Oh What A Time... - #66 Animal Intelligence (Part 2)

Episode Date: September 23, 2024

This is Part 2! For Part 1, check the feed from yesterday! This week we’re discussing the most intelligent creatures the animal kingdom has to offer. We’ll be looking at mankind’s attempts to communicate with apes, plus we’ll be looking at a very intelligent horse (Clever Hans) and a very intelligent octopus (Paul). And in this episode we get more detail on Elis’ Christmas room, the lack of respect he receives from his cats and whether his simian-esque posterior could one day resolve some future war between man and ape. We imagine you’ll have questions or thoughts on this, so please do get in touch: [e-mail] If you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER? In exchange for your £4.99 per month to support the show, you'll get: - two bonus episodes every month! - ad-free listening - episodes a week ahead of everyone else - And first dibs on any live show tickets Subscriptions are available via AnotherSlice, Apple and Spotify. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.com You can also follow us on:  X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepod And Instagram at @ohwhatatimepod Aaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice? Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk). Chris, Elis and Tom x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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visit connectsontario.ca. This is part two of Animal Intelligence. Let's get on with it. ["Winter's Blossom"] Right, before I begin my topic this week, the two of you are sports fans and football fans in particular. How superstitious are you, Chris? I'll start with you. I went through a phase of, I donated a fiver once in one of the charity buckets outside Upton Park, and West Ham won that day. Then we went on a home-winning run of about seven games and I had to keep putting fivers in the charity bucket because that's what I'd done when we won and it just kept

happening and it cost me a lot of money. Mason- Yes, yeah. I can completely understand that. What about you, Tom? Tom- I'm not really superstitious. Although I do do this sometimes thing when I'm sort of walking along the road sometimes, but I think it's more of a game that people do, a lot of people just do in their own heads sometimes, where I'll be walking towards like a traffic light or a street light, and I think if I get there before that van gets there, then everything's going to be okay today. then everything's going to be okay today. So that I think, or I think I'm going to, you know, the work thing is going to go well next week at whatever. That's more a little game in my head.

I'm not really thinking it's going to play out, I suppose, but there's an element of superstition in that I do sort of still play it through in my mind. And then if I fail, if the van gets there first, I'll quickly readjust and go, actually no, I meant that bin and that car. So I will very quickly change. I'll just restart.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, to suit me. I was very superstitious for years as a football fan. And then I went to Montenegro to watch a Wales play this week, in fact. And I've had the same lucky shirt that I've worn for years, which obviously coincided with Gareth Bale's career. So it was nothing to do with the shirt. It was obviously all to do with him. And then someone said to me

when we played Latvia, he said, you're always in that shirt. I was like, why do you think we've done so well over the last 10 years? Did you not enjoy Euro 2016 or Euro 2020 or get into a World Cup for the first time since 1958. Well, newsflash, I was wearing the same shirt, actually. And you're welcome. Yeah. What's quite interesting, a lot of footballers clearly are quite superstitious. And you notice this, especially like La Liga for some reason, it always seems to be La

Liga, when a substitute comes on, a lot of them will do like a triple hop on one foot and stuff like this, or like a certain thing where they'll tap one shoulder and then do a little back. A lot of them have these repetitive movements they do. They've clearly done or they'll have their socks down and they'll pull them up as they come up. And it's often as pairs being brought on, I've noticed, especially in La Liga and Serie A, it seems to be a thing. Because it's one of the few things you can control. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you think, well, I'll just do that thing.

Yeah. Anyway, I went to Montenegro and I thought, this is ridiculous. I need to just wear something else. Because, and then, you know, I'll be free of this superstition. Anyway, we went to one and I'm convinced that the thing I wore in Montenegro is the new lucky shirt. And now I'm like, okay, I've got to guard this shirt with my life. What was the shirt? It was, I almost never wear football tops, but it was a 1987 to 1990 Wales Hummel top that I wanted

to show my friend. So I wore that and then we went and I'm like, okay, God, God is 40 years old, but I've really got to look after it. Oh God. Anyway, also I found that on the games where I've cut my nails, we tend to do quite well. But obviously, especially with Swansea, the championship playing so often, my nails can't grow fast enough. So I sort of tactically grow my nails for certain games. So if you're playing a game, I think we're never going to win anyway. I'll be turning up to those munches. I look like a folk guitarist. This is bonkers. Because the next week's fixture is the one I think we can win. I almost said this at the start, when we kind of discussed the problems you have with cats, but now you're growing out your fingernails. You've got a Christmas tree in your lawn.

