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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday, so we're

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Speaker 2: heading on down into the vault to bring you part

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Speaker 2: three of our series on the Goat and its Devilish implications.

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Speaker 2: This was originally published on October twenty fifth, twenty twenty two.

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Speaker 3: Enjoy Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert.

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Speaker 2: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we are back with

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Speaker 2: Part three of our series on the Goat and the Devil,

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Speaker 2: where we are exploring reasons for the some would say

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Speaker 2: unfair association in especially Christian cultures, between the ordinary domestic goat,

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Speaker 2: a wonderful animal, and the monic realm of sin and flames. Now,

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Speaker 2: in previous episodes, we've talked about the basic biology of

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Speaker 2: the goat as a browsing bovid that was once adapted

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Speaker 2: to harsher environments like mountains and forests, but sometime many

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Speaker 2: thousands of years ago was domesticated by the humans who

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Speaker 2: used to hunt it. We talked about mythical inspirations for

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Speaker 2: later goat man devils, possibly lying in the figure of

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Speaker 2: the Greek god Pan and in the satyrs and fawns

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Speaker 2: that bore his image. We talked about goat reproduction and

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Speaker 2: goat voices, how it's possible that goats could be interpreted

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Speaker 2: as sinful by judgmental human eyes because of the he

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Speaker 2: goat's reputation for being very enthusiastic about mating, and the

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Speaker 2: idea that it's possible people have seen goats as uncanny

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Speaker 2: because sometimes some goats, when they kind of moan and scream,

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Speaker 2: they sound freakishly human. In the second episode, we talked

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Speaker 2: about the role of goats in the Hebrew Bible, where

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Speaker 2: they could be associated with demonic forces because of the

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Speaker 2: ritual of the Day of Atonement, where it is said

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Speaker 2: that one goat is sent off into the wilderness to

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Speaker 2: carry the sins of the people off for Azazel, and

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Speaker 2: that name is sometimes interpreted as some kind of demonic power.

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Speaker 2: We also talked about goats in the Christian New Testament,

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Speaker 2: where Jesus is said to have given apocalyptic preaching that

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Speaker 2: when the Son of Man comes to bring the end

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Speaker 2: of the age, he will separate the righteous from the

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Speaker 2: unrighteous and what's the image used there. It's as the

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Speaker 2: shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. The goats are

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Speaker 2: the bad ones. And finally, we also talked about goat

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Speaker 2: lore from around the world to point out that the

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Speaker 2: association between goats and evil is by no means universal.

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Speaker 2: There are some very interesting counter examples in Chinese mythology,

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Speaker 2: in Basque mythology with this figure of the black billy

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Speaker 2: goat deity who protects livestock and so forth. So it's

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Speaker 2: been a wild ride so far, a wild goat ride.

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Speaker 2: But to kick things off today, I wanted to come

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Speaker 2: back to our discussion about the particular features of goat

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Speaker 2: biology that people of centuries past might possibly have interpreted

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Speaker 2: as devilish or sinful in one way in one way

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Speaker 2: or another, And the example I wanted to look at

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Speaker 2: here is goat eyes. One might argue that you haven't

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Speaker 2: really been stared at until you've been stared at by

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Speaker 2: a goat, and part of the reason for that is

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Speaker 2: when you're being stared at by a goat, you're not

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Speaker 2: quite sure if you're being stared at by a goat.

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Speaker 1: That's right. It comes down to the inhuman shape of

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Speaker 1: the goat pupils.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And before I get there, I want to

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Speaker 2: say that the goat stare does not have to be

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Speaker 2: imbued with any kind of menace. I came across a

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Speaker 2: very sweet, whimsical little poem I wanted to read a

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Speaker 2: bit from. This is by the British Canadian poet Robert Servis,

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Speaker 2: who wrote a poem called The Goat and I, And

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Speaker 2: it goes each sunny day upon my way a goat iPad.

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Speaker 1: He has a.

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Speaker 2: Beard of silver gray and a bell of brass, And

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Speaker 2: all the while I am in sight, he seems to

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Speaker 2: muse and stares at me with all his might, and choose,

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Speaker 2: and choose upon the hill so timy, sweet with joy

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Speaker 2: of spring, he hails me with a tiny bleat of welcoming,

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Speaker 2: though half the globe is drenched with blood, and cities

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Speaker 2: flare contentedly, he chews the cud and does not care.

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Speaker 2: Oh gentle friend, I know not what your age may be,

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Speaker 2: but of my years I'd give the lot yet left

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Speaker 2: to me to chew a thistle and not choke, but

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Speaker 2: bright of eye gaze at the old world, weary bloke

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Speaker 2: who hobbles by.

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Speaker 1: This is great. I love how this drives some like

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Speaker 1: an overall interpretation of goat physiology that I think we

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Speaker 1: can often fall into, and that is of the goat

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Speaker 1: as the old goat, Like there's even if a goat

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Speaker 1: need to see some goats that look very virile and

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Speaker 1: young in a goatish fashion, but oftentimes encounter goats who

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Speaker 1: do kind of hobble about. They have all these likenesses

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Speaker 1: that we attribute to elderly human individuals. You know, you'll

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Speaker 1: have the beard and so forth. But yeah, this is

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Speaker 1: a neat little poem summing up the independent and relatable

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Speaker 1: spirit of the goat.

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Speaker 2: Oh I also I left off a final stanza where

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Speaker 2: essentially the last stanza is just like, why am I

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Speaker 2: writing a poem about a goat? It's not great so

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Speaker 2: but yeah, anyway, the gaze of the goat has often

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Speaker 2: been observed to have a strange character in one way

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Speaker 2: or another. Sometimes it's more like what service is saying here?

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Speaker 2: Almost narcotically placid and unmoved. And yet other times people

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Speaker 2: notice that the gaze of the goat is kind of

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Speaker 2: thrillingly alien, because, unlike with a dog or a cat,

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Speaker 2: it can be hard to tell if a goat is

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Speaker 2: actually looking at you, or at least for me, it can.

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Speaker 2: Despite the efforts of Robert Service, the eye of the

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Speaker 2: goat has often been characterized as creepy, and I think

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Speaker 2: there could be a couple of reasons for that. It

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Speaker 2: might be because it's a bit harder to tell where

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Speaker 2: the goat is focusing than it is with some other

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Speaker 2: kind of animals, like our predatory companion animals. Or maybe

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Speaker 2: it's just because the eye of a goat sort of

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Speaker 2: looks weird. It looks unusual if you're not used to it,

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Speaker 2: because instead of a round pupil, as you alluded to earlier,

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Speaker 2: rob the goat has a horizontal pupil, sometimes described as

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Speaker 2: rectangular in shape I think sometimes kind of described as

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Speaker 2: like elongated capsule shape, so it's like a rectangle with

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Speaker 2: kind of rounded edges. I've also found some photos where

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Speaker 2: it looks like a horizontal capital eye with a hint

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Speaker 2: of those cross beams or slight bulges at the ends

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Speaker 2: of the rectangle. And the question is why do goat

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Speaker 2: pupils look that way? Well, funny enough, we actually did

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Speaker 2: an episode just a while back which contained a segment

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Speaker 2: about the evolution tionary reasoning behind different pupil shapes. In

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Speaker 2: The Animal Kingdom, the episode was The Three Pupil Die,

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Speaker 2: and I think the study we talked about in that

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Speaker 2: show is still a good one to inform us on

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Speaker 2: the question I've just raised. So to bring up the

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Speaker 2: same paper again. This was by Martin S. Banks at All,

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Speaker 2: published in the journal Science Advances in twenty fifteen, and

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Speaker 2: it's called why do Animal eyes have pupils of different shapes?

