G: The World's Smartest Animal
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这一集以一场愤怒的发言开始。这场愤怒，特别是来自丹·恩伯（Dan Engber）——一位热爱动物但厌恶动物智力研究的科学作家。丹告诉我们，我们研究动物的方式中有太多测试是我们认为能显示人类聪明的……而不是我们打算研究的动物。丹的愤怒让我们思考：世界上最聪明的动物是什么？如果我们抛弃人类智力的标准，是否有公平的方法来找出答案？显然，有。这是一场现场游戏秀，由贾德、罗伯特……和一只狗来评判。我们的智力系列G的最后一集是在2019年5月在纽约市的格林空间录制的现场节目，现在我们再次与您分享这场游戏秀。两位科学作家，丹·恩伯和劳雷尔·布雷特曼，以及两位喜剧演员，特雷西·克莱顿和乔丹·门多萨，互相竞争，寻找世界上最聪明的动物。他们为我们带来了一系列关于意外聪明动物的有趣、愉快的故事，并帮助我们改变了对所有动物——包括我们自己——智力的看法。特别感谢比尔·贝尔洛尼和梅西（狗）以及格林空间的所有人。集数引用：播客：如果您想听更多RADIOLAB G系列，请点击这里（https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-g）。视频：在这里查看我们现场活动的视频！（https://fb.watch/qczu3n1ooA/）我们的新闻通讯每周三发布。它包括短文、推荐和有关与节目互动的其他方式的详细信息。注册（https://radiolab.org/newsletter）！Radiolab由像您这样的听众支持。通过成为实验室的会员（https://members.radiolab.org/）来支持Radiolab。关注我们的Instagram、Twitter和Facebook @radiolab，并通过电子邮件与我们分享您的想法，邮箱是[email protected]。Radiolab的科学节目领导支持来自戈登和贝蒂·摩尔基金会、科学沙盒（Science Sandbox，一项西蒙斯基金会倡议）和约翰·坦普尔顿基金会。Radiolab的基础支持来自阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆基金会。 </context> <raw_text>0 WNYC Studios is supported by Zuckerman Spader. Through nearly five decades of taking on high-stakes legal matters, Zuckerman Spader is recognized nationally as a premier litigation and investigations firm. Their lawyers routinely represent individuals, organizations, and law firms in business disputes, government, and internal investigations and at trial. When the lawyer you choose matters most. Online at Zuckerman.com.

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Hey, I'm Latif Nasser. Now, if you asked me before I listened to the Radiolab Rewind from 2019 that you were about to hear to name the smartest animal on planet Earth besides us, it'd be a pretty short list and everything on it would be pretty obvious like chimpanzee, dolphin, maybe octopus, dogs, cats, pigs all feel pretty smart. I think that would be the whole list.

And I would be dead wrong. I'm not going to spoil what other unlikely creatures show up in this episode, but I will say that what you are about to hear will make you strain your brain trying to imagine your way into other animals' worlds.

which is a fancy term for what they perceive and how they understand the world. And once you do that work of trying to de-center your own human self and imagine the world from an animal perspective, it takes you to some extraordinarily beautiful places. Okay, so here it is, the world's smartest animal from Radiolab's G series. Wait, you're listening? Okay.

Hey, this is Pat Walters coming at you today with the final episode of our Radiolab miniseries on intelligence. G. Thank you.

And so for this last episode, we wanted to shift the mood a little bit. Because as we were putting this series together, we did lots of stories on human intelligence, but we also found ourselves thinking about intelligence in other animals. And so to get into that, we decided to host an event all about animal intelligence. And today, we're going to share that event with you. Just a quick warning, there are some curse words in the show, so bear that in mind.

And the reason that we're doing this is because a couple of months ago, I ended up on the phone with a science writer I really love named Dan Engber. And Dan went on a rant about how messed up it is that we only seem able to talk about animal intelligence in terms of our own intelligence. He said so much of animal intelligence research is built on making animals do stuff that we feel like humans would be good at doing instead of considering their intelligence on their own terms.

And so tonight, we decided we would do an episode about animal intelligence that shifts the focus from us to them, that considers their unique abilities on their own terms, and in doing so, hopefully might help us redefine a little bit what we think about intelligence in general for all of us. And because we're humans and we like contests, we decided to make it a competition. So here's how it'll work. We have four contestants.

who will engage in a series of head-to-head bouts to convince a panel of judges that their animal is the smartest. I'm going to bring up our first pair of contestants in a moment, but first, let's meet our judges.

Oh, real music. Nice. Okay. So first, please welcome, these two guys have done hundreds of stories about all kinds of smart animals. Please welcome the co-host of Radio Lab, Jad Abramrod and Robert Kowalcz. Kind of had to use the guys, the obvious choices. But we also invited one more surprise judge. The real star of our judging panel, from humble beginnings in a shelter in Oklahoma City,

She's risen to the highest levels of success in show business in New York. Her television credits include High Maintenance and The Leftovers, and she has appeared in more productions of the Broadway play Annie in the role of Sandy than any other actor. Like any great star, she goes by only one name. Please welcome Macy.

