"You know, Harold," he said, "I wonder if they would recognize intelligent life if they saw it on other planets."
"Of course they would," Harold replied. "Regardless of its form there would be artifacts that only intelligent life could create."
"Would there?" Gordon snorted. "I wonder."
He squatted down, picking up the trowel and lazily poking it into the rich soil at his feet.
"That's why I wonder," he continued. "We are so prone to set up tests on what intelligent life is that we are likely to miss it entirely if it doesn't conform exactly to our preconceived notions. We assume that if a being is intelligent it must get the urge to build artifacts of some kind—pots and vases, houses, idols, machinery, metal objects. But MUST it? In order to do so it must have hands and perhaps legs. Suppose it doesn't have such things? Suppose that no matter how intelligent it might be, it could not do those things!"
"Then it wouldn't be intelligent, would it?" Harold asked, puzzled.
"We are assuming it is," Gordon said patiently. "There are other outlets for intelligence than making clay pots. As a last resort for an intelligent being there is always—thinking."
He chuckled at his joke.
Harold held a newspaper in his hands.