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Speaker 2: Basic conclusion is that an animal's pupil shape is usually

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Speaker 2: determined by what its ecological niche is, what its role

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Speaker 2: in the food chain is. So animals like humans, tigers,

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Speaker 2: and wolves have round pupils. Round pupils appear to be

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Speaker 2: common a common shape for active hunters who chase down

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Speaker 2: their prey. Meanwhile, predators that are lower to the ground

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Speaker 2: or hunt by way of ambush, So a predator that

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Speaker 2: might lie in wait and then pounce suddenly on a

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Speaker 2: prey animal, these tend to have vertical pupils vertically oriented

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Speaker 2: slit pupils, and the vertical slits seem to be adaptive

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Speaker 2: for low down ambush predators because they're helpful in using

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Speaker 2: tricks called stereopsis and defocus blur to very precisely judge

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Speaker 2: the distance needed for a single exact medium range pounds.

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Speaker 2: But herbivores prey animals are more likely to have horizontal

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Speaker 2: pupils like the goat. To quote from the study, horizontally

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Speaker 2: elongated pupils create sharp images of horizontal contours ahead and behind,

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Speaker 2: creating a horizontally panoramic view that facilitates detection of predators

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Speaker 2: from various directions and forward locomotion across uneven terrain. So

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Speaker 2: these horizontal pupils are good for scanning the whole panorama

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Speaker 2: of the environment, seeing at all angles all the time

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Speaker 2: to watch out for any approaching predators, which might be

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Speaker 2: one of the reasons you can get that creepy feeling

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Speaker 2: where you can't tell if the goat is actually looking

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Speaker 2: at you. The goat is sort of designed by nature

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Speaker 2: to be looking everywhere rather than to be looking at you.

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Speaker 2: But I also thought it's an interesting note about the

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Speaker 2: forward locomotion across uneven terrain given the evolutionary history of

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Speaker 2: goats occupying mountains and craggy landscapes. Though again, less craggy

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Speaker 2: creatures like horses also have horizontal pupils, So that made

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Speaker 2: me wonder about the question why do we tend to

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Speaker 2: notice the horizontal orientation of goat pupils more than we

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Speaker 2: notice it in horses and other herbivores. I think this

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Speaker 2: must be a common thing. It's at least true for me,

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Speaker 2: and so I was looking into this and I want

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Speaker 2: to make two non expert observations just by looking at

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Speaker 2: a lot of photos on Google. One is that the

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Speaker 2: horse pupil seems less noticeably elongate in the horizontal dimension

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Speaker 2: than the goat pupil. So they're both horizontal, but the

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Speaker 2: horse pupil seems a little bit shorter usually, or the

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Speaker 2: goat went often looks visibly stretched out. Second, and I

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Speaker 2: think this might be even more important, there seems to be,

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Speaker 2: on average, a stronger color contrast within the goat's eye.

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Speaker 2: If you just look at a bunch of pictures of

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Speaker 2: the eyes of horses and the eyes of goats, it

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Speaker 2: seems goats on average have lighter colored irises, which really

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Speaker 2: makes the pupil pop. That makes the pupil stand out,

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Speaker 2: which makes it look more noticeably alien, at least to

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Speaker 2: me interesting.

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Speaker 1: I remember in that episode on The Three People Die,

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Speaker 1: we talked about pupil changes in the shape of the

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Speaker 1: pupil with predators tended to vary as well depending on height.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right, But I don't remember.

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Speaker 1: Any such distinction being made in the materials we were

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Speaker 1: looking at then regarding herbivores, like a goat versus cow,

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Speaker 1: versus horse, etc.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't recall any distinction like that either. But

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Speaker 2: definitely there was a change in height in predators, because again,

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Speaker 2: the taller predators have round pupils and the shorter predators

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Speaker 2: have vertical slip pupils, and so part of that has

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Speaker 2: to do with a difference in hunting strategy like chasing

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Speaker 2: versus ambushing, but part of it has to do also

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Speaker 2: with just I think, managing the angles at which you

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Speaker 2: would be observing your prey.

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Speaker 1: Now, this instantly makes me think of something that I

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Speaker 1: guess we got into a little bit in the Three

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Speaker 1: People to Die, is what sort of eyes do we

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Speaker 1: expect knowing all of this of divine beings and divine emissaries,

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Speaker 1: certainly in the Irish and some Chinese traditions that we

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Speaker 1: discussed in that episode. We talked about the idea of

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Speaker 1: someone with three pupils or three irises being in some

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Speaker 1: way enlightened and having superior vision and perhaps wisdom as well.

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Speaker 1: But taking all that we've discussed here into the scenario,

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Speaker 1: it's like, Okay, if we have some sort of god

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Speaker 1: or god like being or anti god taking on the

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Speaker 1: head and eyes of a goat, well, in a way

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Speaker 1: it seems more fitting. It's like, this is a being

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Speaker 1: that can look in many directions at once and doesn't

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Speaker 1: need to focus its attention and maybe doesn't focus its

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Speaker 1: attention all that much, and hey, being a god, maybe

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Speaker 1: you don't want its attention focused too heavily.

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Speaker 2: Well. Also, though, thinking about the predator prey distinction, I mean,

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Speaker 2: shouldn't the horizontal pupils make it less dangerous? Like wouldn't

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Speaker 2: round pupils really be the most dangerous?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? But then I guess it comes down to the

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Speaker 1: human scenario, right. We want to we want to connect

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Speaker 1: with the human in the superhuman, and therefore we want

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Speaker 1: them to have pupils. Though I guess we see, especially

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Speaker 1: in modern depictions, you know, we love to black out

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Speaker 1: the eyes of inhuman beings, you know, often with those

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Speaker 1: really cool contact lenses. So we'll have various there's so

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Speaker 1: many treatments of this where various fallen angels and so

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Speaker 1: forth will have all black eyes or maybe all white eyes,

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Speaker 1: and that tends to note some sort of strangeness of

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Speaker 1: vision as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you're right about that. Like sometimes otherworldly

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Speaker 2: beings are just depicted as having eyes like that, Sometimes

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Speaker 2: their eyes change into all white or all black or

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Speaker 2: something when they are exercising a type of second sight.

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Speaker 1: When it sometimes works quite well, though sometimes you're kind

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Speaker 1: of I think you're kind of inconveniencing your actors by

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Speaker 1: taking away their eyes or taking one of their tools.