You are turning into a crazy cat lady. You're on that trajectory. Anyway, I mean, I vividly remember the subject of this topic, Paul the octopus and his predictive prowess. Now I'd forgotten that Paul the octopus was from Dorset. Was he? Right. He was born in Weymouth on the 26th of January, 2008, but he lived most of his life at the Sea Life Centre in Oberhausen, west of Dortmund in Germany. So his carers at the centre noticed early on that he had a fascination with visitors and he would come to the grass of his tank to meet them.

And then as the Euros got going that year, staff at the centre, they concocted a gimmick by which Paul would predict the winner of Germany's opening match against Spain. So the method was very simple. He was given a choice of two boxes, one with oysters, the other with mussels, and whichever box you open first would be regarded as the pick. So obviously it's a 50-50, so it's no more or less accurate than a coin toss. But compared with other animal mystics, Paul had an amazing track record. He was a new story. Do you remember Paul the Octopus?

Yeah, yes I do. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah. I wrote jokes about him on very topical panel shows and stuff that I worked on and things like this. So Paul the Octopus, across the €2,008 in 2010 World Cup, he successfully predicted 13 of the 14 matches. Now that is better than Mark Lawrence on the BBC. 13 of the 14 was it? Yeah, five correct and one incorrect in the Euros and all eight correct in the World Cup. And the last tournament, this was when I remember it, he would deliver his predictions live on the telly.

So basically a pundit. Yeah, he was basically a pundit. So he had such a rate of success, he was proclaimed as a psychic, a psychic octopus. And he became an overnight celebrity across Europe and beyond. Because our lovely, a very talented historian, Daryl Leeworthy, who does our research, when I saw that he'd chosen Paul the Octopus, I was like, I could probably riff this. Because he was on the news every night. He was so famous for a bit.

He was so famous for a bit. He did Graham Norton, didn't he? There's a famous episode of Graham Norton, it's Tom Cruise, Paul the Octopus and Nicole Kidman on the sofa. But like this is mad right, when Paul's predictions went against Argentina, the Netherlands and even Germany, fans started threatening him. They issued a series of threats to cook the animal and eat him. And Argentine newspapers ran recipes for the best use of octopus. So then obviously the Spanish felt compelled to protect the creature who had foretold their great tournament victory. Now the thing with Paul's psychic renown, it paved the way for more psychic sea life.

So in 2018 the Japanese introduced audiences to their own predictor, Rubio the octopus, and he got off to a good start. 100% record in the group stages. Oh my god. 100% record in the group stages. Oh my God. 100% record. Yeah. I don't gamble. I wouldn't get 100% in the group stages. No.

No chance. No chance. He needs to be doing the football, is it the football pools? Is that what they call it? Where you have to predict like eight results and then you get them all. You win 100 grand or something like that. Paul should have started doing accumulators. Then he disappeared and it turned out he'd been sold. He'd been sold off. But Paul got

the chance to die of natural causes, which he did on the 26th of October 2010. Was he not in an aquarium in Germany? Yes, he was. He was from Dorset. He was an English octopus who'd moved to Germany, emigrated. So he was in an aquarium in Oberhausen. Will Barron He was the Harry Kane of octopuses. Will Barron He was in Oberhausen, West of Dorland. Dan Malkus Yeah, I got an email, on the other 90s football podcast I used to do, we got an email in from someone who went to see Paul the octopus in that

aquarium. And they said they saw him on like the Friday night and he was like just lethargic and hiding in the corner and he'd die, he later died that weekend. So that's it. Oh, that's so sad. We've seen that octopus documentary on Netflix, the guy who befriends the octopus. My octopus the teacher. What's that? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, my octopus the teacher. Yeah, he won an Oscar. Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. The octopus, they get a bit quiet at the end.

