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Radiolab

G: The World's Smartest Animal

This episode begins with a rant. This rant, in particular, comes from Dan Engber - a science writer who loves animals but despises animal intelligence research. Dan told us that so much of the way we study animals involves tests that we think show a human is smart ... not the animals we intend to study.  Dan’s rant got us thinking: What is the smartest animal in the world? And if we threw out our human intelligence rubric, is there a fair way to figure it out? Obviously, there is. And it’s a live game show, judged by Jad, Robert … and a dog. For the last episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we’re sharing that game show with you. It was recorded as a live show back in May 2019 at the Greene Space in New York City. We invited two science writers, Dan Engber and Laurel Braitman, and two comedians, Tracy Clayton and Jordan Mendoza, to compete against one another to find the world’s smartest animal. What resulted were a series of funny, delightful stories about unexpectedly smart animals and a shift in the way we think about intelligence across all the animals - including us. Check out the video of our live event here!  This episode was produced by Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters, with help from Nora Keller and Suzie Lechtenberg. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Dorie Chevlin. Special thanks to Bill Berloni and Macy (the dog) and everyone at The Greene Space. Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate. 
Duration
51m
Broadcast on
30 Jul 2019
Audio Format
other

This episode begins with a rant. This rant, in particular, comes from Dan Engber - a science writer who loves animals but despises animal intelligence research. Dan told us that so much of the way we study animals involves tests that we think show a human is smart ... not the animals we intend to study. 

Dan’s rant got us thinking: What is the smartest animal in the world? And if we threw out our human intelligence rubric, is there a fair way to figure it out?

Obviously, there is. And it’s a live game show, judged by Jad, Robert … and a dog.

For the last episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we’re sharing that game show with you. It was recorded as a live show back in May 2019 at the Greene Space in New York City. We invited two science writers, Dan Engber and Laurel Braitman, and two comedians, Tracy Clayton and Jordan Mendoza, to compete against one another to find the world’s smartest animal. What resulted were a series of funny, delightful stories about unexpectedly smart animals and a shift in the way we think about intelligence across all the animals - including us.

Check out the video of our live event here! 

This episode was produced by Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters, with help from Nora Keller and Suzie Lechtenberg. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Dorie Chevlin.

Special thanks to Bill Berloni and Macy (the dog) and everyone at The Greene Space.

Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science.

Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate. 


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RIDILEB is supported by AT&T. We all love to connect via video calls or texts. Right now, at AT&T, you can get the new iPhone 18 Pro for $0 with iPhone trade-in. Any condition. It has the ultimate pro camera system and big leap in battery life, so you can turn this deal into a long-lasting connection. Learn how you can trade in your iPhone for the new iPhone 18 Pro requires trade-in of iPhone 14 or higher, excluding iPhone 16E, an eligible plan. Terms and restrictions apply, subject to change, visit an AT&T store for details. Hey, this is Pat Walters coming at you today with the final episode of our Radio Lab miniseries on Intelligence G, 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. So 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 to 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, we own 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 Rainy Lab, Jad Abramrod, and Robert pro-watch. 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 a scruffy brown fur.

Transcription truncated.

This episode begins with a rant. This rant, in particular, comes from Dan Engber - a science writer who loves animals but despises animal intelligence research. Dan told us that so much of the way we study animals involves tests that we think show a human is smart ... not the animals we intend to study.  Dan’s rant got us thinking: What is the smartest animal in the world? And if we threw out our human intelligence rubric, is there a fair way to figure it out? Obviously, there is. And it’s a live game show, judged by Jad, Robert … and a dog. For the last episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we’re sharing that game show with you. It was recorded as a live show back in May 2019 at the Greene Space in New York City. We invited two science writers, Dan Engber and Laurel Braitman, and two comedians, Tracy Clayton and Jordan Mendoza, to compete against one another to find the world’s smartest animal. What resulted were a series of funny, delightful stories about unexpectedly smart animals and a shift in the way we think about intelligence across all the animals - including us. Check out the video of our live event here!  This episode was produced by Rachael Cusick and Pat Walters, with help from Nora Keller and Suzie Lechtenberg. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris and Dorie Chevlin. Special thanks to Bill Berloni and Macy (the dog) and everyone at The Greene Space. Radiolab’s “G” is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Support Radiolab today at Radiolab.org/donate.