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Speaker 2: Well, maybe we should look at a little bit more,

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Speaker 2: goat mythology and goat symbolism and history. I think if

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Speaker 2: we're trying to figure out why, especially a lot of

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Speaker 2: say Continental European Christian cultures made an association between the

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Speaker 2: devil and goats, I think we must talk about the

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Speaker 2: figure known as Baphomet.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is a fascinating but also kind of

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Speaker 1: convoluted situation because it involves multiple different cultures either appropriating

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Speaker 1: or interpreting, or miss interpreting or outright right slandering something

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Speaker 1: that other culture, the previous cultures or different cultures believed

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Speaker 1: in or believe in. And the end result is this

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Speaker 1: strange satanic goat creature that you're more likely to encounter

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Speaker 1: now in a TV show or on a heavy metal

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Speaker 1: T shirt, that sort of thing. So I covered some

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Speaker 1: of this in a Monster Fact episode about the Goat

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Speaker 1: of Mendis that came about shortly after we recorded a

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Speaker 1: weird House cinema episode on the film The Devil Rides Out,

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Speaker 1: which prominently features this satanic goat man appearing at a

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Speaker 1: black mass. And so this entity of Baphame or the

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Speaker 1: Goat of Mendes is essentially a Western occultist distortion of

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Speaker 1: a Greek interpretation of the god of Egypt, the Egyptian

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Speaker 1: god known as beneb Jujet that was worshiped in Mendays,

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Speaker 1: which is the Greek name for an ancient Egyptian city

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Speaker 1: named Jadet, also known today as Tel el Ruba. Fifth

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Speaker 1: century Greek historian Herodotus wrote of this god and his

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Speaker 1: practices and made veiled references to sexual aspects of the worship,

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Speaker 1: and also compared the entity to Pan, of course from

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Speaker 1: Western traditions. So already I know this sounds like some

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Speaker 1: sort of a You can imagine like the different pins

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Speaker 1: on a board with the different bits of string colored string,

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Speaker 1: showing you where all this is going across a map

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Speaker 1: of Europe and North Africa. So here's a quote from

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Speaker 1: Herotodus via S. Birch's translation. Quote. Now, the reason why

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Speaker 1: those of the Egyptians whom I have mentioned do not

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Speaker 1: sacrifice goats, female or male, is this The Mendicians count

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Speaker 1: Pan to be one of the eight gods. Now, these

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Speaker 1: eight gods, they say, came into being before the twelve gods,

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Speaker 1: and the painters and image makers represent in painting and

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Speaker 1: in sculpture the figure of Pan, just as the Hellenese

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Speaker 1: do with goat's face and legs, not supposing him to

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Speaker 1: be really like this, but to resemble the other gods.

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Speaker 1: The cause, however, why they represent him in this form,

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Speaker 1: I prefer not to say. The Mendisians then reverence all goats,

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Speaker 1: and the males more than the females. And the goatherds

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Speaker 1: too have greater honor than other herdsmen. But the goats,

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Speaker 1: one especially is reverenced, and when he dies there is

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Speaker 1: great mourning in all the Mendisian district. And both the

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Speaker 1: goat and Pan are called in the Egyptian tongue Mendis.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So not knowing exactly what's going on here. I

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Speaker 2: would wonder if Herodotus is seriously misinterpreting reports he has

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Speaker 2: heard about Egyptian worship in light of Greek religion.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's clearly a lot going on, like using

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Speaker 1: Greek religion to try and understand what individuals in this

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Speaker 1: region and are worshiping going. You know, there's so many

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Speaker 1: ways that the information here can become skewed. We have

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Speaker 1: this veiled reference to I believe other critics have pointed

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Speaker 1: out that he's referencing a supposed beast reality in worship

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Speaker 1: and so forth. So already we're engaging in various levels

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Speaker 1: of mis interpretation and perhaps slander. Now. As Geraldine Pinch

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Speaker 1: explains in her excellent book Egyptian Mythology, the word for

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Speaker 1: ram bah and the word for soul or manifestation sound

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Speaker 1: much the same in Egyptian to the ancient Egyptians, so

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Speaker 1: they were often regarded as manifestations of other deities such

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Speaker 1: as Osiris, and Pinch writes quote, the sexual aspect of

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Speaker 1: occult admindis made it particularly disliked by early Christians. Benetjedet's

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Speaker 1: form as a ram or goat headed man was reinterpreted

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Speaker 1: as a devil figure who entered Western tradition as the

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Speaker 1: Horned King of the Witches.

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Speaker 2: A classic example of literal demonization, taking a god in

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Speaker 2: another mythology, in this case one having the head of

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Speaker 2: a sheep or a goat, and saying that, well, actually,

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Speaker 2: this is just a demon in our mythology, right right.

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Speaker 1: But of course it gets more complicated than that. There

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Speaker 1: are all these other additional threads going on here. Because

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Speaker 1: as for the actual name Goat of Mendes, this is

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Speaker 1: the name given by French writer Elfius Levi in the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, most likely referencing the writings of Erotodus. The

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Speaker 1: most well known image of this particular monstrous humanoid is

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Speaker 1: in the eighteen fifty sixth edition of Levi's book Dogma

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Speaker 1: and Ritual of High Magic. And as with any many

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Speaker 1: examples of divine and occult imagery, the image of Baphame

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Speaker 1: here Is, or the Goat of Mendes, is highly symbolic,

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Speaker 1: and it's been incorporated into various occult traditions, subcultures, new

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Speaker 1: religious movements, and so forth. I think everyone's probably seen

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Speaker 1: this is a goat being with the upper body of

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Speaker 1: sometimes a female but sometimes like half the chest is female,

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Speaker 1: halfs male. They're like black angelic wings, the goat head,

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Speaker 1: the pentagram on the forehead, a middle horn that is

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Speaker 1: like a torch, various other symbols going on in the image.

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Speaker 2: Is loaded with stuff to look at.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so, I mean as far as images of

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Speaker 1: the divine or the demonic, it's a pretty great one.

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Speaker 1: There's lots to focus on, lots to try and figure out.

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Speaker 1: And at the very least, you know, as we've discussed

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Speaker 1: many times before, the basic symbolism involved here of combining

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Speaker 1: beast with man or beast with woman, et cetera. Like,

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Speaker 1: it instantly starts forming patterns in the mind. You can't

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Speaker 1: look at it and not have some sort of reaction. Oh.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I've noticed this before, but at

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Speaker 2: least in Levi's depiction, it incorporates a symbol that is

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Speaker 2: like the Cadusius or like the rod of Esclepias. It

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Speaker 2: has the rod and the snakes intertwined around it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, as for the name of Baphomet here, this

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Speaker 1: gets us into something that we've we've touched on a

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Speaker 1: few times on the show before, never devoted like full

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Speaker 1: episode to it, but it involves the Templars, the poor

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Speaker 1: Knights of Christ, and the Temple of Solomon. So just

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Speaker 1: to get the basics out here again, this was a

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Speaker 1: religious military order of the Catholic Church during the Crusades,

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Speaker 1: which ran about roughly ten ninety five through twelve ninety one.

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Speaker 1: See they were This organization was intended to serve as

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Speaker 1: a way to protect pilgrims on their way to the

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Speaker 1: Holy Lands, but a sort of power creep occurred. They

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Speaker 1: were given free rein to move across borders, They were

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Speaker 1: made exempt from taxes and ended up playing key military

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Speaker 1: roles in various battles of the Crusades, and even the

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Speaker 1: warriors became important, managing the movement of funds across vast

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Speaker 1: distances that were involved in the Crusades and setting up

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Speaker 1: a kind of proto banking system. They became powerful, and

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Speaker 1: so they made powerful enemies. And as the Crusades failed,

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Speaker 1: the Templars were blamed, and finally Philip the Fourth of France,

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Speaker 1: with the aid of Pope Clement the Fifth, who was

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Speaker 1: then based in France, they suppressed the order and falsely

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Speaker 1: accused them, or generally every I think most sources and

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Speaker 1: historians agree that these are false or trumped up charges

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Speaker 1: of blasphemy and heresy, saying that, among other things, they

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Speaker 1: worshiped a severed head called Bahamet and there's a whole

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Speaker 1: litany of charges against them. Some of them were burned

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Speaker 1: at the stake, I think fifty six in total, and

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Speaker 1: that included Grand Master Jacques de Malay and others. Other

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Speaker 1: members of the order were absorbed into different militaries and

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Speaker 1: so forth. Now the name Bahame here is generally understood

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Speaker 1: be a French corruption of the name Muhammad. The monstrous

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Speaker 1: templar god Baphomet is therefore a product of trumped up

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Speaker 1: charges that the templars had converted to the Islamic faith

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Speaker 1: of their enemies, and the French and papal accusers invoked

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Speaker 1: this fanciful and grotesque degradation of Islam to make their case, because,

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Speaker 1: to be clear, nowhere in Islamic traditions do you find

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Speaker 1: a creature like this.

