Big Picture Science for Monday December 28, 2015 - You Think; You’re So Smart

Big Picture Science - You Think; You’re So Smart

ENCORE: Sure you have a big brain; it’s the hallmark of Homo sapiens. But that doesn’t mean that you’ve cornered the market on intelligence. Admittedly, it’s difficult to say, since the very definition of the term is elusive. Depending on what we mean by intelligence, a certain aquatic mammal is not as smart as we thought (hint: rhymes with “caulpin”) … and your rhododendron may be a photosynthesizing Einstein.

And what I.Q. means for A.I. We may be building our brilliant successors.

Guests:

• Laurance Doyle – Senior researcher, SETI Institute
• Justin Gregg – Animal behaviorist, The Dolphin Communication Project, author of Are Dolphins Really Smart?: The mammal behind the myth
• Michael Pollan – Journalist, author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation and The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. His article, “The Intelligent Plant,” appeared in the December 23rd issue of The New Yorker
• Luke Muehlhauser – Executive Director of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute

This encore podcast was first released on March 19, 2014

Download episode at: http://bigpicturescience.org/episodes/You_Think_You_re_So_Smart

You can listen to this and other episodes at http://bigpicturescience.org/, and be sure to check out Blog Picture Science, the companion blog to the radio show.