That octopus is not a gambling octopus. The octopus in my octopus teacher is just teaching this guy about the value of life, not how to correctly predict who's going to win in eight games. I'll tell you what, they would have won more Oscars if it had done that. And still we won't win an Oscar today. No, it's not just sea creatures. They're not the only psychics. Group of meerkats who lived at Drasulius Park Zoo in East Sussex successfully predicted the triumph of England's

lionesses. Euro 2022. A parakeet from Singapore's loyalty to Dutch football brought him temporary fame and a profile in Vanity Fair. What? I feel sorry for that journalist. Yeah. That's a difficult piece to write. Taiyo the Otter anticipated Japan's shock 2-1 victory over Germany in the World Cup of 2022. This time by selecting a small ball and placing it in the correct bucket.

No food incentive. The choice was made without any encouragement. Just the starting lineups. Now, football as a sport has a list of predictive pets that is absolutely vast. Now, I can't read them all because there's so many. I'll just read the first 10 or so. Ludwig the sausage dog, Leon the porcupine, Flopsy the kangaroo, Emma the pig, Gida the monkey, Alf the penguin, the boy the white lion, Derek the mini donkey, Anton the tamari, Oscar the macaw, Achilles the cat. There's loads of these. Now of these the most impressive is

Serengeti resident Nelly the elephant, whose ability to predict winners even exceeds Paul the octopus across 33 games in the 2006, 2010 and 2012 tournaments. She got the right winner 30 times. She chose Bayern Munich as the correct winners of the 2013 Champions League and was still going with her picks in 2014 and 2016. Marcus the Mystic Pig, by the way, who made his name on ITVs this morning, successfully predicted Brexit, the rise of Donald Trump and Auntie Marie's victory at Wimbledon. The rise of Donald Trump. How has he predicted that? That is different, isn't it? That's different to Donald Trump winning the election. The rise of Donald Trump suggests

that like in about 2010, you're like, that guy is famous. I think there's more to him. This guy is going to gather momentum. That's what he's predicted. Yeah. Well, the populism is very big amongst the far right in Europe. I think Donald Trump could be the American one actually. That's incredible. Now obviously it's ideal for telly. But the truth is humans have been reading omens into animal behaviour for thousands of years and fan culture around football is only the latest iteration.

In the Roman world, there was the widely practiced philosophy of Augury, which was a reading of the birds. This was known to the ancient Greeks as ornithomancy, I think I'm pronouncing that properly, and seems to have come to them via the hit-outs of the Eastern Mediterranean. Those skilled in reading the birds in ancient Greece were known variously as bird watchers, oinoscopi, bird interpreters, oinomanteis, or bird experts, oinonpiloi, and they knew what to look for, or gave the impression of it anyway. And so in the pages of Homer, we find the human ancestors of Nelly the Elephant and Paul the

Octopus. So there's Calcas, who was by far the best expert on birds, who knew things present, future and past, who acted as a military strategist for the Greeks in the Iliad. And Halithurses of the Odyssey, who surpassed all men of his generation in his knowledge of birds and in expounding omens. And also predicted in 2000 years Bayern Munich would win the Champions League. That was the most amazing one. So I know what I'm doing next week when the Swans are playing at home. I'll be asking a seagull. What's the score then, mate? If you steal my chip, that means we're going

to win 1-0. If you steal two chips, that's 2-0, etc. But there we go. You can see how in the past, obviously not reading into the predictions of animals in this sense of who's going to win the football match or whatever, but simply looking at how animals are behaving may tell you things about weather or danger. There are things like, for instance, with the tsunami, there's famously foxes of birds flying away. You can see how reading the signs of nature around you and how animals are reacting with their relax, whatever, would have a value, would have in terms of preserving your life, understanding if there's a volcanic eruption coming, that sort of stuff.

