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Clever Hans, Part 2: The Rise and Fall of Hans · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Wilberg.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show Ridiculous Historians. As always, thank
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  Speaker 1: you so much for tuning in. This is part two
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  Speaker 1: of our two part series on the strange, beautiful, touching,
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  Speaker 1: cinematic and hoax written story of Clever Hans, available on
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  Speaker 1: video on demand in December, starring Daniel day Lewis as
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  Speaker 1: Older Hans, Finn wolf Heard as younger Hans, um Gary
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  Speaker 1: Oldman as the Professor Easten, Yes, yes, indeed, and who
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  Speaker 1: else who do we say, Christoph Vaults as his nemesis, folks,
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  Speaker 1: Let's get to it. Of course, there's gonna be skeptics saying,
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  Speaker 1: come on, guys, it's a horse. There's gotta be where's
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  Speaker 1: the gimmick, where's the twist? We gotta find this because again,
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  Speaker 1: like to your point been, you know, some people like
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  Speaker 1: this as kind of like a light bit of entertainment,
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  Speaker 1: But if you really get down to the nitty gritty
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  Speaker 1: of what this might mean for us as a species,
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  Speaker 1: that's when things start to get a little heavy. So
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  Speaker 1: there was a commission assembled, the Hans Commission, because psychologists,
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  Speaker 1: zoologists and other experts in different fields that had you know,
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  Speaker 1: something to gain or lose from this being the real deal.
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  Speaker 1: Were assembled um studies and animal cognition. Uh and and
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  Speaker 1: there you know the way they process information. We're not
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  Speaker 1: really a thing. So this was very much looked at
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  Speaker 1: as an opportunity to kind of figure out how far
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  Speaker 1: this actually went and was it real. Yeah, and this
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  Speaker 1: is where we introduce see Lloyd Morgan, one of the
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  Speaker 1: more skeptical people in the crowd. See Lloyd Morgan is
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  Speaker 1: a British psychologist that is responsible for something known as
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  Speaker 1: Morgan's cannon. This is a fundamental sort of precept of
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  Speaker 1: psychology comparative animal psychology. See Lloyd Morgan says in new
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  Speaker 1: cases in animal activity to be interpreting in terms of
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  Speaker 1: higher psychological processes, because he thinks higher mental abilities can
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  Speaker 1: only be remotely considered as explanations if faculties that are
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  Speaker 1: lower in the scale of evolution and development cannot explain it.
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  Speaker 1: So he's saying, like, before you say that this horse
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  Speaker 1: can think and can read, you need to prove that
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  Speaker 1: the horse is not doing all of the other things
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  Speaker 1: that we know a horse can do, like be trained,
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  Speaker 1: for example. Uh. And that's why the German Board of
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  Speaker 1: education starts, you know, as you said, nol, the Hans Commission.
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  Speaker 1: The Hans Commission is like I want to see a
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  Speaker 1: movie where they're super heroes. Oh, it's a real rugus gallery, dude,
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  Speaker 1: give it to us. Yeah, we've got a veterinarian, we've
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  Speaker 1: got a circus manager, a calvary officer, a gaggle of
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  Speaker 1: school teachers, and the director of the zoological gardens kind
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  Speaker 1: of like the the boss of the Berlin Zoo exactly. Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And so they have hearings, right, Um, they hear witnesses,
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  Speaker 1: they observe the horses kind of routines. And in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o four, the conclusion of the Hans Commission says that
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  Speaker 1: there were no tricks or secret signals involved in Hans's performance,
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  Speaker 1: and that they believe that his ability, his display of
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  Speaker 1: cognition and intelligence of human level, were in fact legit. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: they double that. That's not you know, that's not the
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  Speaker 1: answer that most people would expect, right we We would
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  Speaker 1: not imagine that all these experts would get together and
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  Speaker 1: conclude yep, no, horses. Horses are basically teenagers without thumbs.
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  Speaker 1: That is what a horse is. Now, they are all
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  Speaker 1: kinds of questions we have to answer should we still
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  Speaker 1: eat them? Is it slavery? Uh? If we use a
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  Speaker 1: horse on a farm, things like that. And this is
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  Speaker 1: where we meet one person who's not happy with the commission.