Macy is a dog. It's about 35 pounds, has that scruffy brown fur. She trotted right on the stage and hopped onto a chair next to Chad Robert. Okay, so before we start, I just want to ask the judges here one question to kind of set the terms and make sure we all know what we're looking for. I want you guys to just define intelligence in two or three sentences. How would you define what you're looking for in the contestants' stories tonight? Robert, why don't you start?

Animal intelligence. Animal intelligence. Well, I would say that a very smart animal should be asked, how well do you understand your world?

knowing that some are sniffers and some are tasters and some are good flyers and so on. But really, when you see a fox on a snowy day jump into a pound of snow and somehow land right on the little mouse that's two feet down, I think that's a smart, smart animal. Jed? I think what I'm going to pay attention to is

are arguments on behalf of creatures where you see the creatures encounter some kind of obstacle and then problem solve their way around it. So creatures are flexible, can adapt very quickly. And I'm going to give a special nod, I think, to creatures that show collective intelligence or like moral intelligence, if that's even a thing. So that's what I'm going to be paying attention to. Okay, good. Macy? Macy?

What do you think? How would you define intelligence, Macy? She's just repeating Jad, really. Okay. So once we had our judges set, we brought our contestants onto the stage. And the way it worked is they each had four minutes to make the case for why they thought their animal was the smartest of them all. At the end of each round, the judges would vote, and we'd bring out the next two contestants. Y'all ready to meet our contestants? Okay. Okay.

Good. Okay, so first up, we have Tracy Clayton and Jordan Mendoza. Tracy Clayton hosts the hit podcast Another Round, and more recently, the podcast Strong Black Legends. Sir? Sir?

Ma'am. And Jordan Mendoza is a comedian, a writer for Comedy Central, and hosts a live science and comedy show in Brooklyn called Drunk Science. Okay, so Tracy, what animal did you bring for this first entry? The smartest animal in the world, hands down, is the crow.

Boo! Wow! Okay, okay. So we have the crow. I was just kidding. I don't really... No. They're fine. Yeah. No, he meant that. This is war now. This is the fight. We're fighting. We're fighting. Jordan, what's your entry for this round? A slime mold. Ah!

So first round, crow versus slime mold. We're going to start with Tracy. Ready? Okay. Go. So if you don't know how amazing crows are, it's not your fault. It's because the media is racist and they've told you how to feel about crows. For example, the most famous crows in the world are these.

Here you got the Dumbs. The Dumbs. The Crows from Dumbo. They're dressed like street pimps. Five Crows wearing brightly colored hats. One of them smoking a cigar. No jobs. Shiftless. Lazy. Black. Coincidence, I'm sure. And then here, this is Jim Crow. If you don't know that, Google. You gotta do a Google. We don't have enough time. So...

Here's why crows are the best and the smartest. Number one, they are extremely resourceful. Have you all heard of this dude named Aesop? He wrote some fables.

One of them was about a crow who had to get like a treat or something out of like a pitcher or something. And so what he did was he dropped stones into the pitcher so the water level would raise, got what he wanted. Guess what? Crows really do that for real in real life. Then Tracy showed a video of a crow and a half empty glass of water. And the crow kept adding stones into the glass until the water was at the rim and the crow could get a treat. Oh.

But most of my exes cannot do this. Crows can solve problems, puzzles with as many as eight steps. Definitely none of my exes could do that. Point number dos. Crows can be taught to talk.

Right? The surprise gasps. To talk what? To talk crow or to talk? To say human English words or human words, human languages. Crows are songbirds, y'all. Solar ravens. But you don't know that because they're not parrots. They're not brightly colored. They're black. Again, racist. Just because they don't sing the same way the parrots do, you know, it's not, it doesn't count.

their vocalization skills are really, really, really good. When you get a chance, Google Talking Crow and you'll find some videos. I think we have one. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Oh my God. There it is. Yep. Yep. Exactly. That's a real crow video? Yes. That's an actual crow. Crows can talk as can ravens. Point number three. B. C. Point number C. Crows have funerals, right? But they have funerals for...

Good reasons. Not that humans don't have funerals for good reasons. But humans have funerals to make ourselves feel better. Like, oh my God, I miss Big Mama so much. I just need to see her one more time before she goes on to the whatever in the sky. Gross! Also, we still have wakes where we literally sit around and look at a dead body and wait for it to wake up even though we know it's not going to.

Evolve out of that, please. It's not time. Here's why crows have funerals, right? So Rashad dies. Bless Rashad. He's just plop. Rashad is the crow. So the crows are like, oh, can I, what is the cuss word thing? You can say whatever. Oh, shit, man. Rashad. What the fuck?

what happened. And so all the crows will like congregate around Rashad to see what killed him so they can be like, we need to stay away from whatever Rashad was doing because look at Rashad now, you know? Point number four is that they can recognize faces for up to five years and they hold grudges. So if you walk past a crow, it's actually two and a half years. They just like, nah, don't fuck with this one over here. They tell all their friends the next time you come around the crows are gonna just wah!

This motherfucker back. Don't trust him. It's amazing. So in conclusion, crows should not be called a murder. They should be called something smarter like a symposium of crows.

All right. All right. A really good job. That was great. That was great. What a supportive enemy. I think we're all winners here. Next up was Jordan Mendoza with the slime mold. He put up a slide of a Petri dish with this like yellow lightning bolty streak going across it. Okay. You're probably wondering what, what is this?

