As scientists study the behaviors of various members of the animal kingdom, we are increasingly shown that people really aren’t as brilliant as we think we are….ah, hubris. Other members of the animal kingdom are also capable of reasoning and thinking their way about of a bind; genetic darwinism isn’t the only key to survival. If a species is too dumb to adapt to changes in predators and food supply, it won’t be around for long.
Discovery News reports on a a Duke University study, which found that when testing the math skills of monkey versus college students,
The macaques got their sums right 76 percent of the time, while the students got the correct answer 94 percent of the time in a series of increasingly challenging maths tests.
I would like to note that Duke falls within the North Carolina research triangle, and is considered a sub-Ivy. The students in the study then are possibly scoring higher than a university student at a school with a weaker academic reputation. Just food for thought.
Discovery goes on to say that in another recent study:
Japanese researchers revealed that young chimps outperformed college students in tests of short-term memory. The young chimps surprised the Japanese investigators by being able to retrace patterns of numbers flashed up on a computer screen faster than their human rivals.
I’m frequently reading about how the US is unable to compete with Japanese and Indian students in the maths and science fields, something the government isn’t too concerned about. Perhaps we need to start by outperforming monkeys and move on from there.
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