masterful photo

The above picture ran in a recent issue of New Scientist (probably the world's best English-language science publication). The article was about innate psychology, and the photo editor made an inspired pick.

The baby is showing classic human curiosity. "Look! Something new! Let's explore it!" Of course, because it's an infant, the next behavior will likely be "Can I eat it?" closely followed by "Can I at least drool on it?"

Come to think of it, those behaviors might not apply just to infants.

But that reflexive, initial curious engagement with a new object is wired into a very deep part of our brains; and is a trait we share with only a relative handful of our closest animal relatives. (The "Can I eat it?" exploration is even more fundamental, but that's not what the photo is showing.)

Cats don't share that wiring. Look at the cat in the photo, exhibiting pure, classic domesticated cat-ness. Placed in a novel situation by trusted humans, the cat is fully alert, and equally ready to either flee or defend, with no clear tendency either way. The cat's only immediate interest in the baby is to see if it's going to be a threat or not. The phrase "scardy cat" has real-life roots.

Come to think of it, "curiosity killed the cat" sort of means the same thing. Curiosity is the intellectual lifeblood of humans; but may be frequently enough fatal for felines (of the non-scardy sort) that an aphorism was born.

What a great photo!