But guys, don't worry, I friggin' looked it up. A slime mold is a brainless, single-celled, pulsating wad of yellow goo. I learned if you put a slime mold in an environment where there is a complex decision to make, for instance, which direction to choose to find a good food source, this superorganism can solve that problem relatively easily by spreading its cytoplasm out, advancing and retreating in response to what it finds.

So this is a superorganism composed of thousands of nuclei and they will collectively decide to make a decision for the group.

Humans, on the other hand, are not at all good at collectively finding a good food source. Have you ever tried to order seamless with another person? Not easy. What are we going to do? Pizza, Korean, Chinese, sushi. My roommate and I always end up choosing diarrhea. There are three general types of slime mold. Plasmodial slime molds, cellular slime molds,

And Gary Busey. Jordan put up a picture of Gary Busey. If you don't know what he looks like, Google him.

For those who don't know, the joke here is that Gary Busey looks and is like a slime mold. Plasmodial slime molds are masses of thousands of nuclei that move around by spreading out in a fractal pattern, learning the lay of the land and even solving mazes and mapping networks with incredible efficiency. How efficient? It took human engineers years to map out a Tokyo rail system.

It took a slime mold just hours. I read that in an article titled, Watch This Slime Mold Dunk on Japanese Engineers. I'm just kidding. I made that article title up. No one wrote that. The second type is a cellular slime mold, and this spends most of his life as a single freewheeling amoeba, which sounds like a sitcom that just got greenlit on Fox. Yeah.

This quirky, freewheeling amoeba just got the consulting job of her dreams. But can she balance love, work, and New York City? Check out all the single-celled ladies starring Zooey Deschanel as the slime mold.

Then Jordan went on to explain how slime molds look out for each other in this amazing way. When one amoeba runs out of food, something incredible happens. It starts emitting chemical pulses, assembling clusters of other amoeba into a larger superorganism. This is a process called chemotaxis, or if it's trying to save money, chemo-uber-pool.

This superorganism then releases spores to find more food and then dies. Chemotaxis shows that slime molds are altruistic beings. They'll sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the species. I, on the other hand, will never die for the benefit of others. I won't even give my subway seat up to an elderly pregnant woman who's carrying a piece of furniture.

Finally, the last category of slime mold is Gary Busey, an Oscar-nominated American actor who has appeared in over 150 films, including Lethal Weapon, The Firm, and Piranha 3DD. In conclusion, slime molds are very smart. Please vote for me because I'm Asian, and if you don't vote for me, that's racist. I did not know we could do that for the record. I had no idea. Wow. Give it up for Jordy Mendoza and the slime mold. Thank you.

Okay. Judges, we'll do a couple minutes here. Deliberating, asking questions. What are your reactions to these two? Crow versus slime mold. Like that something so small multiplied so many times.

could come to complicated and sophisticated conclusions is a pretty impressive accomplishment. Each individual... I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. It's pretty cool. I don't know. But also, I was leaning in that direction, but just to sort of give the crow a fair shake, if a crow can see a person and then remember it and disseminate

The reputation. Again, two and a half years. Well, that's some kind of crow language or something. Very impressive. Macy, you have a crow feeling one way or the other? She does. Crow? Yeah. Well, she's saying that she's not sure that she knows that many molds. Oklahoma City is a sort of dry town and they don't have a forest there.

So she feels a little bit unequal to the challenge here. What with the unfamiliar... Oh, well, she did study them once. Do you speak dog, Robert? I understand that I can't speak it. I see. But...

Okay, well, let's... She is parcel to Gary Busey, which has confused her. Well, let's vote. Why don't we go down the line? Jad, what do you choose? Gosh, I think just on... I think I'm going to have to go with the slime mold. Ooh, wow. After giving it up for crows. Okay, so Jad, slime mold. Robert?

I'm gonna, I, you know, with great respect for crows that hate well, I agree. But I'm gonna go with the slime mold as well. Okay. And Macy. Macy? Oh my God.

What do we have for Macy? Crow. Crow. So surprising. All right. All right. So surprising for an animal. Despite her love of Gary Busey, she voted for crow. Okay. So the judges voted in favor of the slime mold. And after that, we brought up our next set of contestants to defend a whole new pair of animals. Okay. Let's get our next contestants up here. Laurel Brateman and Dan Engberg. Give it up, everybody. Thank you.

Dan Engber is a writer for Slate and the New York Times Magazine. And Laurel Breitman is the author of the best-selling book Animal Madness and a teacher at Stanford. Laurel, what animal are you entering into the mix? Sperm whales. Sperm whale. Okay, okay, good. And Dan, what will you be bringing to the table? The chicken. The chicken. Okay.

Okay, zero contest. I am so interested in how this is going to play out. Okay, we'll start with Laurel. Take it away. Sperm whales are huge, the biggest toothed whales, but in a lot of ways, they're like us. They have big brains and really complex social lives, but unlike us, they live in a matriarchal culture.

