Unpopular Opinion
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Because it's not intelligence. Our apposable thumbs aren't an indicator of intelligence, what we decide, with our brains, to do with those thumbs is intelligence. Just like brain size isn't an indicator, sperm whales have the largest brain on the planet yet we are better at applying ours. And a crow's brain is smaller than a child but it's commenly understood they're smarter than a 4 year old.
Dog's use of their nose are signs of intelligence but not the nose in and of itself. It shows that they're intelligent, but clearly not more so than humans, who still have more complex relationships, language, learning ability, etc. The smelling of diseases isn't intelligence, they don't learn it, they can just do it. It's a natural evolved ability, like better hearing. Animals and humans using their brains to learn is a measure of intelligence and it's faster than evolution. It's not like we couldn't use smell to communicate if we had the ability.
I never said anything other than intelligence is meaningless, but in this case, it's largely meaningless as a measure of intelligence past the comparitivly simple form of communication smell is used as. I'm not saying animals are unintelligent, we're just more intelligent. It's more like;
Human has ability = what we do with it is a measure of intelligence.
Animal has ability = what they do with it is a measure of intelligence and we'd do more with it if we had the ability, because our intelligence makes us more curious and inventive. Most animals are content with the natural order, if humans could smell disease we'd use it to advance our medicine.
Its just so reductive and I couldn't disagree more. We learn how to use our tools by emulating nature.
Example: Humans and dolphins use sonar, but dolphins use it better (we are learning from their example): https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180531102742.htm
If your idea is true, humans would immediately be 'smarter' at using sonar than dolphins the second we gained the ability to do it.
But shocker, the animal that's been using it for millions of years has learned better ways to do it. And we get better by copying them. And without them, we (and our ability to use sonar) would be lessened forever.
WTF haha, there's no way for anyone to know that.
This strikes me as an example of as in/ought fallacy in that you assuming because most animals living on the planet in a sustainable manner are doing so because they want to, and not for any of a million other reasons up to and including that the species who don't live sustainably simply go fucking extinct.
Obviously not immediately, I never said that. If we had the ability to use sonar for the same amount of time, we'd be better at it and we soon will be better at it in less time than evolution allowed because our creativity and intelligence lets us advance faster than evolution.
Does the fact we learned how to use sonar without the natural evolved ability prove that we're smarter?
Maybe content was the wrong word, animals just don't care about advancing technology or growing. Most animals only care about reproduction, that's their lives goal. Salmon literally spend their entire lives, growing up, leaving home, going back home to mate, and dies.
I'm not sure what your point is anymore, are you still campainging that animals are smarter than us? Because they're not, they may be better at filling certain niches, but our niche is literally being smart. There are intelligent species but none have come close to what we can achieve with our brains. We sacrificed primate stretch and agility for higher brain power.
My last point is that you literally can't know what animals care about, and its weird you keep asserting you do. I think you mean that evolution selects based on reproduction, and thats true for humans as well. So do humans only care about reproduction? If so, then we can say they are exactly equal to animals.
Yes, a lot of humanity only cares about reproduction. But we've also elevated ourselves to creat art, science, music, etc.
I can't know for sure what animals care about, but I can make an educated guess based on evidence and observations. Most animals haven't got past the "find food, survive, reproduce" mindset - at least not much more than that, maybe add entertainment to pass the time. There's documentation of dolphins getting high recreationally.
Pretty much, some animals have other have a slightly varied goal set, but none are able to do anything close to our achievements. Which are mostly based around intelligence as we're not physically gifted.