal Intelligence?

A cow exhibits tool use.
Whales teach. Dogs learn
words. Darwinians gasp.

The reactions of evolutionary biologists to surprising animal smarts is instructive about their worldview.

Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow (Current Biology, 19 Jan 2026). Watch the amusing video of Veronika the cow picking up a broom and using it to scratch herself. Scientists were baffled. The press release from Cell Press (reproduced by Phys.org) claims that this is “first case of flexible, multi-purpose tool use in cattle.” How now, brown cow?

“The findings highlight how assumptions about livestock intelligence may reflect gaps in observation rather than genuine cognitive limits,” says Alice Auersperg, a cognitive biologist at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna.

See the Illustra Film to appreciate the design of whales, and why they could not have evolved.

Bubble netting knowledge spread by immigrant humpback whales, study finds (University of St. Andrews via Phys.org, 20 Jan 2026). Humpback whales (marine mammals), can teach other whales how to fish. They gather together and blow bubbles underwater to create “bubble nets” that concentrate fish, then they all feed together. Great. But why is this listed under the category of Evolution?

“While the evolutionary importance of importing of new ideas is well known in human societies, this new study shows that it can also be important for whales.”

Discovery of bats remarkable navigation strategy revealed in new study (University of Bristol, 21 Jan 2026). A box in this article says that bat sonar “first evolved about 65-million years ago.” Bats should be exploring outer space by now. Their capabilities, nonetheless, are mysterious to evolutionists:

While it is well known that bats hunting at night use biosonar (also known as echolocation) to map their surroundings, the question of how they process thousands of overlapping echoes in real time when navigating more complex habitats like forests has long remained a mystery.

Some dogs can pick up hundreds of words – do they learn like children? (The Conversation, 20 Jan 2026). All dog owners have been surprised or delighted at how smart they are sometimes (except for Odie, perhaps, Garfield‘s dupe). Evolutionists, however, seem particularly surprised. They can’t come close to the word-learning ability to human infants, for sure, but they can learn hundreds of associations between words and objects.

Other Animals Are Smart, Too

Octopuses prompt rethink of why animals evolve big brains (New Scientist, 21 Jan 2026). Marine invertebrates are too primitive to evolve big brains, according to Darwinism. “A popular idea suggests a link between big brains and a rich social life,” writes Chris Simms, “but octopuses don’t fit the pattern, which suggests something else is going on.” Like creation, perhaps?

Birds also show high degrees of intelligence despite small brains: New Caledonian crows exhibit complex tool use. And even some insects show the ability to learn and share information.

Why Are Evolutionists Surprised?

All people enjoy learning about animals and their feats, but unexpected intelligence in animals is a source of consternation to those with a materialistic worldview. To Darwinians, all life is strictly material. Every animal emerged by unguided natural processes. This “bottom-up” view of life predicts that intelligence would accumulate gradually from root to the highest branches of the tree of life.

By contrast, Darwin skeptics, including advocates of intelligent design and creation, are not surprised by intelligence in the animal world. This “top-down” view of life predicts that intelligence will be widespread. A designer able to equip a single cell with sublime architecture and cooperation certainly has the wherewithal to “over-design” each creature for its needs. To Darwin skeptics, watching creatures exhibit intelligence is delightful, but not surprising.

Maybe the “surprise effect” of the two worldviews says something about which one is more in touch with reality, and which one has the better resources for scientific explanation.