They probably even have stronger social and emotional bonds than we do. Young males go off on their own to find a new pod, and then everyone else stays together for life. Sperm whales communicate a lot like us, too, physically and with language. But they also have a third way, and I think we should consider it like a sixth sense. Maybe you think about echolocation like boat sonar, like a ping goes out, and then it bounces, the sound bounces off a thing in their environment, and then it comes back.

And gives that boat like a grainy shape of whatever that object is. And dolphin and whale sonar does this too, and so do bats. But animal sonar also comes back as a physical feeling. In the case of sperm whales, it's really loud too. They make the loudest sounds of any animal on Earth, up to 230 decibels. Whoa. I know. It's actually, it's louder than standing next to a jet engine at takeoff.

Our eardrums can rupture at 150 decibels, which is basically like a gun going off next to your head.

Sperm whales make these click, creaking, and buzzing sounds in their nasal passages. And then they amplify and direct them with this big, fatty, waxy organ in their foreheads called the melon. And it's like, it's a terrible word. They probably have another word for it that's better. But it's like a huge built-in megaphone in their head.

It's just like that, but way louder, like crazy loud, so loud that it would hurt us to be listening to it. And this echolocation is so powerful that they can track a squid up to a mile away. And their social messages probably travel just as far.

So knowing what we know of our really complex social lives, their sixth sense likely comes with its own emotional experiences too. But we can't name those because we don't know what those feelings are like. So I want you to try to imagine it though.

What would it be like to be like reading a book while suddenly finding out just by feeling it that your ex-girlfriend is coming around the corner of an underwater shelf a half a mile away? Now, she broke up with you.

made your alcohol culture. You've been so lonely, but now you know the signal is meant for you just because of how it feels when you pick it up. And not only that, but you have an immediate, accurate picture of exactly what she looks like. Not just the shape of her, but the perfect curve of her jaw, her sexy 12-inch layer of blubber that you've missed so much.

But also, you can also immediately tell how much she cares about you, too. And that's why she's coming back. Also, you've been hunting a giant squid this whole time. So, sperm whales might have a particular emotion that goes along with experiences like these. And they maybe even have a different sense of self.

In the mid-1980s, a neuropsychologist named Harry Jerison proposed that echolocated communications that are emotional in nature, so like grief or joy, might be experienced by whales and dolphins as more than shared information. They actually might come in as shared feelings, shared emotional experiences. Jerison thought that this might give rise to something called the communal self, meaning that whales and dolphins might not say, I, they might always be a we.

We are sad. We are sick. And there's some evidence for this. So, like, in whale strandings, for example, when a bunch of whales will come up to the shore and strand themselves and die. But when we actually do studies on the whales, we find out that maybe only one or two in a hundred was actually sick. Something is going on here, and I think it may be we sick. Wow. So...

I don't want to end on that super sad note, guys. It also might be why whales... I'm going to lose just because it's sad.

Okay, I'm going to tell you one really nice thing and then we're going to turn it over to the mystery animal over here. It also might be why dolphins and whales, there's so many reports of them coming to the aid of swimmers who are struggling or fending off sharks from somebody who really needs protection or help or even doing things like this, which I love. This is a case of sperm whales who adopted a deformed dolphin. Oh!

So a dolphin with a spinal abnormality who they welcomed into their pod. So sperm whales, man. What looks like extreme empathy to us might just them be being themselves, or maybe it's a new kind of intelligence, one that requires a kind of communal feeling as opposed to thoughts about other people's feelings. So thank you. All right, then. Sperm whale. Okay. Okay.

Well done. Very good. All right. Next up, Dan Engber. Chickens. With the chickens. Let me start with this. A chicken can beat a human in tic-tac-toe. A chicken almost always beats a human in tic-tac-toe. I learned this fact in high school when my friend Rob got obsessed with one particular tic-tac-toe playing chicken named Willie, who lived at the video arcade at Mott Street.

Willie beat Rob over and over and over again at Tic-Tac-Toe. Willie wasn't unique. Birds like him were once a pretty common carnival attraction. Their popularity peaked in the early 80s when trained chickens were shipped around the country, rented out for $200 a day, or sold for several thousand dollars each. And these chickens were so good at Tic-Tac-Toe that humans were getting demoralized.

At least one distributor started having the birds lose on purpose every fifth game to make it seem more fair. Now, it turned out this whole thing had started years earlier in the South at a place called the IQ Zoo in Hot Springs, Arkansas. There, a pair of scientists, Marion and Keller Breland, had built a business out of training up strange animal behaviors.

Their zoo was like a product showroom, a place to demo the ducks they'd taught to play piano, or rabbits that drove around in little fire trucks, or hamsters on trapeze. But the Breelands... You don't have to be that smart to go on trapeze. The Breelands' most popular and enduring act was the bird brain, a chicken in a box which disappeared behind a screen to peck O's onto a game board.

Chinatown Willie was one of those, or maybe someone else's knockoff. In any case, I watched that chicken play a lot of tic-tac-toe. Peering over Rob's shoulder, I tried to figure out the chicken's secret strategy. But then, last week, really last week, I discovered that all those observations were for naught. As I got ready for tonight's talk, I stumbled across a copy of an old instruction manual, which the Breelands would send out with their bird brain units.

