Untold billions of dollars have been invested. Billions of man-hours have gone into its development. It consumes billions of hours of both time & thought. It features billions of miles of wire and billions of microprocessors.
Of course, I'm referring to Katherine Heigel's career.
I'm kidding. It's the Internet.
And what is the Internet's prime directive? The seamless connection of the planet's 5 billion people? Disseminate information at near the speed of light? Or, is to be the repository of the world's combined knowledge?
F*ck no!
The Internet's primary purpose is to share pictures of cats who've fallen into the fish tank.
Or photos of dogs who - for reasons unknown - look cute inside a box.
Want proof? There are 67 million stories that feature the words "dogs vs cats" when you search Google and there are 80 million YouTube videos featuring dogs or cats. Plus, in the venn diagram of people who own pets and people who have Internet access the overlap is 100 percent.
So, to find out which pet is smarter, dog or cat, This vs That -- a new investigative series that uses science to answer questions about the world within arm's reach -- joined forces with dozens of the cutest dogs and cats along with Dr. Aaron Blasidell, the head of UCLA's Animal Cognition Lab and conducted a series of dynamic and interactive experiments to determine dog's and cat's ability to:
- Demonstrate empathy
- Map human language
- Learn from their own previous mistakes
Below, the first 10 minutes from This vs That's Episode #6, titled: Dogs vs Cats (fyi: there are 6 one-hour episodes of This vs That in all).
You can see the entire experiment along with the rest of season 1 here.
Jon Hotchkiss is the Creator, Executive Producer, Director & Writer of This vs That. You can reach him here.