Consciousness doesn't need a mirror for proof

Some humans as well as theoretically intelligent animals fail the psychological classic mirror test of self consciousness. With humans, the "failure" appears sociologically related. There's thoughts in this for both human and animal psychology.

There are two things we should take away from this. First, self-awareness is not a hard and fast line. Instead, it is probably a continuum. That is an especially important lesson to keep in mind with animal research. A species might have the skill, even if some individuals do not. This is true for chimpanzees, who do not all pass the mark test, and can lose the ability as they age.

A takeaway?

"Self-awareness is like gravity," Johns Hopkins's Roma says. "We can't touch it directly, so if we want to measure it, scientists must develop valid techniques to directly observe its effects. Currently, mirror mark tests are the best-known and most accepted method, but the absence of an effect does not necessarily mean the absence of the thing we're trying to measure. Ultimately, evidence from multiple techniques should converge on the truth, whatever it may be. Such is the beauty of how scientific advances turn controversy into common knowledge."

At bottom line — if the mirror test is sociologically influenced, this is a powerful, if indirect, undercutting of the universality of IQ tests, no? Take THAT, hereditarians, racialists, et al.