Well. I’m pleased to learn that my almost-three-year-old toddler has more brains than a monkey.  Discovery.com recently put up an article about how toddlers beat apes at social learning, and the only thing that made me want to click the link to read more was a vague sense of insult.

I mean, really. While I understand that we’re descended from apes and all that jazz, testing kids today to see if we’re still smarter than the chimps makes me feel like there’s a huge waste of money going on. What did they expect, that humans suddenly fell short of the intelligence bar? That the apes would wow the world with their savvy manners?

And what if they did? That’s a sure blow to a homo sapiens ego right there. At least there would be an excuse for parents to use when their kids embarrassed them in grocery stores by throwing tantrums or picking their nose in public. "Sorry. He hasn’t reached ape level yet". (Actually, I just may use that one!)

Learning that we’re less socially adept than primates would definitely spurn new tests and experiments to see where we all went wrong. Kids would be pounded with education in the hopes they score better than chimps.  They might be regardless; the tests proved that overall, chimps were smarter than kids. Humans are just more complex. That makes us special.

On the other hand, I’m suddenly finding myself questioning human intelligence. After all, chimpanzees don’t go around trying to blow up each other’s territory or manipulate 1 ton of metal to drive at fantastic speeds. They don’t need anti-depressants or anger management counseling. Apes aren’t ruled by a world going by so fast that they need a plethora of electronic gadgets to tell them what they have to do next, how long to take, and when to stop.

Hm. Maybe there really was a good reason for those scientists to test apes versus toddlers after all!

Posted by Louise.