Babies is Smart!

(Photo of Braxton by Angie Hill. P.S. Cute baby.)

According to an article in the New York Times, babies and toddlers are smarter than they've been given credit for.

In one experiment, eight-month-old babies were shown a box full of mixed-up Ping-Pong balls: mostly white but with some red ones mixed in. "The babies were more surprised, and looked longer and more intently at the experimenter when four red balls and one white ball were taken out of the box — a possible, yet improbable outcome — than when four white balls and a red one were produced."

In order to confirm the findings, I repeated the experiment and found that:

- 100% of the babies tried to eat the Ping-Pong balls, regardless of color.

- The babies were more surprised, and looked longer and more intently at the experimenter when they were in the process of soiling themselves.

- The parents of the babies--despite being supposedly smarter than the babies--were nonetheless surprised and annoyed when they tried to play Ping-Pong and found the balls covered in slobber.

Another victory for science.