And according to that manual, the chicken in the box wasn't really playing tic-tac-toe at all. In fact, behind the screen, there was nothing but a single light bulb and a switch. When the light went on, the chicken pecked, and an O appeared somewhere on the board in the spot chosen by computer. I found this kind of devastating. Partly because I'd promised Pat a talk on the intelligence of chickens. But here's the reality.

Chickens are kind of dumb.

As we've seen, they're even dumb compared to other birds. They don't have funerals, or make tools like crows. They don't learn to speak like parrots. In fact, if a chicken has any special talent at all, it's that when you chop off its head, it can go on acting like a chicken for days or weeks or even months. But still, I think there's something amazing about Willy and the other bird brains.

这些鸡并不是聪明到能在井字游戏中打败我们，因为它们并没有。是我们人类愚蠢到输掉了比赛。我是说，井字游戏其实并不复杂。如果你能稍微提前思考一下，你应该能够在任何一局井字游戏中打成平局，甚至是对抗计算机。然而，似乎我们人类在这个非常简单的智力测试中都无法成功。

我认为这点很有用，尤其是在今晚，因为这个项目试图根据物种的聪明程度进行排名，假设在最愚蠢和最聪明的动物之间存在着鸿沟，鸡和黑猩猩、抹香鲸或乌鸦生活在认知的不同大陆上。但我称之为虚荣。

这就是威利教给我们的，我们站在同一个游戏厅里，被同一台电脑搞得晕头转向，各自无法在同一个简单的游戏中成功。我们通过几亿年的进化被我们无法做到的事情联系在一起。评委们，投票支持鸡就是投票支持找到那种共同点。这是对团结和亲情的投票。

投票支持鸡就是投票支持我们所有人。谢谢你。丹·恩格伯和鸡。好吧。哇。这真是...

你该怎么处理这个？一起愚蠢还是一起真诚。连续体。哇。我甚至不知道。你倾向于哪一边？好吧，我根本不知道抹香鲸的那些事。我实际上在1980年代和唐人街的鸡一起在莫特街玩过，所以我可能不应该输。当然。所以，你知道，我不知道其他评委...

是否还醒着。此时，梅西已经蜷缩成一团，似乎在评判中处于后座。这就像梅丽尔·斯特里普化。我是说，如果我们是更好的人，我们应该有一种伟大演员所拥有的天线和雷达，你可以以某种方式投射和回应。你去看她的电影，你会发现她的每一个动作都触动了你。

我不能。我被这个吸引住了。她在说什么？不喜欢斯特里普。哦，因为她自己也是百老汇明星。那...她现在感觉到斯特里普。

我可以问一个关于抹香鲸的挑剔问题吗？当然。所有情感不都是某种身体上的东西，对吧？是的，我们也有边缘系统。

那么这是一个程度的问题，他们以某种方式体验到的情感是否更多，还是完全不同类型的智力？你觉得呢？我认为他们有另一种方式来接触他们的情感生活，而不是我们。因此，他们拥有我们所拥有的一切，对吧？就像他们的朋友可以上前拍他们的背，或者给他们一个抹香鲸的拥抱，或者其他的，对吧？他们仍然拥有这些，他们也有语言，但他们还有其他的东西。

对我来说，仅仅因为我避免我的收件箱或其他什么，这感觉就像某种形式的电子邮件，对吧？你在很远的地方发送，但它是情感的，你用你的脸去接收。你知道吗？我想我明白了。我的心选择抹香鲸。作为一个政治平台，我投票支持鸡。

但我的心说，我得支持抹香油。所以你投票支持抹香油，查德。我投票支持抹香。抹香油也是。抹香也是。那是三个。太好了。哇。好的。好吧。艰难的时刻，丹。

此时，第一轮结束了。评委们对乌鸦、粘菌、抹香鲸和鸡的一些相当有说服力的案例进行了评估。接下来，我们有另一轮比赛。基本想法相同。我们要求我们的四位参赛者带来一种聪明的动物来进行辩护。但这次，我们给他们抛出了一些曲线球。那和在快速休息后对世界上最聪明动物的最终加冕。

无线电实验室得到了苹果卡的支持。用苹果卡重启你的信用卡。开设储蓄账户时，您可以获得高达3%的每日现金返还，并以4.40%的年收益率（APY）增长。

在iPhone的Wallet应用中申请苹果卡。需经信用批准。储蓄仅适用于苹果卡持有者。需符合资格。储蓄和苹果卡由美国高盛银行盐湖城分行提供。FDIC成员。条款及更多信息请访问applecard.com。WNYC Studios得到了Zuckerman Spader的支持。经过近五十年的高风险法律事务处理，Zuckerman Spader在全国范围内被公认为一家顶级诉讼和调查公司。

他们的律师定期代表个人、组织和律师事务所处理商业争议、政府和内部调查以及审判。当你选择的律师最重要时。在线访问zuckerman.com。WNYC Studios得到了Rocket Money的支持。

你知道吗，近75%的人都有他们忘记的订阅？Rocket Money是一款个人理财应用，可以找到并取消你不想要的订阅，监控你的支出，并帮助降低你的账单，以便你可以增加储蓄。Rocket Money甚至会尝试为你谈判账单，最多可降低20%。你只需提交账单的照片，Rocket Money会处理其余的。

