The question is interesting, but I can't claim to have an educated opinion on the matter. Barely an informed one, really.
If we took the baseline human and and baseline crow, disregarding anomalous individuals deemed hyper intelligent and so on. I'd venture we're more on par than we realize. But I'd probably also lean towards humans having a slight edge. Though I have little to base it on other than us already being fairly anomalous simians.
How much of that do you think is inherent intelligence and how much is nurture?
We spend years helping and teaching our offspring the most basic of functions and how to communicate. We've taught other species very basic communication skills as well, like Coco the gorilla. Hell, my own dog knew how to tell me when he had to pee. And that's nurture, but it does speak to a certain potential.
I'm no expert on this subject. But I'm not closed off to the possibility that other species might be inherently more intelligent than us. As intelligence is mostly measured in ones ability to learn through observation and trial and error. And crows happen to display quite an aptitude for this that I don't know if we can even call it niche.
Don't mistake inability with lack of intelligence.
Crows haven't had the need to evolve the same way we did. They can fly and thus don't need jumbojets and such.
There's plenty of animals that show signs of extremely high intelligence. But if you're measuring an animals intelligence by it's ability to build a functional nuclear reactor, it will fail miserably. As would most humans for that matter.
Which is why we measure intelligence with problem solving skills. And Crows have shown themselves remarkable at problem solving.
Like utilizing waterdisplacement to reach water, Cars to crack nuts and even basic bartering skills to trade trinkets for food with other species (like humans).
Crows, in general, are very smart. Not all humans are.
my writing is so cryptic i am the only one that could ever understand it.
That sounds like my handwriting. And If written in a hurry, even I struggle to make sense of the mix of runes, hieroglyphics and child's drawings I call my "cursive".
A quick internet search would suggest that no, you can exchange them, but not dismiss them entirely.
The game seems pretty hard-coded in regards to how they want you to play it.