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Speaker 2: So it's essentially the monster at the heart of a

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Speaker 2: xenophobic conspiracy theory created to slander one's political enemies. In

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Speaker 2: the Middle Ages.

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Speaker 1: Yes, pretty much. And there's a lot more to all

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Speaker 1: of this as well, and certainly when you get into

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Speaker 1: writings about the templars, there are added theories, some perhaps

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Speaker 1: worth talking about, some worth skipping over unless you're engaging

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Speaker 1: in just like pure entertainment, I suppose. But yeah, this

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Speaker 1: seems to be the most straightforward explanation. And it is

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Speaker 1: kind of interesting how in this you have something that

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Speaker 1: is put together as a corruption, as a slander, and

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Speaker 1: over time it kind of takes on life of its own.

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Speaker 1: It becomes used as a symbol of liberation, it becomes

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Speaker 1: used as a symbol of a rebellion against organized religion,

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Speaker 1: it becomes used as a part of new religious movements.

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Speaker 1: Even so, it's always fascinating the life of symbols and

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Speaker 1: the life of ideas like this.

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Speaker 2: Well, speaking of rebellion, there is one more biological feature

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Speaker 2: of goats that I wanted to talk about. If you're ready, Robert,

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Speaker 2: or are you ready to get into goat intelligence, let's

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Speaker 2: do it. I think this one is interesting because while

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Speaker 2: I don't think this is a primary reason that goats

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Speaker 2: would be identified with devils or with the legions of Hell,

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Speaker 2: I do think there is some interesting resonances here, and

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Speaker 2: we can come back to that. But basically I was

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Speaker 2: just thinking, what is more identified with evil than intelligence? Right,

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Speaker 2: because intelligence is often associated with a tendency toward rebellion

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Speaker 2: or a tendency maybe to think a little too critically

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Speaker 2: about what somebody is telling you to do. And while

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Speaker 2: goats are not generally a species known for how smart

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Speaker 2: they are, there's some evidence that at least in some ways,

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Speaker 2: they might be more clever than we give them credit for,

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Speaker 2: but that it's also a kind of intelligence that is

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Speaker 2: sort of alien to human primate intelligence. So I want

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Speaker 2: to look at a paper by LEDF. Briefer at All

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Speaker 2: published in Frontiers in Zoology called Goats excel at Learning

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Speaker 2: and Remembering, a highly novel cognitive task, published in twenty

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Speaker 2: fourteen to explain the context of what the authors were

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Speaker 2: trying to figure out here. They begin by highlighting a

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Speaker 2: couple of competing frameworks for explaining the evolution of higher intelligence.

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Speaker 2: One you might call the social intelligence hypothesis, and the

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Speaker 2: other you might call the ecological competence hypothesis. The social

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Speaker 2: hypothesis argues that the evolution of intelligence and higher cognition

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Speaker 2: is primarily for managing relationships between individuals within a social species.

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Speaker 2: So there are obvious huge survival benefits to being social

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Speaker 2: and working together, and I think there's a very good

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Speaker 2: case to be made that that is what primarily explains

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Speaker 2: the success of humans as a species of animal. But

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Speaker 2: there are also a lot of unique problems that arise

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Speaker 2: when animals congregate in social groups and perform or try

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Speaker 2: to perform any cooperative behaviors. The social hypothesis would say

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Speaker 2: that animals need intelligence in order to get as many

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Speaker 2: benefits as possible from social cooperation and to negate the

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Speaker 2: possible downsides of social cooperation, so to do things like

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Speaker 2: maintain group cohesion and reduce conflict between group members. Meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: the competing ecological competence hypothesis would say that the evolution

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Speaker 2: of intelligence is mainly for increasing survival advantage when faced

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Speaker 2: with the problems posed by the environment. In a sense,

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Speaker 2: the world is a puzzle, and the better you are

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Speaker 2: at solving that puzzle, the more likely you are to survive.

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Speaker 2: So examples would be finding ways to extract difficult to

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Speaker 2: access nutrition during foraging, remembering the locations of important resources

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Speaker 2: and threats, and things like that. And these views would

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Speaker 2: tend to also have implications for the type of learning

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Speaker 2: that we see in different animals because creatures with social

433
00:26:42,040 --> 00:26:45,840
Speaker 2: intelligence tend to be capable of social learning. This is

434
00:26:45,840 --> 00:26:49,560
Speaker 2: a very important concept. Social learning is the ability to

435
00:26:49,640 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 2: learn not only by doing, but to learn by watching others.

436
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 2: So when you learn how to do a task by

437
00:26:57,320 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 2: observing someone else doing it, that's social learning, and it's

438
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: a very important ability. That is arguably what makes it

439
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,920
Speaker 2: possible for human beings to have technology, civilization, and culture.

440
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:14,400
Speaker 2: Animals with the largest brains and the most advanced cognition

441
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 2: tend to usually be social animals, and the authors right

442
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 2: that quote. The prevalent view today is that intelligent species

443
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:27,239
Speaker 2: should excel at social learning. But the authors argue that

444
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: a lot of this research is focused on primates, which

445
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 2: we already know are very smart, they have relatively large brains,

446
00:27:33,359 --> 00:27:36,040
Speaker 2: and we already know they're very social. But what would

447
00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:39,400
Speaker 2: happen if we studied this on this question on relatively

448
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 2: smaller brained mammals. What if we test this theory on

449
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 2: the goat. Goats have a few interesting characteristics. They not

450
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 2: only have relatively smaller brains than primates. Also, the domestication

451
00:27:52,040 --> 00:27:55,879
Speaker 2: process itself tends to lead to a decrease in brain

452
00:27:55,960 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 2: size when compared to wild ancestors, I mean domestic animals

453
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:03,920
Speaker 2: have fewer puzzles to solve, let's say, and this could

454
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 2: also affect cognition and the author's write quote. Goats possess

455
00:28:08,119 --> 00:28:13,480
Speaker 2: several features commonly associated with advanced cognition, such as successful

456
00:28:13,560 --> 00:28:19,639
Speaker 2: colonization of new environments and complex fission fusion societies. To

457
00:28:19,800 --> 00:28:22,880
Speaker 2: briefly explain both of those, I guess colonization of new

458
00:28:22,960 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 2: environments is fairly self explanatory. I mean, you know goats

459
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,760
Speaker 2: that have a pretty adventurous relationship with the natural world,

460
00:28:30,800 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 2: and they can they can spread into areas where it's

461
00:28:34,400 --> 00:28:37,840
Speaker 2: harder for other animals to survive, but they thrive there,

462
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:42,000
Speaker 2: so that they're they're getting something out of the environment

463
00:28:42,040 --> 00:28:44,920
Speaker 2: that some other animals can't quite get. But the other

464
00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 2: thing that's interesting is the complex fission fusion societies. This

465
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:52,280
Speaker 2: means animals that live together in groups, but they are

466
00:28:52,400 --> 00:28:57,080
Speaker 2: able to sort of alter those groups in a fluid

467
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 2: way and then come back together. So an example would

468
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,640
Speaker 2: be humans live in fission fusion societies. We live in groups,

469
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:08,200
Speaker 2: but those groups separate off into subgroups. They separate, and

470
00:29:08,240 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 2: they come back together. The groups change sizes. People separate

471
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,800
Speaker 2: on their own and do different tasks and then rejoin.

