Some really really smart people got together and decided, hey, people aren't so touchy anymore about that evolution stuff, so let's find out who's smarter, a chimpanzee or a toddler?
So guess who won?
C'mon, guess!
They took 106 chimpanzees, 32 orangutans and 105 toddlers who were about 2 1/2, and got them all to perform tasks that were divided between physical and social cognition (that must have been a lot like herding cats). Physical cognition deals with inanimate objects and what they do, and social cognition is more about what you think people will do.
So now guess who won? Guess!
Yep, the monkeys won the first round and the humans smashed the monkeys in the second. I rather think it was a bit unfair, actually. How can you judge a monkey on tasks requiring him to relate himself to people? Because people, they're unpredictable.
It's sad they had to rig a test like this just so the toddlers would win, but there you have it. It's a sad day in chimpland.