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  Speaker 1: This guy is functioning kind of like a conspiracy theorist
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  Speaker 1: in the post Hans Commission world. He's a psychologist. Noel,
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  Speaker 1: I'll probably need your help with this name. I'm gonna
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  Speaker 1: defer to your German aptitudes here. Oscar funks Yeah, funks. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: the p is silent p f u mgst Oscar funksts.
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  Speaker 1: I did kind of make a piece down there because
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  Speaker 1: it's fun. But yeah. He's a psychologist who worked in
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  Speaker 1: a lab, one of the labs headed by one of
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  Speaker 1: the commission members. So he got way to this and
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  Speaker 1: was like, NAHOI this is horsepucky. Literally, he decided to
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  Speaker 1: get to the bottom of this further because he wasn't
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  Speaker 1: having it, which is interesting because your right bend, like
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  Speaker 1: at this point the matter is closed. He's basically you know,
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  Speaker 1: boxing windmills right at this point. Um, And he looks
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  Speaker 1: like a crazy person because they have all these the brightest,
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  Speaker 1: the best and brightest you know, horse experts in the
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  Speaker 1: world have decided yeah, that that Hans is in fact
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  Speaker 1: a very clever boy indeed. Uh. And also you gotta
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  Speaker 1: wonder too, like how it came off was like, do
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  Speaker 1: you really can't we just have nice things, you know Allscar,
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  Speaker 1: can't you just leave well enough alone? But he couldn't
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  Speaker 1: leave well enough alone indeed, But he know it's great
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  Speaker 1: bed he designed some pretty clever experience himself because he
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  Speaker 1: was also a clever boy. And and um, he wanted
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  Speaker 1: to make sure that von Austin wasn't like feeding Hans
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  Speaker 1: answers giving him secret hand signals, which you know, the
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  Speaker 1: Commission had already addressed that no hand signals were a
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  Speaker 1: part of it. But he wanted to be doubly sure,
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  Speaker 1: so he removed von Austin from the situation and made
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  Speaker 1: sure that he wasn't the one asking the questions. So
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  Speaker 1: he got that all out of the way. This is
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  Speaker 1: when he gets really interesting and really smart. Uh. And like,
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  Speaker 1: I don't even know how he thought of this, or
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  Speaker 1: Havan Austin thought of this in the first place, but
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  Speaker 1: he decided that maybe it was possible the horse was
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  Speaker 1: getting something in line with like nonverbal context clues or
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  Speaker 1: like you know, tone change or body language, um posture,
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  Speaker 1: even uh the way you know, inflection of words. So
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  Speaker 1: in order to do that, he made sure that the
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  Speaker 1: person asking the question did not know the answer to
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  Speaker 1: the question, or at least the way that it was worded, etcetera.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you could unpas that a little bit better, but
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  Speaker 1: I'm sort of not quite seeing how that would help.
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  Speaker 1: Here's what he did, Uh, he explains the procedure of
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  Speaker 1: the test. We have this as a direct quote from Fungst.
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  Speaker 1: He says, Van Osten would whisper number in the horse's ear,
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  Speaker 1: just like twenty, right, and nobody else would have heard
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  Speaker 1: that number. Then Foodst would whisper another number in Hans's ear,
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  Speaker 1: and for any centiphiles here in the film adaptation, I like,
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  Speaker 1: I really want us to have von oast and whispering
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  Speaker 1: in like one ear and then Foodst coming in in
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  Speaker 1: the other ear. For the post I want Hans center frame.
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  Speaker 1: And then maybe we could do like a beautiful mind
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  Speaker 1: kind of special effect here. Uh, You're You're welcome, Hollywood.
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  Speaker 1: And what would the movie be called? Clever Hans or
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  Speaker 1: just go for the gut punch with just Hans. I
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  Speaker 1: don't know yet, you know, I think there's like a
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  Speaker 1: beautiful hoof beautiful mind kind of rip off. Maybe it's
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  Speaker 1: um the way, what do you got? You got one?
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  Speaker 1: You know, Casey's got Casey made a cake, he made
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  Speaker 1: a face. I really just like Hans and like all
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  Speaker 1: like a very seriously considered fond and like like a
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  Speaker 1: December opening. Yes, yeah, I really like that. Um. Horse
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  Speaker 1: sense is an expression that you hear sometimes, but I
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  Speaker 1: feel like that takes it in a completely different direction.