Rocket Money拥有超过500万用户，已在取消的订阅中节省了总计5亿美元，帮助会员每年节省高达740美元，使用该应用的所有功能。停止在你不使用的东西上浪费钱。通过访问rocketmoney.com/WNYC取消你不想要的订阅。就是rocketmoney.com/WNYC。你有问题或需要如何做的建议吗？只需询问Meta AI。

无论你需要总结课堂笔记，还是想用冰箱里已有的食材创建食谱，Meta AI都有答案。你还可以研究主题，探索兴趣，等等。这是你指尖上最先进的人工智能。通过Meta AI扩展你的世界。现在在Instagram、WhatsApp、Facebook和Messenger上。

在我们比赛的第一部分，我们听到了对乌鸦、粘菌、抹香鲸和鸡的智力的论证。在第二部分，我们决定提高赌注，给我们的竞争者更多挑战。第一个挑战是，他们现在将不得不与第一轮的对手竞争。所以我们将把他们分成两组，进行一场二对二的比赛。

我们给他们的另一个挑战是，我们注意到我们并没有真正关注毛茸茸的哺乳动物。我想我们很多人想象自己可能是动物王国中最聪明的动物之一。有些人不会，是吗？但我们决定，来做一些毛茸茸的哺乳动物，但挑战是不做任何通常的嫌疑犯。所以当然没有人类，没有黑猩猩，没有大象，没有狗。抱歉，梅西。嗯...

和你新的前敌队友一起想出一个意想不到聪明的毛茸茸的哺乳动物。所以，首先上场的是丹和劳雷尔，他们完全没有问题地就同意了一个聪明的毛茸茸的哺乳动物。显然是浣熊。显然是浣熊。为什么？动物王国的OG，已经向我们展示了如何在城市中生活很长时间。

是的，别无选择。我甚至不知道，为什么我们要讨论这个？这显而易见。好吧，开始吧。在1906年秋季...我们正在努力赢得这个。在1906年秋季，这个标题“聪明的浣熊”被几家主要报纸报道。

下面的专栏描述了一对古利帕德夫妇，他们在一辆双层有顶的马车上从城镇到城镇旅行，车上有一群受过训练的浣熊为他们工作，担任烟囱清扫工。这并不是唯一的类似故事。在那些年里，浣熊常常被记者称赞其高智商或智慧，或制造恶作剧的技能。

这是一个奇怪而悲惨的故事，讲述了一个世纪前我们如何短暂地理解浣熊是所有动物中最聪明的动物之一，然后我们又忘记了。

动物的灵活性与其聪明才智之间的联系曾在科学家中得到很好的确立。在哥伦比亚大学，爱德华·桑代克一直在通过将猫和狗锁在箱子里测试它们的智力。他用锁扣、螺栓或绳索滑轮封住箱子，并在外面放置零食作为激励。这是在实验室里的胡迪尼，一个动物的逃生室。然后在1907年...

一位名叫劳伦斯·维斯特·科尔的心理学家想把浣熊放进这些相同的谜题箱中，以了解，正如他所说的，浣熊在哺乳动物智力等级中的适当位置。他发现了一些惊人的事情。他的浣熊，汤姆、吉姆、杰克和多莉，有时会突破谜题箱，然后忽视食物奖励。就好像他们进行这个练习并不是为了满足饥饿，像其他动物可能会做的那样，而是为了满足内心的好奇心。

科尔还发现，与猫不同的是，他的浣熊可以仅通过观察人类逃脱特定的箱子。基于这一点和其他工作，心理学界形成了一个软共识，认为浣熊在哺乳动物智力的等级上实际上相当高，远高于猫或狗，甚至可能与灵长类动物相当。但可惜的是，这个想法很快就遭到了挑战并被抹去。

在科尔发表研究的同一年，总统西奥多·罗斯福对自然作家将人类般的能力归于浣熊和其他动物的倾向进行了抨击。这位热爱户外活动的总统称之为假新闻。在几年内，科尔对浣熊的一些最令人印象深刻的发现遭到了同行的质疑。即使是相信科尔研究的科学家也发现很难跟进。首先，他们想研究的浣熊总是逃跑。

而一种新的范式正在心理学中传播，几乎没有时间去思考浣熊的想象力、好奇心或孤独感。取而代之的是汤姆、吉姆、杰克和多莉，变成了无名的老鼠。因此，浣熊从实验室消失了，然后，随着城市的扩张，它们也从我们的生活中消失了，暂时不见踪影。咚咚咚。但...

事实证明，随着人们从乡村迁入城市，浣熊跟随我们而来。我们的城市空间不仅是浣熊展示其智力的完美场所，我认为这也使它们变得更聪明。

然而，今天，最了解城市浣熊的人是那些负责将它们从我们城市空间中移除的人。比如浣熊先生，也就是加尼奥·科斯塔，加州湾区第一的无杀人道浣熊捕捉者。他告诉我，这些动物大胆而好奇，几乎吃掉所有东西。

浣熊会搬进我们的阁楼和爬行空间。它们观察我们。它们用小而敏感的手操纵锁和闩，或者撬开松动的钉子。它们啃开东西，然后也会跳跃去撞倒东西。

一只浣熊会花几个小时来解决一个问题，比如抬起车库门、撬开窗户或撬开地下室的通风口盖，直到它们弄明白。有时它们会像夜复一夜地回来，继续解决这个问题，直到它们解决它。一旦它们成功了，它们就会不断回来。

浣熊先生告诉我，他曾经每天晚上接到同一个社区的电话，持续了两周，因为一只雄心勃勃的浣熊发现它们都是统一住宅。因此，进入其中一栋统一住宅的方法在整个社区都有效。所以它就一个接一个地去敲门。所以...