If someone told me that military strategy was being based on a bloke who claimed to be able to speak to birds though, I'd be like, yeah, that's great. Can we maybe get a second pair of eyes on this? Because I'm the guy with the sword and the shield that's going to get beaten up if this goes wrong. So, I don't know. Maybe can we have a sort of round table it a little bit and get everyone's thoughts. With the Pennzoil Platinum up to 15 year, 800,000 kilometer protection guarantee, your adventures will be many. Pennzoil, long may we drive. Available at your local Canadian tire.

Enrollment required, keep your receipts. Other conditions applied. See Pennzoil.ca slash warranty for full details. So today, I'm gonna talk to you both about a super intelligent horse. Okay? Let's start with super, super intelligent. Let's start with an important question. How intelligent do you think horses are? Rank them amongst other animals? Where do you think they lie? What would be your sort of feelings? I mean, I haven't got an answer to this. I'm just interested because I think it sort of, it does, it leans against what I'm talking about here.

Below the chimp. Yes. Yeah, below the dolphin. Below the dolphin. Yep. Above dog? Maybe not. Maybe not. No, I think below dog.

Maybe not. Maybe below dog. I think below dog. But above cat? Actually, I'm not even sure about that. No, no, no. I would say above mouse. Okay. Are we saying horses are thick? Above the field mouse. Well, maybe they are. Well, they're ridden around for a start. Yeah. I mean, they can jump, but I've never seen them do anything sort sort of, like tackle

a mat out of that. Exactly. You've never gone to Ascot and seen them all line up and like try and divide. No. I've never seen one on a train platform reading The Economist. Exactly, yeah. We can't hold it for a start. That might be the issue. It might be the lack of hands. If it had hands like your cat, El, it'd be fine. That's a great question.

Why have hooves evolved? That's not a great system, is it? Well, system. Well, I suppose it is for running fast across a variety of terrain. It's hard. It's kind of, yeah, absolutely. Let's not start criticizing hooves at this point. I'd agree with you. I'd say that they are middling in their intelligence. I think they're above a field mouse, below a cat. I think that's probably where I would put

them. But 120 years ago, there was a horse that a lot of people considered to be an absolute brain box. It was owned by a German school master and part-time mystic, which is my first... I'm starting to question things once that's chucked in, called Wilhelm von Osten. His horse seemed to be able to correctly solve problems in multiplication and division by way of tapping and all to the level of a 10-year-old school student. This horse went by the name of Clever Hands, which surely

should have been Clever Hooves. I think that's it. It feels like they've chosen the wrong. That's not right. So people went absolutely mad for Clever Hands. Here's a summary taken from an American newspaper in 1904 at the height of the craze. They said, hardly a day passes, but the newspapers have something to say of the wonderful mental performances of clever hands, an intelligent four-footed animal capable of making simple, arithmetical calculations, even converting common fractions into decimal fractions. He can also tell the time by looking at a clock. He knows the coin of the realm and the value of playing cards. So let's go through these

things first. First of all, like whenever I read about this sort of stuff in like 1904, that sort of time and how people are really into an intelligent horse or a pig who could read, My immediate reaction is this is because they didn't have Netflix back then. They didn't have things to do. That's my feeling. This is why people always get so excited back then because there was nothing to do. Mason- So you're either. If you were clever, you were inventing flight. If you weren't clever, you were becoming completely enamoured with

genius horses. Mason-Yes, exactly. Also, the value of car, all these sort of things, they feel like performative things. I think we can probably assume, and you'd be right to assume, that his owner decided to try and make money off this, which is often what happened in these situations. Let's not just disregard it straight away. There were some skeptics, it's worth saying. In fact, I can confidently say that this is my favourite scientific committee ever assembled. Although people love this horse, they assembled in autumn of 1904 a special scientific commission in Berlin. The scientific community put a proper commission together to see if this horse was as bright as everyone was saying.

