My point is that we don't frame animal intelligence as something comparable with humans or somewhat close. I'm not trying to create a leaderboard of intelligence. I think we should consider other species as capable of intelligence, and treat it with the same dignity we give to children.
In (at least) one of Iain Banks’ Culture books, he says that technological progress is not a ladder, but a rock face. The tech which a species develops depends a lot on the conditions of their evolution, and encountering wildly different techs that seem miraculous or incomprehensible to one’s own species is fairly common.
I think of “intelligence” in a similar vein. We can recognize it when it’s close enough in proximity to the path we humans have taken. The further away another species is from that, the less we are able to recognize/judge their level of intelligence. I like this metaphor because it emphasizes the limits of our own abilities to understand vey foreign things. That’s not to say that we could never get better at it, but there will almost certainly always be more outside of our circle of understanding than inside it.
I’m also reminded of the drunk searching for his house key beneath a street light. It’s not where he dropped the key, but he’s searching there because “that’s where the light is.”
Sure, alien high tech is alien... you cannot appreciate ICs without microscopes, nor custom-designed organisms without solid understanding of biology, nor poetry without language and culture.
But I think some things are always common - such as not dying from hunger, predators or bad weather. If something as simple as bad weather can cause species to die, _and_ we know there a really simple workaround (houses), and yet there is no sign of it and species just keep dying, can we really call them "intelligent"?
Every species, including worms and ants? Because they are surely smarter than 1-week old human baby, they can eat and move.
We don't treat children well because of their intelligence - otherwise, no one would care about newborns. We care about them because they are of the same species as us.
As for "dignity", I am not 100% sure what you mean, but in humans it comes directly with being able to function as a member of the society. For example, someone who cannot navigate city (be it because they are young or because of their developmental difficulties) will not be free to wander wherever they want.