浣熊实际上是唯一在我们人类遍布全球时表现得更好的动物物种之一。不仅如此，我们彼此都是问题。它们试图智胜我们，我们试图智胜它们。我不清楚我们谁变得更聪明更快。哈哈

接下来是特雷西·克莱顿和乔丹·门多萨。达成一致选择一种动物比他们预期的要困难一些。所以事情是这样的。我们决定选择一种哺乳动物。

哺乳动物？一种哺乳动物。袋鼠？是的。我们有各自的袋鼠。特雷西为袋鼠团队开场，介绍了一种可爱的生物，叫做夸卡，看起来有点像一只胖胖的松鼠，配有泰迪熊般的眼睛和小黑手套。我想是时候了。字面上说，如果你有帽子，请抓紧。如果你坐在椅子上，请抓紧你的爆米花。

山姆·杰克逊，我以为反应会是，好吧。那么，女士们先生们，不要过分夸大，这是你一生中听到的最惊人的动物事实。你准备好了吗？评委们，你们准备好了吗？梅西，她很投入，好吧。这就是夸卡是最聪明动物的原因。严肃的事情。当被捕食者接近时...

哦，天哪。我们会作为一个家庭度过这个，我发誓。好吧，当被捕食者接近时，一只母夸卡，我不知道是爸爸、妈妈，还是其他，接近捕食者时，如果父母和孩子在一起，他们会把孩子扔给捕食者以分散注意力。

同时逃跑。所以我需要为那些看不到的人描述这个画面。你从哪里得到这个？此时，特雷西在屏幕上展示了一幅插图，画着一位母亲把婴儿扔进篮球框。就像她在罚球线一样。这就是夸卡所做的，你知道吗？我认为这真的很聪明，因为你可以再生一个。你可以生两个或三个。你知道吗？

如果你们两个都死了，因为你们对孩子如此依恋，那么你的基因线会发生什么？它不会被传递下去，对吧？这样，夸卡就像，哦，天哪，我喜欢艾米莉，但我可以再生一个。我可以让艾米莉成为第二个。艾米莉就这样，噗噗，事情就这样。夸卡继续活下去。夸卡比任何人活得更久。谢谢。

谢谢。如果你还想继续，现在轮到你了。这非常有趣。我很害怕。乔丹决定为一种有点奇怪的选择而战。所以，哦，天哪。这本该是关于最聪明动物的演讲。很久以前，我想，是的，我要做考拉。但后来我查了一下，显然考拉是出了名的愚蠢。哇。

考拉有多愚蠢呢？它们的大脑仅占其体重的2%，这显然是任何哺乳动物中最小的大脑与体重比率之一。考拉的大脑也超级光滑，这很糟糕，因为大脑的褶皱越多，你就越聪明。人类的大脑就像玛丽·近藤，很多褶皱。向我的近藤粉丝致敬，带来快乐。

你知道你是谁。那家伙。老实说，我非常喜欢她。伙计们，考拉太愚蠢了，连声音都听起来很愚蠢。听这个。也许考拉并不是传统意义上的聪明，就像选择考拉作为这个演讲的主题并不是传统意义上的聪明。是的。

但我提议我们重新思考智力，部分是因为我被困在这个动物身上，但主要是因为我相信这个动物在许多方面比我们更聪明。也许考拉就像我妈妈形容我的那样，以它们自己特殊的方式聪明。让我们比较考拉和人类，看看谁看起来更聪明。考拉的日常安排是这样的。嗯...

考拉每天睡20个小时，剩下的四个小时用来吃东西和交配。不可思议。想象一下，只在你需要吃东西和性交的时间醒着。我是说，我对性交不是很感兴趣，因为我所谓的“糟糕”，但我确实喜欢吃东西。

另一方面，人类的日程安排是可怕的。我们平均每晚睡6.8小时。我们从噩梦中醒来，然后花10个小时阅读电子邮件和担忧，5个小时开电话会议，2个小时吃晚餐，吃着大碗里的食物，看着《亿万》，希望保罗·吉亚马提的声音能再次让我们入睡。

总之，考拉为生活中最伟大的礼物进行了优化。吃东西，享受性交（对于那些喜欢这种事情的人），以及在不需要听保罗·吉亚马提的声音的情况下睡觉。这很聪明。现在谁听起来愚蠢？仍然是考拉。我，呃...

