Are you brainier than a chimp?

[Mich the Tester]

When pollsters got 1,000 British people to take Rosling's "ignorance survey" in May this year, the results suggested they knew "less about the world than chimpanzees", he says.

Do the test, scratch your armpits, and shout 'ooh ooh ooh' here;

BBC News - Hans Rosling: Do you know more about the world than a chimpanzee?

I got 7/9, making me a 'Great Ape'!

[d000hg]

Ook.

[kevpuk]

Hhhmmm, scored 1

[Mich the Tester]

Hhhmmm, scored 1

Do you read the Daily Mail?

[NickFitz]

The article doesn't make sense. Rosling is reported as saying that the people polled knew "less about the world than chimpanzees". However, it then goes on to quote him as saying "If for each question I wrote each of the possible alternatives on bananas, and asked chimpanzees in the zoo to pick the right answers, and by picking the right bananas, they'd just pick bananas at random. But the Brits did even worse." As far as I can tell from that rather oddly-phrased statement, he's saying that the chimps would select bananas purely at random, and that the British people polled did worse than random.

But that doesn't mean there is any comparison between levels of intelligence, or even knowledge, going on. The chimps aren't having their intelligence levels measured; they're being used as random number generators. If a human chooses A as an answer to a particular question, it will be because they've used their cognitive abilities combined with their knowledge of the world to work out what the correct answer is; the hypothetical ape just grabs a banana at random, let's say B. If it turns out the ape has the right answer, it doesn't make the ape brainier than the human; if the positions are reversed, it doesn't imply that the human is smarter than the ape.

All that getting a score worse than random implies is that a non-random method was used to choose the answers. It says nothing about relative intelligence of species. Anyway, they didn't even use any apes; who's to say that real chimps would produce a truly random response?

Incidentally, I would assume this is sloppy journalism, as is most reporting on scientific matters. This seems to be confirmed by reading Rosling's own, chimp-free, summary of the findings. You can find out more about Rosling's Gapminder project at The Ignorance Project.

[Mich the Tester]

The article doesn't make sense. Rosling is reported as saying that the people polled knew "less about the world than chimpanzees". However, it then goes on to quote him as saying "If for each question I wrote each of the possible alternatives on bananas, and asked chimpanzees in the zoo to pick the right answers, and by picking the right bananas, they'd just pick bananas at random. But the Brits did even worse." As far as I can tell from that rather oddly-phrased statement, he's saying that the chimps would select bananas purely at random, and that the British people polled did worse than random.

But that doesn't mean there is any comparison between levels of intelligence, or even knowledge, going on. The chimps aren't having their intelligence levels measured; they're being used as random number generators. If a human chooses A as an answer to a particular question, it will be because they've used their cognitive abilities combined with their knowledge of the world to work out what the correct answer is; the hypothetical ape just grabs a banana at random, let's say B. If it turns out the ape has the right answer, it doesn't make the ape brainier than the human; if the positions are reversed, it doesn't imply that the human is smarter than the ape.

All that getting a score worse than random implies is that a non-random method was used to choose the answers. It says nothing about relative intelligence of species. Anyway, they didn't even use any apes; who's to say that real chimps would produce a truly random response?

Incidentally, I would assume this is sloppy journalism, as is most reporting on scientific matters. This seems to be confirmed by reading Rosling's own, chimp-free, summary of the findings. You can find out more about Rosling's Gapminder project at The Ignorance Project.

I know, but don't tell the chimps.

[kevpuk]

Do you read the Daily Mail?

Only look at the pictures...

[Mich the Tester]

Only look at the pictures...

Ah you see, the Daily Wail has ways of making you thick.

[Old Greg]

The article doesn't make sense. Rosling is reported as saying that the people polled knew "less about the world than chimpanzees". However, it then goes on to quote him as saying "If for each question I wrote each of the possible alternatives on bananas, and asked chimpanzees in the zoo to pick the right answers, and by picking the right bananas, they'd just pick bananas at random. But the Brits did even worse." As far as I can tell from that rather oddly-phrased statement, he's saying that the chimps would select bananas purely at random, and that the British people polled did worse than random.

But that doesn't mean there is any comparison between levels of intelligence, or even knowledge, going on. The chimps aren't having their intelligence levels measured; they're being used as random number generators. If a human chooses A as an answer to a particular question, it will be because they've used their cognitive abilities combined with their knowledge of the world to work out what the correct answer is; the hypothetical ape just grabs a banana at random, let's say B. If it turns out the ape has the right answer, it doesn't make the ape brainier than the human; if the positions are reversed, it doesn't imply that the human is smarter than the ape.

All that getting a score worse than random implies is that a non-random method was used to choose the answers. It says nothing about relative intelligence of species. Anyway, they didn't even use any apes; who's to say that real chimps would produce a truly random response?

Incidentally, I would assume this is sloppy journalism, as is most reporting on scientific matters. This seems to be confirmed by reading Rosling's own, chimp-free, summary of the findings. You can find out more about Rosling's Gapminder project at The Ignorance Project.

However... the ape ends up with a load of bananas and the human has just wasted a proportion of his/her life on a ridiculous quiz. Who's smarter now?

[OwlHoot]

The article doesn't make sense. Rosling is reported as saying that the people polled knew "less about the world than chimpanzees". However, it then goes on to quote him as saying "If for each question I wrote each of the possible alternatives on bananas, and asked chimpanzees in the zoo to pick the right answers, and by picking the right bananas, they'd just pick bananas at random. But the Brits did even worse." As far as I can tell from that rather oddly-phrased statement, he's saying that the chimps would select bananas purely at random, and that the British people polled did worse than random.

But that doesn't mean there is any comparison between levels of intelligence, or even knowledge, going on. The chimps aren't having their intelligence levels measured; they're being used as random number generators. If a human chooses A as an answer to a particular question, it will be because they've used their cognitive abilities combined with their knowledge of the world to work out what the correct answer is; the hypothetical ape just grabs a banana at random, let's say B. If it turns out the ape has the right answer, it doesn't make the ape brainier than the human; if the positions are reversed, it doesn't imply that the human is smarter than the ape.

All that getting a score worse than random implies is that a non-random method was used to choose the answers. It says nothing about relative intelligence of species. Anyway, they didn't even use any apes; who's to say that real chimps would produce a truly random response?

Incidentally, I would assume this is sloppy journalism, as is most reporting on scientific matters. This seems to be confirmed by reading Rosling's own, chimp-free, summary of the findings. You can find out more about Rosling's Gapminder project at The Ignorance Project.

WHS - The whole chimp thing is completely irrelevant and as daft as a brush.