"Hans, the wonderful stallion, is nine years old and is the property of a Herr von Osten, a retired school teacher." With this, the New York Times introduced a horse with a remarkable talent.
Hans could not only count and do arithmetic, he could distinguish gold from silver and copper. He understood fractions: "When asked how many 3's there are in 7 he stamps down his foot twice and the fraction once."
Hans would indicate his answer by stamping his foot, and was rewarded with a carrot or a lump of sugar.
"A remarkable thing happened yesterday," the 1904 article continued. Hans could remember, and even spell the name of an officer. And, if that wasn't enough, he could even indicate where a note should lie on the musical scale.
Certainly this was a horse with astonishing talents and, with credulous stories such as this, Hans and his trainer became celebrities. However not everybody was so easily convinced and so Oskar Pfungst was assigned the job of investigating.
In a textbook example of applying the scientific method, Pfungst worked methodically to isolate possible influences on Hans' behaviour. With cooperation from von Osten, they tested various combinations where von Osten and spectators were visible or hidden. They had other people ask the questions, or questions that were not known in advance.
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Through a process of elimination, they realised that Hans knew how to reply by carefully watching von Osten's body language. He'd unconsciously signal the correct answer by moving his head.
Hans indeed was a very clever horse! Not for his intellectual ability, but for observing the human.
On one hand we could dismiss this story as proof that animals other than humans are non-thinking automatons, operating on robot-like logic. On the other, we are constantly learning that animals can be surprisingly smart.
Alex the grey parrot had an impressive vocabulary and was able to describe objects with a sophistication approaching that of a four-year-old child. This was no mere mimicry because Alex could apply language in novel ways.
Tool use, once thought to be the exclusive domain of humans, has now been observed in many animals, with a striking example being the New Caledonian crow that can make its own tools.
And anybody who's owned a dog will know just how astute they can be, picking up subtle clues that you're about to serve dinner or leave the house. With emphatic body language, they'll give their opinion on that.
All this serves to undermine our self-appointed location at the pinnacle of creation.
Still, no other animal has yet read and understood an Ask Fuzzy column, even if you suspect they are occasionally written by a science-savvy monkey with a keyboard.
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