我意识到我和其他人一起鼓掌。但你知道吗？我为自己感到骄傲。你认为考拉会这样做吗？和其他人一起鼓掌。是的，这真是一个考拉的举动。哇，好吧。

无线电实验室得到了苹果卡的支持。用苹果卡重启你的信用卡。开设储蓄账户时，您可以获得高达3%的每日现金返还，并以4.40%的年收益率（APY）增长。

在iPhone的Wallet应用中申请苹果卡。需经信用批准。储蓄仅适用于苹果卡持有者。需符合资格。储蓄和苹果卡由美国高盛银行盐湖城分行提供。FDIC成员。条款及更多信息请访问applecard.com。WNYC Studios得到了Zuckerman Spader的支持。经过近五十年的高风险法律事务处理，Zuckerman Spader在全国范围内被公认为一家顶级诉讼和调查公司。

他们的律师定期代表个人、组织和律师事务所处理商业争议、政府和内部调查以及审判。当你选择的律师最重要时。在线访问zuckerman.com。WNYC Studios得到了Rocket Money的支持。

你知道吗，近75%的人都有他们忘记的订阅？Rocket Money是一款个人理财应用，可以找到并取消你不想要的订阅，监控你的支出，并帮助降低你的账单，以便你可以增加储蓄。Rocket Money甚至会尝试为你谈判账单，最多可降低20%。你只需提交账单的照片，Rocket Money会处理其余的。

Rocket Money拥有超过500万用户，已在取消的订阅中节省了总计5亿美元，帮助会员每年节省高达740美元，使用该应用的所有功能。停止在你不使用的东西上浪费钱。通过访问rocketmoney.com/WNYC取消你不想要的订阅。就是rocketmoney.com/WNYC。哇，好吧。所以，我们听到了两个小组的发言。

以及袋鼠/夸卡和愚蠢/聪明的考拉。所以在那之后，让我们继续你们。是时候进行最后的评判了。有很多内容需要消化。提出了许多不同的论点。我想我得把这个给袋鼠二重奏。好吧，好吧，好吧。谁说了什么？演出结束后见我。我说的每一句话。这很好。好吧。

克罗尔维奇先生。哦，天哪。我对鸡的大胆印象深刻。但在评委们甚至有机会发表意见之前。反对。反对。这里发生了什么？劳雷尔·布雷特曼在舞台上走过，带着一根巨大的骨头，给了梅西，狗评委。发生了一起相当严重的贿赂事件。就像证人干扰之类的？

或者其他什么？你怎么称呼它？只是贿赂。只是贿赂。你别这样。所以为了保持公平，我们决定把整个事情交给观众，让他们用掌声投票，看看他们认为今晚最聪明的动物是什么。所以简单回顾一下，竞争者是乌鸦、粘菌、抹香鲸、鸡、浣熊和袋鼠。

而根据观众的意见，获胜者是...我想很明显谁是获胜者，对吧？我会要求打鼓，但...是的，我...请打鼓。我们将在这里进行。我认为比赛的获胜者，世界上最聪明的动物，是抹香鲸。桂冠归劳雷尔·布雷特曼。谢谢。

我们有一个奖品在某个地方。我不知道我们团队中的谁有它。我们有一个奖品。我们原本计划给获胜者一个金鱼，而现在我们有一条红鱼。我们有一条斗鱼给我们的获胜者，劳雷尔·布雷特曼。再一次为劳雷尔·布雷特曼赢得我们的比赛。她...

她从加州飞来，带着一只动物的腿，现在她带着一条小鱼飞回去。那么我们不在乎她试图贿赂评委吗？我们就是不在乎，对吧？我想我们让人民发声。我是说，评委不想要，所以这没用。好的，好的。是的，是的。

好的，这就是我们的节目，大家。感谢每一个人。请给点掌声。我有一些感谢。感谢我们的贡献者，丹·恩格伯、劳雷尔·布雷特曼、特雷西·克莱顿和乔丹·门多萨。鞠躬。感谢我们的评委，贾德·阿布姆拉德、罗伯特·克罗尔维奇、梅西和比尔·贝尔洛尼，我们的助手。哇！

感谢无线电实验室的工作人员，他们为这个夜晚做出了贡献。瑞秋·库西克、诺拉·凯勒、苏西·莱赫滕伯格，以及这里的整个团队。

今晚的节目以及我们即将于下周四推出的智力系列的所有报道得到了科学沙盒的支持，这是一个西蒙斯基金会的倡议，致力于让每个人参与科学的过程。我们非常感谢西蒙斯。此外，无线电实验室还得到了阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆基金会的支持，增强公众对现代科学和技术的理解。最重要的是，感谢大家的到来。没有你们我们无法做到。感谢你们在雨中前来。祝你们晚上愉快。

顺便说一下，劳雷尔·布雷特曼去年出版了一本书。这是一本名为《看似勇敢》的回忆录。它很美丽，就像她所做的一切。请查看。嗨，我是贾宁，来自纽约皇后区。以下是工作人员名单。无线电实验室由贾德·阿布姆拉德创立，由索伦·惠勒编辑。露露·米勒和拉提夫·纳赛尔是我们的联合主持人。

迪伦·基夫是我们的声音设计总监。我们的工作人员包括：我们的事实检查员是：黛安·凯利、艾米莉·克里格和娜塔莉·米德尔顿。

嗨，我是来自旧金山的贝丝。无线电实验室科学节目领导支持由戈登和贝蒂·摩尔基金会、科学沙盒、任务基金会倡议和约翰·坦普尔顿基金会提供。无线电实验室的基础支持由阿尔弗雷德·P·斯隆基金会提供。