Can you imagine waking up at 3am to raid on your refrigerator, flicking on the lights, and seeing a dozen rats drag racing down your kitchen tile? Ok, so they aren’t doing the Indy 500 yet, but in the fabulously fun video below, scientists have used behavioral modification techniques and actually trained some rats to drive specially made rat-sized cars to the nearest Froot-loop dispenser.
Implications
One implication is that it confirms that animals are far more intelligent that we humans like to give them credit for. The lack of tool use has been a standard argument against animal intelligence for the last several hundred years. And the food and drug industry has a billion dollar interest in keeping things status quo. The makeup industry has even more interest. After all, we might think animal testing as the final step before human testing on critical, life saving medication may be justified. But torturing intelligent animals capable of driving cars just to test yet another color of eyeshadow when there are millions of products equally as banal already available? That’s much harder to sell as morally justified.
A second implication is that perhaps animals do not use tools as much as humans because they have no need to. Historically, in hunter/gatherer societies, human chose to remain nomadic because nature provided adequate, and sometimes abundant, provision for all one’s basic needs. Going beyond basic necessities and developing wants and luxuries created more work, and was deemed not to be worth the bother. There are still nomadic ethnic groups who think city living just has zero appeal. People who live in cities often work 60 hours a week. We spend most of our existence working to pay the rent. We literally live to work and work to live. Perhaps we should ponder the fact that apparently rats have always had the aptitude to drive cars. But you throw in some Froot-loops, and bam! Instant consumerism and the rat-race begins.
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