472
00:29:15,360 --> 00:29:19,360
Speaker 2: That's fission fusion. So the authors here tested out goat

473
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,520
Speaker 2: intelligence and memory on what they call a food box

474
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 2: cognitive challenge pretty much a puzzle box with a special

475
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 2: lever that a goat had to learn how to operate

476
00:29:29,960 --> 00:29:33,200
Speaker 2: in order to access food, and there were different conditions

477
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,440
Speaker 2: in this experiment. Would it make a difference to a

478
00:29:36,520 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: goat's ability to learn how to use this box if

479
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,640
Speaker 2: the goat were able to watch another goat opening the

480
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: box successfully aka social learning? And the authors in their

481
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 2: result section right quote the majority of trained goats nine

482
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,360
Speaker 2: out of twelve, successfully learned the task quickly on average

483
00:29:55,400 --> 00:29:59,520
Speaker 2: within twelve trials at intervals of up to ten months.

484
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:03,800
Speaker 2: They saw the task within two minutes, indicating excellent long

485
00:30:03,880 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 2: term memory. The goats did not learn the task faster

486
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,600
Speaker 2: after observing a demonstrator than if they did not have

487
00:30:10,640 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 2: that opportunity. This indicates that they learned through individual rather

488
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,560
Speaker 2: than social learning. So goats pretty smart. They learn the

489
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:22,160
Speaker 2: task pretty well, they can solve the puzzle most of

490
00:30:22,200 --> 00:30:25,760
Speaker 2: the time, and they're able to remember that solution pretty

491
00:30:25,760 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: well in the long term. Ten months later, he give

492
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,240
Speaker 2: them another puzzle box. They get into it pretty fast.

493
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 2: But the goats did not seem to benefit from watching

494
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:38,040
Speaker 2: the struggles of other goats at all, so they did

495
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:40,960
Speaker 2: not display signs of social learning. And I think that's

496
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 2: kind of interesting because goats are to some degree social

497
00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 2: they live in herds, but biologically they are not oriented

498
00:30:47,120 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 2: to learn in a cooperative way. They can't learn, at

499
00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 2: least according to this finding, by watching other goats do

500
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 2: the way we can. And the authors say that this

501
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 2: would provide some evidence that the evolution of goat cognition

502
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,640
Speaker 2: is driven more by ecological competence pressure than by social

503
00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 2: intelligence pressure. So they think, you know, what's pushing goats

504
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 2: to to be able to think more efficiently is probably

505
00:31:12,720 --> 00:31:15,840
Speaker 2: more the stuff about trying to extract solve puzzles in

506
00:31:15,880 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 2: the environment. How do you extract the maximum amount of

507
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 2: forging resources from this area? How do you remember where

508
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,880
Speaker 2: caches of food are? How do you remember where threats are?

509
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:29,280
Speaker 2: And things like that, rather than using that intelligence to

510
00:31:29,360 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 2: try to maintain relationships within the group like you might

511
00:31:33,160 --> 00:31:34,360
Speaker 2: see in chimpanzees.

512
00:31:34,720 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, now that makes sense. Based on my limited experience

513
00:31:38,640 --> 00:31:41,040
Speaker 1: with with goat mischief, it tends to be things like

514
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: you're at a petting zoo and oh, you have a

515
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: map of the zoo sticking out of your pocket. Somebody

516
00:31:47,480 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: decides to sneak that out of your pocket and start

517
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:53,600
Speaker 1: eating it, you know, Or I've spoken.

518
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 2: That's problem solving, that has problem solving.

519
00:31:55,480 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 1: It's curiosity, it's pure curiosity. Is it food? I shall investigate.

520
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:04,120
Speaker 1: I know other situations that have come up from some

521
00:32:04,400 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: goat farmers that I've spoken to in the past have

522
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:10,560
Speaker 1: been like the goat wants to find out how to

523
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,680
Speaker 1: get on top of something and doing that may well

524
00:32:13,680 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: find its way out of an enclosure.

525
00:32:15,600 --> 00:32:18,400
Speaker 2: So that sort of thing, right, so clever problem solving

526
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:22,280
Speaker 2: within the physical space, but less so within the social arena.

527
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:26,000
Speaker 2: So one might be tempted to say that crafty antisocial

528
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 2: goats cast long in sinister shadows. However, I wanted to

529
00:32:30,200 --> 00:32:32,000
Speaker 2: put another weight on the scale, sort of on the

530
00:32:32,040 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 2: other side of the scale. And this was a study

531
00:32:35,760 --> 00:32:40,360
Speaker 2: I was looking at by Christian Nowroth at All published

532
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 2: in Biology Letters in twenty sixteen called goats display audience

533
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:50,240
Speaker 2: dependent human directed gazing behavior in a problem solving task.

534
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 2: And the background of this one is the observation that okay, domestication.

535
00:32:55,520 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 2: When you domesticate a wild animal, this clearly affects the

536
00:32:59,000 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 2: animal's brain and its cognition. A domestic dog simply does

537
00:33:03,920 --> 00:33:07,640
Speaker 2: not think and solve problems the same way its nearest

538
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 2: wild relative. Would you know, dog thinking is way different

539
00:33:12,560 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 2: than wolf thinking. But how much of this difference is

540
00:33:16,040 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: a result of straight domestication and how much is the

541
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 2: result of the fact that dogs are domesticated specifically as companions.

542
00:33:25,800 --> 00:33:29,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, certainly we get into the whole scenario where

543
00:33:29,520 --> 00:33:32,880
Speaker 1: we often talk about dogs and cats and other close

544
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:36,040
Speaker 1: domesticated animals as we talk about how they look at humans,

545
00:33:36,240 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: what do they think humans are? And I know there

546
00:33:38,880 --> 00:33:41,640
Speaker 1: are different interpretations, but I know that it's often said, well,

547
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:43,959
Speaker 1: like a cat thinks you may think that you are

548
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: another cat. I've heard, you know, they think you're another kitten,

549
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: or they think you're its mom, that sort of thing. Dogs,

550
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,200
Speaker 1: I believe, tend to look at their humans kind of

551
00:33:53,280 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: like their dogs.

552
00:33:54,080 --> 00:33:56,040
Speaker 2: Right, Well, to some extent, I mean you can tell

553
00:33:56,080 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 2: that there is a there's a very natural, inclusive kind

554
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 2: of social relationship with dogs to humans, so they acclimatize

555
00:34:04,800 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 2: easily to humans.

556
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:06,760
Speaker 1: Right.

557
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 2: On the other hand, there seems to be a kind

558
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:11,360
Speaker 2: of special thing with humans, right, where like you have

559
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:15,400
Speaker 2: these studies where you give a dog a puzzle that

560
00:34:15,480 --> 00:34:19,239
Speaker 2: it cannot solve, like it can't get the treat out

561
00:34:19,280 --> 00:34:22,600
Speaker 2: of the puzzle box, And is it going to look

562
00:34:22,640 --> 00:34:24,560
Speaker 2: at the other dog in the room for help or

563
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:26,440
Speaker 2: look at the human for help? It's going to look

564
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:27,279
Speaker 2: at the human.

565
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 1: Right right. And I don't have any studies to back

566
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: this up, but I mean this seems to be the

567
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: case with cats as well. Like the cats will come

568
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,160
Speaker 1: to the human, they will use their special meal that

569
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:40,880
Speaker 1: is a way of communicating with the humans, as if

570
00:34:40,920 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: they are like the mama cat that will fix things. Yeah,

571
00:34:44,040 --> 00:34:46,319
Speaker 1: but with a goat. Yeah, where do we go with that? Because,

572
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:50,320
Speaker 1: as we've already established, like there's a different underlying social dynamic.

