Daily Report: August 19, 2017

Date: 2017.08.19
Host: Danbee

Day start: 09h53
Lunch break start: 12h30
Lunch break end: 13h30
Day end: 16h00

# of “good” participants: 116
Estimated average age group: 10-12 year olds and their parents

Brief description of the day: The exhibit got a steady stream of visitors today; many were the usual foreign language study students, but I also got a significant number of non-white european phenotypes trying out the exhibit. This made me wonder just how many of our neuroscience and behaviour studies are exclusively based on results from white males, so I started making a special effort to invite every non-white visitors, and especially women, to try the exhibit.

Best comment: An older man, with his family, asked me, “are those creatures [meaning the cuttlefish] in there thinking??” When I said yes, he scoffed and said, “but I think only humans can think.” So I asked him how he thought humans think, and he said “because we have a brain, we can think.” So then I asked him, “what about other animals with brains? If brains are what let us think, they should be able to think too, right?” He shrugged, then insisted, “but those creatures [again referring to the cuttlefish] can’t think! Tell me why you believe that they think.” So I summarized some of the cuttlefish-based neuroscience and cognition research I could think of off the top of my head, and he left looking very thoughtful. There was also one mother who came back to my station in the afternoon, after she and her family had tried the exhibit in the morning, to ask a whole load of follow-up questions, in particular: “How does this exhibit connect to your study of intelligence?” I spent a very enjoyable conversation explaining the ideas underlying comparative neuroscience, and she really enjoyed learning about it!