More Evidence of Just How Smart Dem Critters Is!

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This one from Roderick Long.

My favourite quote from the comments:

"Researchers in Tokyo report that elephants are able to do math and scored 87 percent in basic math tests.

"It's bad enough our students can't compete with Asian students, now we can't even compete with Asian elephants."

Comments

  1. Jim6:52 PM

    You know I'm all about the animals. But I'm a little concerned, based on one web video, that the researcher hasn't eliminated the "Clever Hans" problem. She's loading the apples by hand, and appears, herself, to know how many apples are going in which bucket. And the right bucket is the last one. Plus, she's making the decision when to take the "wrong" bucket away. There just seems too much possibility for the elephant to cue off the researcher.

    Further digging may prove me wrong, mind you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Roderick T. Long9:13 PM

    Thanks. But when ya gonna approve my two pending posts?

    ReplyDelete
  3. gcallah12:25 AM

    Roderick -- Oops! All other comments needing moderation (which happens only on old posts) are "Runescape runescape runescape" so I don't get to it too often.

    Jim -- Well, I'd hope that any modern researcher would be alert to the Clever Hans effect! But you never know.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Roderick T. Long12:03 PM

    Thanks! But my long comment here hasn't shown up yet. Exists it still?

    ReplyDelete
  5. gcallah12:04 AM

    Roderick, I'm sorry, but I think I must have deleted it in some batch delete of other olden comments. Mea culpa. Felix culpa. Helix culpa.

    ReplyDelete

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