573
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,719
Speaker 2: Right, But what the authors here found, just to read

574
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 2: from their abstract, they say, quote, we investigated human directed

575
00:34:57,080 --> 00:35:01,360
Speaker 2: behavior in an unsolvable problem to in a domestic but

576
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 2: non companion species goats. Okay, so they're giving goats sort

577
00:35:06,280 --> 00:35:08,719
Speaker 2: of like a puzzle box that they can't solve. There's

578
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:11,239
Speaker 2: clearly an outcome they want, but they can't achieve it

579
00:35:11,280 --> 00:35:12,880
Speaker 2: on their own. It's not like they, you know, the

580
00:35:12,960 --> 00:35:14,880
Speaker 2: lever that they could figure out with few tries in

581
00:35:14,920 --> 00:35:19,279
Speaker 2: the other experiment. They can't win this game, so the

582
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:23,040
Speaker 2: author's write quote. During the test goats experienced a forward

583
00:35:23,080 --> 00:35:27,920
Speaker 2: facing or an away facing person, they gazed toward the

584
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 2: forward facing person earlier and for longer, and showed more

585
00:35:32,200 --> 00:35:36,480
Speaker 2: gaze alterations and a lower latency until the first gaze

586
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 2: alteration when the person was forward facing. Our results provide

587
00:35:40,760 --> 00:35:46,799
Speaker 2: strong evidence for audience dependent, human directed visual orienting behavior

588
00:35:47,200 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 2: in the species that was domesticated primarily for production. And

589
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 2: they also say their results quote show similarities with the

590
00:35:53,920 --> 00:35:59,359
Speaker 2: referential and intentional communicative behavior exhibited by domestic companion animals

591
00:35:59,400 --> 00:36:03,040
Speaker 2: such as do horses. This indicates the domestication has a

592
00:36:03,080 --> 00:36:09,000
Speaker 2: much broader impact on heterospecific communication than previously believed. So

593
00:36:09,120 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 2: the study is finding that even though goats were domesticated

594
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 2: for production for agriculture, meat, milk, hide, and fur things

595
00:36:17,080 --> 00:36:20,920
Speaker 2: like that, as opposed to dogs, which were domesticated as

596
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:25,319
Speaker 2: companions and helpers. Nevertheless, goats do this dog like thing.

597
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 2: When they have this unsolvable problem task. They are more

598
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:33,080
Speaker 2: likely to look up for presumably for help at a

599
00:36:33,160 --> 00:36:36,319
Speaker 2: human who is looking at them as opposed to the

600
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: control of a human that is looking away from them.

601
00:36:40,080 --> 00:36:44,080
Speaker 1: So this is kind of the impact of the goatherd yeah,

602
00:36:44,120 --> 00:36:44,760
Speaker 1: over the goat.

603
00:36:45,600 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 2: Now, I don't know exactly what all this adds up

604
00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:51,040
Speaker 2: to about, you know, how this would affect humans over

605
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 2: the years looking at the goats they're familiar with, and

606
00:36:53,680 --> 00:36:56,800
Speaker 2: whether they would imagine that this goat is having crafty,

607
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:02,680
Speaker 2: devilish designs on them or is thinking impure thoughts. But

608
00:37:02,800 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 2: I did find it interesting.

609
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:09,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, like maybe there is a long underlying realization that

610
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: the goat thinks and behaves differently when we're looking at

611
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:16,320
Speaker 1: it as opposed to when we're not looking at it,

612
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,840
Speaker 1: which reminds me of that ridiculous idea that we folks

613
00:37:19,840 --> 00:37:21,880
Speaker 1: will tell that we brought up in the last episode

614
00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:24,680
Speaker 1: about how you can't keep tracking the goat's not even

615
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:26,680
Speaker 1: there all the time. Sometimes it's there, but the rest

616
00:37:26,719 --> 00:37:28,880
Speaker 1: of the time it's going to hell so that Satan

617
00:37:29,000 --> 00:37:30,839
Speaker 1: can clean its beard for it.

618
00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:34,200
Speaker 2: You know what you call that, It's a fission fusion society.

619
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, all right, what's your day look like, Carl, Well,

620
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 1: I'm gonna eat a bunch of a bunch of grass.

621
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: I'm gonna climb some rocks and then oh, I've got

622
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: I've got I've got a one PM with Satan. Got

623
00:37:45,719 --> 00:37:55,240
Speaker 1: to get this beard taken care of now. As previously mentioned, goats,

624
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:59,160
Speaker 1: of course, are really good at figuring out how to

625
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:02,320
Speaker 1: make use of new and environments. And as a result,

626
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:04,920
Speaker 1: as a result of that reality and a result of

627
00:38:05,480 --> 00:38:08,799
Speaker 1: human domestication of the animals, goats are a common sight

628
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:13,200
Speaker 1: all over the world. They're one of our oldest domesticated animals.

629
00:38:13,239 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: As we discussed in the first episode, They've traveled long

630
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:20,040
Speaker 1: and far with us. And yeah, the goat is especially

631
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: good at sustaining itself even in places where nothing like

632
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: the goat has ever lived. And I want to go

633
00:38:27,600 --> 00:38:30,320
Speaker 1: to a particular place. And part of this is because

634
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 1: I just physically return from this place, and so it's

635
00:38:33,320 --> 00:38:35,759
Speaker 1: on my mind a lot. But I want to go

636
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: to the Galapagos Archipelago. This is a cluster of volcanic

637
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: islands located five hundred and sixty three miles or nine

638
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 1: hundred and six kilometers off the coast of Ecuador. It's

639
00:38:46,800 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: a place famous for its biodiversity and for the examples

640
00:38:50,160 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 1: of evolution found there in various species, many found nowhere

641
00:38:55,520 --> 00:38:58,120
Speaker 1: else in the world, that have evolved to thrive in

642
00:38:58,200 --> 00:39:02,800
Speaker 1: isolated environments. And while there is some dispute over whether

643
00:39:02,920 --> 00:39:06,520
Speaker 1: the Inca ever reached the island, we can be certain

644
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:11,799
Speaker 1: that Europeans discovered the islands in fifteen thirty five, and

645
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:14,680
Speaker 1: outside of Charles Darwin's visit to the island three hundred

646
00:39:14,760 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 1: years later, the history of human contact with the island

647
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:22,360
Speaker 1: has frequently been a bloody one, entailing at times penal colonies,

648
00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:29,520
Speaker 1: utopian communities, whalers and pirates. Sailors infamously made off with

649
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:34,520
Speaker 1: many of the smaller female Galapagos tortoises, which they used

650
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: to restock their food supplies of these islands, and later

651
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,120
Speaker 1: these sailors that were visiting the Galapagos Islands would see

652
00:39:42,160 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 1: the islands with food species like goats and pigs, so

653
00:39:46,440 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: drop off some goats and pigs, knowing that these are

654
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:52,600
Speaker 1: hardy creatures that will find out how to survive, that

655
00:39:52,680 --> 00:39:55,160
Speaker 1: will breed, and then when you drop back by, we

656
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 1: just send some of some sailors ashore and say, hey,

657
00:39:59,000 --> 00:40:00,880
Speaker 1: go get me some goat meat. Go get me some

658
00:40:00,920 --> 00:40:01,399
Speaker 1: pig meat.

659
00:40:01,640 --> 00:40:03,960
Speaker 2: Can you bring back thirty to fifty faral hogs.

