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It's official: toddlers are smarter than apes
Filed under: Toddlers Preschoolers, Development/Milestones: Babies
Obviously grown-up humans are smarter than our evolutionary ancestors, but what about our kids?
Researchers were curious, apparently, and felt compelled to find the answer to that very question. So they conducted an experiment in which food or a toy was placed inside a plastic tube. A demonstrator then showed both the human children and the adult apes how to open the tube and retrieve the goody. The kids followed the demonstrator's example, but the apes just sat there trying to break the thing open with their teeth.
It might seem simple, but this ability to learn through social interaction -- a skill that was far more prevalent in the toddlers -- is one of the basic reasons we're able to form societies. In fact, it's one the things that makes us human.
So there you go, your kid is smarter than the apes at the zoo. Congrats!
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ReaderComments (Page 1 of 1)
9-07-2007 @ 3:21PM
DaMoKi Bob said...Thankfully, they didn't run that by my Cousin Floyd's kids. If they had, the subsequent whirring sound would be Darwin spinning in his grave. Those kids give the phrase "monkey around" new meaning.
Sounds like a government program, did our tax dollars pay for this epiphany?
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 3:54PM
Amanda said...ALL RIGHT! now I just need a bumper sticker that says My kid isnt on the honor roll, but she's still smarter than your adult ape :)
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 3:54PM
Jonathon Morgan said...Please tell me if you make one of those. I'd totally put that on my car.
Reply
9-07-2007 @ 8:47PM
Uly said...Except that in other experiments, children will go through a complicated sequence of steps that they were shown, while apes will just take the lid off the box to get the treat. Human children are better at social learning, but that in and of itself does not equal "smart".
(Also, apes are not "our evolutionary ancestors", and statements like this just fuel creationist fires. You should say, more correctly, that apes and humans descend from a common ancestor countless generations ago.)
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9-07-2007 @ 6:59PM
M4Mommy said...I think it depends on the toddler. Some of the kids I have seen are dumber than the average ape.
Reply