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  Speaker 1: So yeah, horse Sense is maybe a little more of
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  Speaker 1: a fun movie. And I think we're talking about serious
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  Speaker 1: cinema here, right. Uh, gotta gotta Gary Oldman as the
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  Speaker 1: horse as the horse, No, Daniel Daniel day Lewis as
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  Speaker 1: the horse as the horse his greatest performance. Yes, And
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  Speaker 1: and Gary Oldman as von Austin for sure. Who would
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  Speaker 1: be our boy Funks who's kind of the Maybe that
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  Speaker 1: would be Um, who's the guy from Inglorious Bastards? Christoph
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  Speaker 1: Waltz would be funkst Gary Oldman as von Austin and
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  Speaker 1: Daniel day Lewis as Hans. I like it. I like it.
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  Speaker 1: Let's let's continue. Now picture those amazing actors in your
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  Speaker 1: head when we talk about this test. So since each
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  Speaker 1: experiment or only knew the number they were individually saying
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  Speaker 1: into Hans's ear. That would mean logically, if Hans could add,
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  Speaker 1: he would be the only person who knew the answer,
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  Speaker 1: the only horse person who knew the answer. So in
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  Speaker 1: thirty one test when they did that method and then
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  Speaker 1: they checked back out of those thirty one tests, Hans
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  Speaker 1: was incorrect most of the time. He was only right
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  Speaker 1: three times. But when they did another thirty one test
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  Speaker 1: where both of the experimenters knew the numbers that they
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  Speaker 1: were giving to the horse, he was correct twenty nine
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  Speaker 1: times out of thirty one. So something's happening. If he's
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  Speaker 1: really doing math, it's would not matter that the two
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  Speaker 1: people suggesting numbers don't know the numbers the other person suggesting.
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  Speaker 1: Does that make sense? It does make sense, but I
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  Speaker 1: still quite understand how von Austin pulled it off. That's
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  Speaker 1: some pretty genius, uh, you know, subtle kind of trickery there, right. So,
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  Speaker 1: folks also found that when a questioner stood farther away
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  Speaker 1: uh than than Hans was used to um, he had
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  Speaker 1: trouble correctly answering the questions as well, which you know,
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  Speaker 1: you could just achieve these getting yelled at a lot
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  Speaker 1: in his ear holes. I mean maybe that the old
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  Speaker 1: boys like lost a little bit of hearing. By this point.
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  Speaker 1: I kind of feel bad for Hans at this point,
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  Speaker 1: don't you guys. He seems like he's really getting put
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  Speaker 1: through the wringer, you know. More and more, I'm thinking
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  Speaker 1: maybe a younger actor for the horse, maybe like Finn
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  Speaker 1: wolf Hard from Stranger Things. Well maybe no, maybe we
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  Speaker 1: can have him play young Hans, and then the Lewis
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  Speaker 1: steps said and plays old Hall. I actually like thin
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  Speaker 1: wolf Hard as a young Daniel day Lewis. They have
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  Speaker 1: a similar kind of uh kind of makes sream like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, look to them. I don't know. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: we want the life of the horse entire anyway, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: you're right. No, the he quick foods quickly finds that
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  Speaker 1: every test he conducts that has a level of scientific
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  Speaker 1: rigor ultimately indicates that Hans is not doing this math
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  Speaker 1: on his own. And when they conduct tests that are
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  Speaker 1: controlling for possible intervening variables, Hans fails miserably. His his
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  Speaker 1: memory is found to be average as far as what
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  Speaker 1: we know about horses at that time and now, so
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  Speaker 1: it's it seems cognitively impossible that Hans can be as
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  Speaker 1: clever as we are being told he is. And what
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  Speaker 1: they find, at least what Foods finds in his investigation here,
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  Speaker 1: is that Hans seems entirely dependent on external stimuli from
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  Speaker 1: whomever is asking the question. So he's maybe not great
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  Speaker 1: at doing math, but he's top notch at reading people,
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  Speaker 1: just like you know, like a a cold read psychic exactly.