660
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:11,160
Speaker 1: And given how good these creatures were at thriving in

661
00:40:11,200 --> 00:40:14,680
Speaker 1: new environments, and given that these islands had never seen

662
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,000
Speaker 1: goats or pigs before, yeah, they did quite well. And

663
00:40:18,040 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: as you can imagine, this sort of willful introduction of

664
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 1: invasive species had a huge negative impact on the environment.

665
00:40:26,880 --> 00:40:29,960
Speaker 1: In addition to feral goats and pigs, also feral cats

666
00:40:30,080 --> 00:40:33,360
Speaker 1: feral cattle have along been an issue along with of

667
00:40:33,400 --> 00:40:37,720
Speaker 1: course rats, Cats are of course terrific killers of birds.

668
00:40:38,120 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 1: Pigs will consume hidden eggs, including Glopaco's tortoise eggs, iguana eggs, etc.

669
00:40:44,360 --> 00:40:46,920
Speaker 1: And our problems in other parts of the world as well.

670
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: But you might well wonder why feral donkeys and especially

671
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: feral goats would be an issue. Like what ultimately is

672
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:59,759
Speaker 1: so destructive about the goat? Yeah, well, think back to

673
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,960
Speaker 1: the browsing dietary habits of the goat that we discussed

674
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 1: in the first episode. Again, the goat excels at consuming

675
00:41:06,280 --> 00:41:12,520
Speaker 1: vegetation and ultimately actually outperforms the giant Galapagos tortoise, munching

676
00:41:12,600 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: down parts of the plant that would ultimately be inaccessible

677
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 1: to the tortoise and in doing so, they also end

678
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 1: up loosening the underlying soil. They also, along with donkeys

679
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 1: and cattle, can trample eggs for the eggs as well

680
00:41:27,200 --> 00:41:30,960
Speaker 1: as just young tortoises, feral pigs, dogs, cats, and black

681
00:41:31,040 --> 00:41:34,480
Speaker 1: rats can serve as deadly predators, and so for these

682
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:38,200
Speaker 1: reasons along with human hunting, we saw the extinction of

683
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:42,799
Speaker 1: the Floriana Island subspecies of the Glapagos tortoise during the

684
00:41:42,800 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: mid nineteenth century, and of course all of the Galapagos

685
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:50,880
Speaker 1: tortoises have kind of had an uphill battle to regain

686
00:41:51,040 --> 00:41:54,480
Speaker 1: successful numbers. Another important thing to keep in mind here,

687
00:41:54,520 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: and this reminds me of our discussions of the moa,

688
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 1: the giant flightless bird in the past. We have to

689
00:42:00,680 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 1: remember that, okay, Glapagos tortoises are notoriously slow, but they

690
00:42:06,040 --> 00:42:09,040
Speaker 1: do move around quite a bit, and aided by a

691
00:42:09,120 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: slow digestion, they're able to spread seeds across vast distances.

692
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: So the Galapagos tortoise isn't just this amazing curiosity to

693
00:42:17,600 --> 00:42:20,319
Speaker 1: be found on the Glapcos Islands. They're a crucial part

694
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:26,360
Speaker 1: of island ecology. They've evolved to thrive within these isolated ecosystems,

695
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,320
Speaker 1: and those ecosystems have evolved to depend upon them and

696
00:42:30,440 --> 00:42:34,600
Speaker 1: to live alongside them. There are other examples of this

697
00:42:34,640 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: as well, like one in particular, you see these very

698
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:42,480
Speaker 1: tall cactus varieties that have evolved to climb high enough

699
00:42:42,719 --> 00:42:47,560
Speaker 1: to where they're above the tortoise's reach, and then you'll see,

700
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 1: you know, all the fruiting parts of the cactus up there,

701
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: and they'll be more like this hard bark on the

702
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 1: lower portions of it, a very tall cacti. So, anyway,

703
00:42:57,080 --> 00:43:00,280
Speaker 1: we end up with this situation where on we have

704
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:03,959
Speaker 1: we have islands here that have lots of goats, and

705
00:43:04,160 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: the goats are destructive. The goats are in competition with

706
00:43:06,960 --> 00:43:09,600
Speaker 1: the animals that we want to help, that we want

707
00:43:09,640 --> 00:43:11,920
Speaker 1: to see survive, and have no other place in the

708
00:43:11,960 --> 00:43:15,240
Speaker 1: world where they can survive, where they can call home.

709
00:43:15,719 --> 00:43:19,960
Speaker 1: And so this led to goat removal efforts, a war

710
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:25,600
Speaker 1: on goats. And there had been prior goat removal efforts

711
00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:29,480
Speaker 1: in other islands, but this was the largest at this

712
00:43:29,600 --> 00:43:32,279
Speaker 1: point in history. We're getting into the nineteen nineties here,

713
00:43:33,400 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: So according to the Galapagos Conservancy quote, prior to nineteen

714
00:43:37,520 --> 00:43:40,799
Speaker 1: ninety seven, the largest island with a successful goat eradication

715
00:43:41,280 --> 00:43:44,760
Speaker 1: was Auckland Island in New Zealand, where only one hundred

716
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: and five goats occupied a mere four thousand hectares. The

717
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:52,880
Speaker 1: next two the largest islands with successful goat eradications were

718
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:57,680
Speaker 1: Lenai in Hawaii and San Clemente Island in California. And

719
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 1: this and San Clemente Island they removed apparently twenty nine

720
00:44:02,400 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: thousand goats.

721
00:44:03,640 --> 00:44:04,040
Speaker 2: Wow.

722
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,400
Speaker 1: So yeah. By the late twentieth century, some real movements

723
00:44:07,400 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 1: were being made to eradicate feral populations from the Galapagos Islands.

724
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: This included the nineteen ninety seven Project Isabella Plan, which

725
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:19,280
Speaker 1: aimed to eradicate goats and donkeys from northern Isabella Island,

726
00:44:19,560 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: also pigs, goats and donkeys from Santiago Island and goats

727
00:44:23,239 --> 00:44:27,400
Speaker 1: from Penta Island. And with international funding, they waged a

728
00:44:27,440 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: war against the goats and their feral kin and the

729
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:34,960
Speaker 1: results are pretty staggering. By two thousand and four, eighteen

730
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:38,879
Speaker 1: thousand pigs were removed from Santiago Island. The same year,

731
00:44:39,080 --> 00:44:43,359
Speaker 1: roughly fifty five thousand goats were eliminated on Isabella. And

732
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: it's interesting when you start, when you start getting into

733
00:44:46,320 --> 00:44:49,239
Speaker 1: this sort of problem. When you have thousands, tens of

734
00:44:49,320 --> 00:44:52,680
Speaker 1: thousands of goats, how do you get rid of them?

735
00:44:52,719 --> 00:44:56,800
Speaker 1: How do you round them all up? I'm to understand

736
00:44:57,000 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: some of this was done via aerial hunting and some

737
00:45:01,280 --> 00:45:04,480
Speaker 1: of the pig removal. I think it still goes on today.

738
00:45:04,520 --> 00:45:08,160
Speaker 1: I'm to understand with hunting efforts, but with the goats,

739
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: they used judas goats to help carry this out, some

740
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:14,600
Speaker 1: seven hundred and seventy of them. Now what is a

741
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:18,280
Speaker 1: judas goat, you might ask, Well, these are trained goats,

742
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 1: and in these efforts, they are also sterilized goats, because

743
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 1: you don't you're not going to solve your goat problem

744
00:45:23,200 --> 00:45:27,320
Speaker 1: by releasing seven hundred and seventy greatable goats into the population.