Now imagine being part of that scientific committee and people asking, what are you working on? You're at a dinner party and one guy saying rocket science. Will Barron You would have been people with PhDs. Will Barron Yeah, exactly. Will Barron Thinking, I'm wasting my time. Will Barron But you're right. Yeah, exactly! Thinking, I'm wasting my time. But you're right, there are people back there, Ellis, people working on unmanned flight and stuff like that, and you're having to admit, you're looking into whether a horse can tell

the time. That's your focus at this point. Yeah, like yeah, I did my PhD, yeah, the banter years, when I was looking to see if horses could understand the value of various playing cards. Well, would you like to guess what this scientific community concluded? Do you want to guess? That it couldn't. Chris, would you like to guess? Couldn't.

Well, remarkably, this committee, which was full of a number of unique scientists at the time, concluded that there were no tricks involved and the horse seemed quite able to do what the master claimed. However, the skepticism understandably rumbled on. So this first committee said, no, this horse is super right. It knows about playing cards. It can tell the time. The first sort of committee focused on challenging it, came away and said, no, it's absolutely fine. However, the skepticism kind of rumbled on despite this. As one British newspaper put it, the horse should be classed with the old fashioned learned pig rather than with the senior wrangler. And so a further study was commissioned because people thought,

okay, this first group have said the horse is as bright as a man, but that can't be right. We need to do another study. So this time- We duly declare this horse is as bright as a man. Scientific. This time a chap called Oskar Funxt, who was a biologist and psychologist, he started another study in 1907, despite the fact the horse's owner is saying, no, we've got the official, I've got the papers. This is proof my horse is mega bright. They do another study. This time the results are published in 1911. Funks concluded that the whole thing this time was actually a ruse and based not on

intelligence, but by a reading of signals that were subtly communicated to the horse by its owner von Osten, even without the owner's knowledge. For example, this is one of the major points of proof, when they blindfolded the horse, Funks noted it proved unable to respond to any of the questions posed. What do you mean? But how does it answer? Well, because his owner would ask a maths question, I assume four times eight or whatever, and then the horse would tap the floor the appropriate amount of time. But they showed that when they blindfolded the horse, the horse was unable to answer

the questions, especially the one, look at that clock, what time is it? That was the main one. Really struggle. However, crowds continue to flock. This is what's amazing. That's what I love about this time. People, he'd be disregarding the press, but crowds continue to flock to see Clever Hands shows. I believe. Exactly. flock to see Clever Hands shows. I believe. Exactly.

I believe in Clever Hands. The owner continued to make loads and loads of money, which is obviously what happens in all of these stories. It's always some guy making lots of money and touring this thing around in the pre-Netflix age. However, in 1909, when his owner died, sadly, he was sold on and sadly met a tragic fate. This is quite sad. Care to guess, bearing in mind the time we talk about here, 1911, the years after that, what happened to poor...

He didn't become a First World War war horse, did he? Yeah, I'm afraid so. During the worst years of the First World War, he was eaten by a group of hungry soldiers in the trenches. Come on. What? And they became super cool. The saddest bit, this is true, it says here, they asked him what time it was, he did 12 taps of his hoof and then they suddenly realised it was lunchtime.

That's why they ate him. That's why if he hadn't given away the time, they wouldn't have known. That is vintage crane. That is vintage crane. No, I've made that up. Okay. Do you know what? Do you know what? I mean, I've... You know, if you were... If you had inherited wealth, and you were at school or something, and someone's like, well, you've got your mum and dad are well off. What do they do? Oh, it's inherited well, is it? So what did your forefathers or your ancestors do? Oh, my great-great-grandfather had the cleverest horse in Germany.

Ellis, do you know what? I genuinely, I would be much more likely to go and see a show if it was advertised as the thickest horse in Germany. And it was a horse that was just walking into walls, tripping over stuff, going to eat an apple, missing the apple instead, biting the fence. Asking it to predict World Cup games, getting them all wrong. That's a great afternoon out, the thickest horse in Germany. You really thought Iran were going to beat England? Mate, you've lost your mind. Please tell me that's not a great day out.

Ari Kainz will be the best strikers in the world. You reckon Iran will get... You mad mate. So, what was most interesting about this was that the idea of clever hands then stoked this fascination for the talents of animals in the first decade of the 20th century. This was at a point when science and the ordinary mind were sort of grappling with the consequences of evolutionary theory. This all led to a sort of copycat carnival of these types of animals. I'll give you some examples of the animals that were knocking around and were on tour at that point. There was a talking dog called Don who lived near Hamburg and he was able to speak six words. On tour.

