Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wik" data-source="post: 5383022" data-attributes="member: 40177">Since we're talking "if they existed in real life", we cannot assume magical abilities.  Or shape-changing.  Or things that are attributed to D&D dragons that are impossible by our laws of physics.This is one of the reasons I figured real dragons would be no larger than a horse - they need to able to fly, and super-large creatures simply cannot.On the subject of intelligence, it's a really tough subject.  There are a lot of animals out there that can beat humans in certain IQ tests (there's a puzzle test that about 90% of all dolphins get, but only about 50% of all humans can solve).  Does that mean dolphins are smarter?  No, of course not.Culture, the ability for a group of individuals to make non-physiological behavioural adaptations to better react to their environment, is an adaptation that is incredibly useful - intelligent creatures don't need culture, but cultural creatures need intelligence.  This is why when we see animals that have what is called "pseudo culture" (and human beings are the only surviving species that has true culture, though chimps come close), we realize they are often surprisingly intelligent.Now, onto the subject at hand.  Are dragons going to be cultural?  Almost definitely not - they are large carnivores, and most large carnivores are solitary hunters.  Even lions hunt in small prides.  Whether dragons would be able to significantly change their behaviour to adapt to a new environment is questionable;  I can't offhand think of any non-cultural species capable of doing it in a single generation.  Are dragons going to be intelligent?  Probably - as hunting carnivores, they will have a certain sense of animal cunning.  They might even set up traps, ambushes, and "kill zones" for their hunts - many predatory animals in the wild kingdom do this consciously.  But dragons as creatures of human intelligence, manipulating humans and hoarding treasure?  Pretty much impossible.Realize that human beings have made HUGE sacrifices physiologically in return for their large brain.  This large brain means that humans have much difficulty in child birth, and need assistance in the process.  And this large brain means that humans must raise their young a lot longer than any other species - and their young are less able to contribute to the survival of the species.  A baby horse can walk within a few minutes of birth.  Baby bears stay with the mother for only two years or so.  Human children take anywhere from twelve to sixteen years before they start contributing to the social group meaningfully (even longer if they happen to be Justin Bieber fans....)In essence, dragons would be hatched as juveniles, but juveniles able to at least partially fend for themselves.  There is really no way I can think of that any creature hatched from an egg would ever be able to develop a human-equivalent intelligence, unless that egg was being incubated for a long period of time or the hatchling was able to receive a very long period of youth to allow its body to develop.  And for that to happen, dragons would need to be cultural creatures - which I believe would be impossible in a real world sense.</blockquote>

Verification