Monthly Archives: December 2013

When Python Open Doors

Earlier this year, the ever prestigious Harvard University kicked out dozens of its students. Why, you might ask? It was for a rather simple reason, really: plagiarism. Some of you might be surprised that students considered by many to be the brightest in the nation would end up getting kicked out for something so simple, but in the end, it does prove something very evident that we can never forget: intelligence is relative. Despite IQ, SAT, and other tests attempting to quantify human intelligence, there is never any truly purely objective and unbiased yet entirely comprehensive way to do this. There are so many factors that one must consider while describing intelligence: learning capabilities, creativity, academic knowledge, artistic talents, etc. This incredibly broad and diverse range of topics that all fall under the title of “intelligence” show that singular quantification of intelligence is not reliable and can lead to misleading results. This is one reason why in the US, college applications look at way more than just one’s GPA and standardized test scores (hopefully this does not bring back any negative memories for any of you).

Even within just the realm of academic knowledge, some people might be incredibly brilliant in some areas but humiliatingly deficient in others. My former AP biology teacher has a masters degree in biology but still did not know that snakes have bones until midway through my junior year in high school. I once watched a contestant on the TV game show Cash Cab answer a large number of trivia questions correctly that I did not know any of the answers to. However, at the very end, he not only failed to get the last question right, but he also thought that Siberia is a country…

The relativity of intelligence extends way beyond just humans. While only great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos), whales, dolphins, elephants, and the European magpie have been confirmed to have self awareness through the mirror test (animals are tested to see if they can recognize themselves in a mirror), some other animals display a surprising amount of intelligence despite what their limited brain capacities might suggest themselves to be capable of.

european magpie

European magpie

In the 1993 film Jurassic Park, the Velociraptors are depicted as being incredibly intelligent through their ability to open doors (I unfortunately could not obtain a video of this scene from YouTube).

raptors in the kitchen

 

The Velociraptors from Jurassic Park

In reality, even Troodon, the smartest of non-avian dinosaurs, only had intelligence roughly equal to that of an opossum.

Troodon_2_NT

 

Troodon

However, this does not necessarily mean that dinosaurs can not open doorknobs. Even pythons can learn to accomplish such a task…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhS08LjFXP8

Furthermore, there is now evidence to suggest that even crocodiles and alligators are capable of tool use: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/tetrapod-zoology/2013/11/30/tool-use-in-crocs-and-gators/. Alligators and crocodiles in the US and India have been observed to swim around with sticks of their heads in order to attract nesting waterbirds looking for sticks to build their nests out of.

Often times, we cast plenty of judgments on people and animals of this world. Intelligence usually plays a big role into these judgments. We often consider Harvard students to be incredibly intelligent geniuses and cold blooded reptiles like snakes and crocodilians to be stupid beasts that know only how to kill and eat. However, as shown here, these judgments are entirely wrong. While we may feel more comfortable simply believing that the world is how we judge it to be, this is fallacious thinking and prevents us from truly seeing reality and how awesome it can be.

Status Report

Our multimedia project is currently coming along rather well. We currently have several gigabytes worth of recorded footage that we are considering inputting into our final video. While this may seem like a lot, a large majority of it is about ten minutes worth of footage showing people walking around and into the HUB. This footage will be sped up to 800% and will act as B-roll for whenever Austin is narrating at the start about how few people at Penn State actually voted in the last election. We also have at least three interviews with other Penn State students regarding their views on voter ID laws, vote significance, and the Electoral College. We hope to have more student interviews as well as some professor interviews coming soon. We also have a survey in the works for our English class to fill out so that we can gather more everyday sentiment on our topic. While our script is not yet fully fleshed out, we do have some inklings of where our video will be heading after the introduction. While we will start out talking about voter significance and ID laws, we will eventually expand outward to cover the broader topic of the Electoral College in general.

While we have already made significant headway into our project, there is still much to do, More interviews and B-roll footage will hopefully be added in the coming days. We can hopefully flesh out our script more and record the narration soon. Finally, editing and rendering the whole video will likely be a very time-consuming process that still awaits us in the future. Despite how much still needs to be accomplished, we are feeling pretty comfortable and content with where we currently are with this project and hope that it can be a resume-worthy video that we look fondly upon for decades into the future.