Havn, hunger, kuchen, jaha, nine and hund, which is have hungry cakes? Yes, no, and marshmallow. No, it's not marshmallow, it's dog. There was also another thinking horse. The most famous of all was called Princess Trixie, who was the darling of the British stage by 1908. Trixie was raised from parents who were show horses. So Trixie seemed to display almost human abilities, they say, including an ability to count. So much so that she was invited to Buckingham Palace to show off her skills to King Edward VII and the rest of the royal family at the children's garden party. You would just be like, oh come on mate. I'd rather have the afternoon off than meet a clever horse.

Well you say that, but thousands of people flock to see Trixie perform around the country, including White City in Manchester in 1908. Here's what one newspaper described it as, from early in the afternoon until the hour when the myriad of electrical lights fade away, there has been a steady stream of visitors. A beautiful grey horse, no different appearance from many hundreds which are seen daily, but one possessing a mind almost human has fairly captivated thousands of animal lovers, as well as set thousands of visitors guessing as to whether or not a horse could possibly be gifted with the power of thought. As with Clever Hands, it kind of all came to a sad end when Princess Trixie was on tour in the United States in 1909 and the horse was involved in an accident on the Pennsylvania

Railroad near Delmar on the border between Delaware and Maryland. Now, before I describe what happened, I've had this a number of times on this show where I've been reading up on what is seemingly quite a fun story because it's the past. It always ends horrifically. So it's laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, laugh, and then, oh no, that's an awful, awful event. So sadly, Trixie, solemn face, was burned to death along with seven humans, post-op clerks and train staff when an express train crashed into another locomotive. So poor old Trixie, I'm afraid, died. But that's kind of, this is the fascination at this point of animals, animal intelligence. It just kind of gripped the world. There were, across Europe, hundreds of people touring

these sort of things. Obviously not the case now because we have things to do. Will Barron Are they getting cleverer, animals? Or are they staying the same? That's interesting. Like would a cat from ancient Egypt look at my cats and think, God, they're bright. That's a great question. I imagine so. Well, surely evolutionary theory would suggest that everything is learning slowly, isn't it? And improving. Is that right? That you're, yeah. Or maybe you're adapting to surrounding more. Well, Ellis, you're kind of posing the question that natural selection would dictate that

the cleverest animals survive. But as we've just heard from Clever Hands and Trixie, they had horrendous deaths. So actually, if you are a clever animal, I would probably suggest you shut your mouth because in the two examples we've just heard, it's not worked out well. Yeah. Yeah, and you're not going to make the money anyway. You'll be your own there. Yes.

Yeah. And also, what are you going to spend it on, to be honest? Yeah. What does a cat need to buy? Exactly. Yeah, I probably will have sugar as and when I want it actually. Just to end here, I wanted to read one of the headlines I'd forgot to read out, which is about Hans when he was at the height of his fame. A newspaper in London read with

the headline, Hans, a horse with a human brain. So that is what people thought they really did embrace the fact that this horse was probably intelligent. But I do mean this, Germany's thickest horse, not only would I go and see that, that feels like a, that's a made for TV programme, isn't it? You'd watch that, Germany's thickest horse on ITV? Very easy. It must be so much easier to source a thick horse than a player. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. You can also really screw him in the contract as well because he wouldn't notice. Unless he's got a ball-breaking agent.

Oh yeah, that's the problem. And there we have it, animal intelligence. We've all learnt an awful lot. I actually now feel quite stupid. Yeah, I just feel a bit sad about all those horses. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, if you'd like to become a subscriber, why don't you go to owhatatime.com where you can see all the benefits, only £4.99 a month. It's well worth it. You get all the episodes in one go, ad free. You get bonus bits, two bonus episodes a month.

And also when we start doing live gigs, you'll be first in line for tickets, which is well worth it. owhatatime.com and it's less than a fiver. Thank you very much, we'll be back with you next week. Goodbye. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye. Bye. Thank you.