As claimed in a recent study? No:
Stripped of the rhetoric about supposedly fallen “pillars of human exceptionalism,” the researchers found a neuronal response in carrion crows that “might be a broad marker” for consciousness.
Well, sure, it might. But before we get carried away, the consciousness we should know the most about is human consciousness, which remains almost a complete mystery to us, despite much research. Many elements of brain organization in humans and birds may turn out to be correlates of consciousness. But the treatment of the question here has far more to do with a myth—that science is showing that human consciousness is not exceptional—than it does with unraveling the mystery of human or corvid consciousness.
That said, one science writer offers an interesting tidbit that impacts the current Darwinian theory of evolution:
“The broader, speculative implication of the research is that the last common ancestor of birds and mammals, which existed 320 million years ago, may also have had the same cognitive machinery and thus been similarly capable of formidable thinking abilities. – Ross Pomeroy, “Newly Discovered Brain Structure May Grant Birds Impressive Intelligence.” at RealClearScience”
His proposed new estimate greatly shortens the amount of time available for natural selection acting on random mutation to produce intelligence. Not surprisingly, evolution theory is currently undergoing considerable revision just now, on account of many similar issues.
Denyse O’Leary, “Why does science embrace the “talking animals” myth?” at Mind Matters News
These sorts of findings are more of a problem for conventional evolution theory than for human exceptionalism.
Crows and ravens are famously brainy birds, but a new study suggests they possess a kind of consciousness, something once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans and some primates, reports Sharon Begley for Stat.
Alex Fox, “Do Crows Possess a Form of Consciousness?” at Smithsonian Magazine
Whoever thought that was quite mistaken, more so than most average joes with little education. Ravens and crows have always been thought of as smart enough to be conscious. We didn’t used to know specific stuff about why.
Dogs and cats unmistakably exhibit consciousness, which just means that they exhibit awareness of events as happening to themselves. It’s all different when you want to talk about reason, abstractions, moral choice, etc. All that goes well beyond consciousness and is what makes humans different.
See also:
The real reason why only human beings speak. Language is a tool for abstract thinking—a necessary tool for abstraction—and humans are the only animals who think abstractly.
and
In what ways are cats intelligent? It’s hard to come up with an interspecies IQ test. We live in a world where dogs are smarter than wolves in some ways but wolves are smarter than dogs in others. So much depends on what we want to measure. So let’s look at cats in relation to dogs because dogs have been studied so much more.