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  Speaker 1: But I still don't quite understand the how you would
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  Speaker 1: use external stimuli to like get him to seemingly, you know, uh,
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  Speaker 1: independently solved like complex math problems. But I think we've
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  Speaker 1: got a little bit more information that might help clear
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  Speaker 1: some of that up. So Funks noticed that the questioner's
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  Speaker 1: everything from from breathing to posture to facial ticks and
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  Speaker 1: expressions and eyebrow you know, tension, things like that, Um,
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  Speaker 1: they changed each time the hoof was tapped. So the
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  Speaker 1: way I'm reading this is that the horse was observing
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  Speaker 1: the changes of all of those external stimuli. Um. And
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  Speaker 1: when we say external stimula, we're not talking about somebody
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  Speaker 1: feeding him the right answer. We're literally talking about the
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  Speaker 1: horse observing the question er, uh, with every clop of
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  Speaker 1: the hoof and interpreting when um, he had reached the
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  Speaker 1: correct number of clops, right, And because there's such a
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  Speaker 1: build up, especially like you know, let's say the answer
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  Speaker 1: was like twenty or something. I mean, you could very
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  Speaker 1: quickly realize when you know, And we talked about that
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  Speaker 1: tension building earlier, right even for an audience, that who oh,
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  Speaker 1: is this gonna be the one? Is this gonna be
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  Speaker 1: the one? And then to say, okay, he's there, then
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  Speaker 1: there's a relaxing I don't know exactly what this horse
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  Speaker 1: was looking at, but I think I'm reading that correctly.
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  Speaker 1: Would would you agree? Ben? Yeah? Yeah, nineteen, you see
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  Speaker 1: the tension billing for the horse, and then you get
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  Speaker 1: to twenty, and then people probably signal their delight too early.
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  Speaker 1: They're like, wow, we got to twenty. Wow, you know
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  Speaker 1: what I mean. But the horse would have kept doing
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  Speaker 1: that to thirty two or forty three. It's just it's
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  Speaker 1: it's tapping until it sees people happy, basically, is the argument.
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  Speaker 1: And so Foods learns to read these bodies use the
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  Speaker 1: same way that he imagines Hans is, and so Foods
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  Speaker 1: puts himself in the horse's position, which is great for
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  Speaker 1: the film and he uh, he carries out tests and
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  Speaker 1: he says, okay, I'll play the part of the horse.
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  Speaker 1: Casey to your point, he's working on his horse sense, right.
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  Speaker 1: The thing that he finds is that he can do
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  Speaker 1: these tests too, and he doesn't necessarily have to know math.
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  Speaker 1: He just has to kind of tap until he sees
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  Speaker 1: people reacting and then boom. Uh. And what's the reason
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  Speaker 1: this is working so well is because people are unaware
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  Speaker 1: that they're expressing these cues. This is a big problem
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  Speaker 1: animal training and cognition experiments even today. Uh, you know,
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  Speaker 1: von Ostin, I think we've established he's not some flam
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  Speaker 1: flam guy. He's not a con artist. He probably doesn't
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  Speaker 1: know the signals that he's giving Hans. Can I interject
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: one little bit of Hollywood ization for movie adaptation here?
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  Speaker 1: I would put forth that Funks gets so obsessed with
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  Speaker 1: this and it's starting to go a little mad. He
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  Speaker 1: dresses up in a horse costume while doing these tests
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  Speaker 1: so he can really put himself in the mindset of
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  Speaker 1: clever Hans. That's what I'm thinking. I'm picturing, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: like a confrontational in front of the bathroom mirror scene
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  Speaker 1: where he's like putting a rioting champ in his mouth.
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  Speaker 1: He's got some homemade ears. Uh yeah, I think we're
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: on the same page. Now. What's fascinating about this, which
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is pretty cool as we're as we're building twere epilogue here,
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  Speaker 1: is that Funds successfully proved that Hans was not in
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  Speaker 1: fact doing math. How Whoever, he accidentally proved that Hans
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: was incredibly intelligent in one aspect and one of bill
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  Speaker 1: to you, in one skill set, which was reading people.
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  Speaker 1: He was better at reading people than foodst was, then
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Ron Ousten was. Then most of the Germans in the crowd.
