The World's Smartest Animal | Radiolab Presents: G Episode 6

What’s the smartest animal in the world? In the final episode of G, Radiolab’s miniseries on intelligence, we figure it out with an animal game show!
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 Abumrad, Robert Krulwich … and a dog.
For the final episode of G we’re sharing that game show with you. It was recorded as a live show 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 was a series of funny and delightful stories about unexpectedly smart animals and a shift in the way we think about intelligence across all the animals - including us.
You can watch that live show here: • Radiolab Presents: The...
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Radiolab Presents: G is a multi-episode exploration of one of the most dangerous ideas of the past century: the concept of intelligence. In six episodes we unearth the fraught history (and present-day use) of IQ tests, dig into the bizarre tale of one man’s obsessive quest to find the secret to genius in Einstein’s brain, reveal the ways the dark history of eugenics have crept up into the present, look to the future with a controversial geneticist who has created a prenatal test for intelligence, and stage a raucous game-show throwdown to crown the smartest animal in the world.
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.
Illustration by Deborah Lee [debleeart.com]
Video by Michael Snyder and Kim Nowacki.

[@xxxShiroKirixxx]

I like this podcast alot

[@petitio_principii]

Criminally under-watched/listened.

[@EmilyKresl]

I'm watching this while folding laundry and my cat voted for the crow. 😅

[@noname-pz9kb]

I thought this was going to be about intelligence. And the first contestant has to make it about racism?

[@davidtomlin6259]

It’s awful that you keep calling it such a racist thinkers a lot more people than yourself know that crows are a beautiful animal and they are super smart and I think they mate for life

[@EmilyKresl]

TO be fair crows never got a fair shake either. It's up to us to teach people to respect and admire crows instead of fearing them .