745
00:45:27,600 --> 00:45:32,520
Speaker 1: But these are trained goats that there were traditionally used

746
00:45:32,640 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: in previous times to lead sheep to slaughter, but they

747
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,400
Speaker 1: can also be used to lead feral goats to their destruction.

748
00:45:39,920 --> 00:45:42,560
Speaker 1: So in the case of the Galapagos efforts, sterilized goats

749
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:45,560
Speaker 1: were used. And yeah, yeah, they were used to help

750
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:47,839
Speaker 1: round up many of these goats so that they could

751
00:45:47,880 --> 00:45:52,160
Speaker 1: be eliminated. But I think this whole scenario is it's

752
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 1: kind of a testament to so many of the properties

753
00:45:54,160 --> 00:46:00,319
Speaker 1: of the goat that we've discussed, their tenacity, their great

754
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,439
Speaker 1: ability to thrive in an environment, and in this case,

755
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: they're too good at it. Again, they just outperform everything

756
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,879
Speaker 1: that's already there. Then you have to get rid of them.

757
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,719
Speaker 1: And how do you wrangle them up? Well, you've got

758
00:46:13,760 --> 00:46:17,000
Speaker 1: to use goat against goat. You've got to You've got

759
00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:19,920
Speaker 1: to enlist trader goats or Judas goats to go out

760
00:46:19,920 --> 00:46:22,399
Speaker 1: there and help you lead them in to the kill.

761
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 2: I had heard the phrase judas goat before, but I

762
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 2: don't think I ever knew what that meant. So it's

763
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 2: a goat that it takes advantage of the social herding

764
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:35,120
Speaker 2: behaviors of goats by being trained by humans to lead

765
00:46:35,160 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 2: goats where you want them to go off into a

766
00:46:37,280 --> 00:46:40,320
Speaker 2: place that's not in the interest of goats themselves.

767
00:46:40,160 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: Right, right, so that they can be rounded up and

768
00:46:43,120 --> 00:46:46,560
Speaker 1: in this case eliminated. And I believe that they still

769
00:46:46,640 --> 00:46:50,759
Speaker 1: keep Judas goats around on some of these islands for

770
00:46:51,120 --> 00:46:52,239
Speaker 1: monitoring purposes.

771
00:46:52,400 --> 00:46:54,080
Speaker 2: I wonder, how do you train a goat that other

772
00:46:54,080 --> 00:46:56,480
Speaker 2: goats really want to follow? Like, what is the most

773
00:46:56,560 --> 00:46:57,960
Speaker 2: followable type of goat.

774
00:46:58,320 --> 00:46:59,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I didn't go in deep and

775
00:47:00,080 --> 00:47:02,200
Speaker 1: of like the making of a Judas goat, Like, how

776
00:47:02,200 --> 00:47:05,880
Speaker 1: does it come together? Since you're training an animal to

777
00:47:05,880 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: betray it's its own species, it instantly you can't help

778
00:47:10,000 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: an anthropomorphize the scenario when you start thinking of various

779
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: episodes of the Outer Limits and imagining like aliens brainwashing

780
00:47:17,600 --> 00:47:23,000
Speaker 1: human captives so that they'll betray their the human species

781
00:47:23,080 --> 00:47:25,839
Speaker 1: or something. But I don't think it's quite that complicated.

782
00:47:26,719 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 1: But thank goodness, we can do it. I mean, you

783
00:47:28,160 --> 00:47:31,400
Speaker 1: think of other problems species like the rat. To my knowledge,

784
00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:35,200
Speaker 1: there's no such thing as a Judas rat. The rats

785
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 1: are too clever for that. I suppose we've got to

786
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,479
Speaker 1: resort to, in some cases more basic methods, but also

787
00:47:42,600 --> 00:47:47,160
Speaker 1: methods that are perhaps just incapable of solving a large

788
00:47:47,200 --> 00:47:50,640
Speaker 1: scale rat problem. All right, Well, as we reach the

789
00:47:50,760 --> 00:47:53,120
Speaker 1: end of these three episodes, how does this change the

790
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:54,240
Speaker 1: way we feel about goats?

791
00:47:54,520 --> 00:47:57,279
Speaker 2: But change is nothing for me. My allegiances to the

792
00:47:57,320 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 2: goat and to the goat alone as it has always been.

793
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:03,799
Speaker 1: Well, obviously, we'd love to hear from everyone out there

794
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: about all of this. Yeah, did these episodes change the

795
00:48:07,360 --> 00:48:10,880
Speaker 1: way you think about goats. Yeah, perhaps, perhaps not. And

796
00:48:10,960 --> 00:48:15,000
Speaker 1: of course I feel like we do have listeners who

797
00:48:15,120 --> 00:48:17,920
Speaker 1: raise goats, or have raised goats, or have been around goats.

798
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:21,120
Speaker 1: I'm almost certain of it, if I'm thinking, if I'm

799
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:24,279
Speaker 1: remembering correctly. So if you out there, if you are

800
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:26,440
Speaker 1: a goatherd, we would love to hear from you. Let

801
00:48:26,560 --> 00:48:28,520
Speaker 1: us know what your thoughts are about the way of

802
00:48:28,520 --> 00:48:31,680
Speaker 1: the goat. So, if you've ever worked at a petting zoo,

803
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,840
Speaker 1: if you have any experience with goats, the lines up

804
00:48:34,880 --> 00:48:38,160
Speaker 1: with anything we've discussed here right in, and we'll discuss

805
00:48:38,160 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 1: them on future episodes of Listener Mail. It's also not

806
00:48:41,239 --> 00:48:44,680
Speaker 1: impossible there'll be another episode concerning goats in the not

807
00:48:44,719 --> 00:48:48,839
Speaker 1: too distant future, because we were just wrapping up our

808
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 1: work on this and I got a press release from

809
00:48:51,200 --> 00:48:54,040
Speaker 1: somebody who had it like a new study regarding the

810
00:48:54,080 --> 00:48:57,200
Speaker 1: behavior of goats and rams, and it's like, yeah, I'm like,

811
00:48:57,239 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: oh man, maybe I'll have to Maybe we'll have to

812
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,239
Speaker 1: have them on the show and chat with them. So

813
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:03,799
Speaker 1: this may not be the end of the goats in

814
00:49:03,840 --> 00:49:05,520
Speaker 1: the long run, but it is the end of this

815
00:49:05,600 --> 00:49:08,920
Speaker 1: three part series. Oki Dokie as a reminder you can

816
00:49:08,920 --> 00:49:10,600
Speaker 1: find all the episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind

817
00:49:10,600 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 1: and the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed. We

818
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:16,560
Speaker 1: are primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays

819
00:49:16,600 --> 00:49:20,800
Speaker 1: and Thursdays with listener mail episodes and Mondays. On Wednesdays

820
00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,840
Speaker 1: we do a short form monster fact or artifact episode,

821
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:26,319
Speaker 1: and on Fridays we do a little something called Weird

822
00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:29,320
Speaker 1: House Cinema. That's our time to set aside most serious

823
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:31,840
Speaker 1: concerns and just talk about a strange film.

824
00:49:32,120 --> 00:49:34,879
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth

825
00:49:34,960 --> 00:49:37,480
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch

826
00:49:37,520 --> 00:49:39,839
Speaker 2: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

827
00:49:39,920 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

828
00:49:42,120 --> 00:49:44,920
Speaker 2: say hello, you can email us at contact, stuff to

829
00:49:44,960 --> 00:49:53,520
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind dot com.

830
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:56,840
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831
00:49:56,920 --> 00:49:59,760
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832
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