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  Speaker 1: You think they would have then immediately recruited him to
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: be in like interrogation rooms, you know, when they're like
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: trying to figure out if like a purpose lying, they
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: would just consult the horse, bring the horse, bringing in
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  Speaker 1: the horse. So essentially, I mean, folks proved what he
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  Speaker 1: set out to prove, but he actually found a little
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  Speaker 1: bit of magic along the way. That's the thing, guys,
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  Speaker 1: This story isn't Yeah, this story isn't completely devoid of
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  Speaker 1: like this horse was very special and to your point,
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  Speaker 1: Ben von Austin probably didn't know that. He really just
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: thought he had a special boy on his hand, a
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  Speaker 1: real clever Hans. And then what folks determined was, no,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: he was not intelligent like a human, but sure as
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: hell was more observant than a lot of them, because
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: that's something I think we could all get better at,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: as being observants of our surrounding and of like being
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: able to read the room. And Hans was an absolute
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  Speaker 1: expert at that. So this is where I take poetic license. Um,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: we're gonna tell you what actually happens in the real world.
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  Speaker 1: And then i'd like, if if you guys will indulge me,
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  Speaker 1: tell you what I see happening in our film the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: December release Hans. So despite the fact that foods pretty
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: much proves what's happening, Clever Hans remains a sensation. Von
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Osten continues touring this amazing horse throughout the country of Germany.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He's still pulling crowds, getting butts and seats, etcetera. Uh,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: what's one thing that I think is very interesting? Von
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  Speaker 1: Osten never charges for these exhibitions. He genuinely wants to
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: share the gift of Clever Hans with the world, and
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  Speaker 1: von Osten does this until he passes away in nineteen nine,
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: and Hans goes through a series of owners. Ultimately, he
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: is drafted by Germany to serve in World War One
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: in nineteen fourteen, which they did not call World War
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: one at that time. God, this is taking a harrowing turn.
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  Speaker 1: So like this horse wasn't used to being ridden. He
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was like a show horse. Like beyond that, he was
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: like a much guarded, you know, piece, like a national treasure.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And now all of a sudden, what do you mean,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: like so he's they're literally riding him into battle? Like
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: what what? What are they doing with Hans? That he
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: would potentially, as legend, would have it pass away on
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: the field of battle? What were they doing with him?
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: And he could have been he could have been riding horse.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe not he was in raping stallion, but he could
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: have also been pulling munitions or wagons or food supply trains,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: things like that. There are several different positions he could
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: have filled as a military horse. But you're right. He
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: is rumored to have been killed in action in nineteen sixteen. However,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: he lived is on today. He's more famous, if you
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: think about it, than a lot of humans who are
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  Speaker 1: alive when he was alive because Hans is in psychology
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: textbooks today. It's the clever Hans effect, named after this
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: horse and the idea. The clever Hans effect describes when
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  Speaker 1: an experiment er gets seemingly correct answers from a an
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: animal or a human being by giving them unconscious cues,
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: and this creates a very convincing illusion of intelligent thoughts.
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  Speaker 1: We've seen the clever Hans effect in drug sniffing dogs.
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: You've seen skeptics raise the specter of this effect when
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: they don't believe someone who says I've taught my primate
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: to speak and understand sign language to a you know,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: a certain degree, or like this parrot isn't just repeating
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: what I say. It understands me. Good night, you'd be good.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: I love you, that story, that kind of stuff. I'm
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: a good example from when I was a kid. I
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: distinctly remember being way too young to really be able
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: to read properly, but impressing my mom, making her think
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: that I was reading by just reciting one fish, two fish,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: red fish, blue fish, and looking at the book as
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: though I were reading the words, but it was just memorization.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Totally had her going. She thought I was a genius.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: She couldn't have been more wrong. Have you told her? No, dude,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I wanted to be proud, want my mommy to love me. Dude,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: I'm not gonna shadow delusions now. It's too late for that.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: I mean unless she listens to the podcast, which she does,
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: so sorry, mom, your your secret is uh is safe
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: with me and hopefully with our fellow ridiculous historians listening along.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: We tease this earlier, and maybe this is a good
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: way for us to to begin wrapping up the story
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of Hans, because although the horse has passed from this
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: mortal plane, Uh, the clever Hans effect remains a hallmark
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: of psychological thought. And we are learning so much more
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: about intelligence. It's we actually know relatively little about intelligence.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: In the first place, We as a species still don't
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: have a super solid on definition of intelligence. And we
