3. The Species Who Knew Too Much

CHAPTER 3 THE SPECIES WHO KNEW TOO MUCH We all know that it's good to be smart. It's even better to be very smart. But being TOO smart is just asking for trouble. Take human beings for example: We were smart enough to invent gardening and health care, we developed Bob Evans Restaurants and FOX News, and we've managed to take hard candies and gentle-yet-effective laxatives to exciting new horizons. But somewhere along the way, we got TOO smart for our own good. We started inventing dumb things like car alarms, leaf blowers, and spray-on hair.

You'd think that dumb things would have been good enough for us, but no. Our big, ridiculous brains just weren't satisfied. We had to take things one step further. So we began creating incredibly dangerous things like atomic bombs and nuclear warheads, and we built enough of them to wipe out everybody on the planet. Then, like the smarty-pantses we are, we handed the launch codes over to politicians. Only human beings are smart enough to be that dumb!

It turns out that brains are a lot like beans. They're both good, but you really don't want to overdo it with either one. You see, too much of a good thing usually ends up being a VERY BAD thing. One way or another, you're probably going to end up with a big, stinky mess. The story you are about to read is the unfortunate tale of how the smartest brain on the planet created the biggest, stinkiest mess the world has ever seen. But before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story...