Are You Smarter Than...

People think that humans are the smartest of animals, and most people do not think about other animals as being smart, or at least think that they are not as smart as humans. Knowing that other animals are as smart as us means we can appreciate them more, which could also help us to help them. (via Marginal Revolution)

If George Orwell was writing "Politics and the English Language" again today, he'd use this as an example. It's from a scientific paper written by a class of primary school children, published in an academic journal. Yes it it a bit of a publicity stunt; it's not actually about the writing, the point is that these kids and their teacher did an experiment that really did advance science. But this is one thing I take from it: I would rather write like these eight-year-olds than like most academics.