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: know that animals that we once thought were just you know,
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: like plain Jane kind of, it's an animal, what are
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you gonna do? They turned out to be incredibly intelligent,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: just maybe not in the same way as us. And
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: and then you know, like we mentioned before, like you mentioned, Ben,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: that clever Hans effect lives on today in psychology. It's
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: something that's even been observed in drug sniffing dogs, where
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: like cues from the handler UH can be picked up
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: by dogs and resulting in like them signaling that you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: there's drugs when that's not the case of the false positive. UM.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: And here's another thing too, in terms of research. UH,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: it turns out that there's some new research that has
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: recently come to light that would suggest that Funkst was
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: right and horses actually can read human expressions. UH. Psychologists
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: studied how twenty eight different horses reacted to seeing pictures
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: of positive versus negatively positive like big old grins and
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: negativism assuming like frowns UM and happy and angry photographs
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: of two unfamiliar male faces. And then they looked at
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: their spontaneous reactions to the photos without any training, and
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: found that when the horses looked at angry faces UH,
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: they used more of their left eye UM, which is
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: associated with perceiving negative stimuli. UM. They also had marked
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: increases in heart rate UM and also showed more stress
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: related behaviors. UH. And it was published on the tenth
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: of February Biology Letters. Yeah, so we the story of
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: intelligence in living things continues today. It hasn't really ended.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: We know that further claims of animal intelligence are much
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: harder to dismiss than those of Clever Hawns. Like I,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: I allude it to the brilliant parrot Alex, close associate
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: with the scientist Irene Pepperberg. Alex appeared to understand thousands
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: of words and syntax and grammar. Uh but and was
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: capable of doing a lot of things that Clever Hans
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: was purported to be capable of doing. But it's difficult
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: to dismiss these cases. Also, I'm just I know we're
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: going out where at the end of time. Corvids are amazing.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Octopuses are so massively intelligent. If they lived for more
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: than two years at a stretch, they would be running
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: some stuff. I just recently read did you know octopuses
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: have been documented building neighborhoods? True story? It doesn't surprise me.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Cephalopods never cease to amaze me. And so that's that's
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: where we are. That is the story of Clever Hans,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: the real inspiration perhaps for Mr ed uh that is,
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: that is what actually happens with Clever Hans. Here's the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: way I want the film to end, though, I want
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: the film to and with Hans appearing to go to
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: World War One. So Clever Hans gets drafted, but he's
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: too clever and he's actually working for like military intelligence,
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: but he's conflicted about it because he doesn't like playing
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: this role as you know, one of the bad guys.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: And so I want Clever Hans to like fake his
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: death and then to emigrate to America where he picks
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: up a job in Hollywood, and the post credit like
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: mid credit stinger is his first appearance as Mr ed
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Boom cut print. I think it's like we're building an
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: extended Hans universe here. I love it so much, Ben,
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: and I can't wait. I think this should be part
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: of the extended r This History universe that includes our
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: reboot of the Craft involving Fudge. And then we've got
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: this Clever Hans biopic starting a powerhouse cast and Daniel
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: de Lewis coming back again again again from retirement to
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: give a powerhouse performance as a as a who that
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: can do math or can he? You'll have to watch
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: the movie to find that or help us make the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: movie if we want to hear your suggestions. Thank you,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: as always so much for tuning in. We hope that
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: you enjoyed today's episode. Uh, this is my excuse to
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: ask for pictures of your pets because I love to
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: see them. Let us know if your pet has any
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: idiosyncrasies or hidden cognitive talents. Thanks as always to Gabe Lousia,
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: and thanks to you, Casey Pegram Casey, if you had
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: all the time wishes. It feels weird to say wishes
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: or horses here, but you guys know what I'm talking about, Casey,
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: and you as well know if you could have any
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: pet in the world, what would it be? Hamster already
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: got it living the dream? What did you say, Casey
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Clever Hans, Oh, specifically that horse? Yeah? Why not? I
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: mean he seems cool, a lot of upkeep, bro. And
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: also he's dead, so well we're we're talking uh perfect
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: world here. So he does in the hearts and minds
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: of all of us, and that includes even the most
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: dastardly among us like Jonathan Strickling, the Quister, Christopher hauciotas
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: here in spirit, Alex Williams, who composed our theme, and
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: of course in your heart, Ben and your heart Casey
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and mine. We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: For my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.