Wednesday, December 03, 2003

WHO KNOWS WHAT?




Yesterday, US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld won a "Foot in Mouth" award for comments made at a news conference in February in which he said:
"There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns." In other words -- there are things that we know we don't know (you still following?).

Today we learn from US psychologists that some animals, including rhesus monkeys, are apparently capable of thinking about thinking -- and of knowing that they don't know something.

Just like Donald Rumsfeld.

I thought the similarities between the two were startling until I discovered that monkeys have an innate sense of justice and fairness.

Maybe the similarities aren't so great, after all.

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