Even though there are trillions of gut microbes in a human being, they’re hard to pin down for interviews. I managed to corral Prevotella Corpri for a shocking take on who’s smarter: gut microbes or their hosts.
Prevotella Corpri, thank you for joining us today. Can I call you Prevotella?
Everybody calls me P. corpri. The c is lowercase. You can think of it as my rap name (laughs).
P. corpri then! (laughs) There’s a rumor that you gut microbes are smarter than your hosts. Are you smarter than yours?
Well, first of all, my host Bob thinks a microbiome is a fancy beer. But perhaps you’ve heard of Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences? There’s more than one way to be smart. For example, Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence is about physical skill. While living in Bob’s stomach and intestines, we avoid getting dissolved by stomach acid, engulfed by parasites, and crippled by ultra-processed food like reformulated potato snacks.
On the other hand, Bob can barely cross the street without getting hit by a car, and don’t even get me started on his dance moves. Although his Macarena isn’t cringe. But for the love of god, never ask him to Nae-nae, and don’t mention any word that even sounds like twerk because he’s very word-associative and that’ll get him going.
What other ways are you smarter than Bob?
Let’s take Existential Intelligence, where you wonder about the meaning of life and how we got here. Gut microbes have a short life. We’ve got to ask questions fast and ponder deep realities at high speed. Is there a god, and if so why does he allow war and reformulated potato snacks? Is there a devil? The only comparable thing Bob does is pray while watching Seahawks games, and then he goes at it embarrassingly loud.
So let’s say that each type of intelligence counts for one point. You’re ahead two to zero so far. What about Interpersonal Intelligence?
Oh, right. Interacting well with others. Hmm, let me think. There are thousands of types of gut microbes. Different bacteria, like me, plus archaea, fungi, and viruses. We don’t always get along. Sometimes (long pause) we kill each other. This is not a good look for us.
Bob only kills in video games, and even then he’s not that ninja, honestly. Still, he has a hard time reading the room. He tends to ramble on about his own interests, like fruit sticker collecting. At least he sometimes eats fruit, although not grapes because they don’t have stickers, and he only eats organic food inadvertently. But I digress. I’d say this one is a draw. Neither of us is smarter interpersonally.
What way is Bob smarter than you?
Logical-Mathematical Intelligence. There he’s got the edge on us. All we really know how to do is multiply, LOL.
Ha ha! That’s two points gut microbes, one point Bob. Gardner named more intelligences, didn’t he, P. corpri?
Yes, of course. There’s Musical Intelligence. We compose some phenomenal rumbles down here. Bob plays a mean air guitar, but that’s not a real instrument.
As for Linguistic Intelligence, I speak my native language plus fungi and several virus dialects. Bob only speaks English and a few phrases in pigeon Klingon.
The only other intelligence that Bob is better at is Intrapersonal. Understanding yourself. He’s been dream journaling, and he actually downloaded a meditation app, although he hasn’t used it yet. We microbes don’t do all that. We’re simple organisms, really, in that respect.
So we can give him a point for that one.
(Laughs magnanimously) Sure! There’s also Visual-Spatial Intelligence, the ability to think in images. He’s bad at puzzles and he fakes being able to solve a Rubic’s cube.
As for the last one, Naturalist Intelligence, he thinks s’mores are healthy because you eat them outside. He doesn’t care for Sir David Attenborough, while we’ve got a very active fan club, the Atten-bros. And the food he eats is as far from nature as it gets. I mean, reformulated potato snacks? What’s wrong with a real potato? Don’t get me started.
That’s six points for you and two points for Bob. Seems like you’ve proved that gut microbes are smarter than human beings. Thank you for taking time out of your busy digestive schedule. To wrap up, if you could tell Bob anything, what would it be?
I’ll quote author Michael Pollan. “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” And I’ll just add that Pringles are the work of the devil.
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Susan Whiting Kemp is the author of the novels Sorry, Wrong Afterlife; The Climate Machine; and The Time Philosopher. Her writing has appeared in Bewildering Stories, Hobart, Kaleidoscope, Wilderness House Literary Review, HowlRound, The Blue Lake Review, and The Writer’s Workshop Review. While working for science and engineering companies she has written or edited thousands of articles, proposals, and reports. She holds a BA in drama from the University of Washington. When she’s not writing, she enjoys berating herself for not writing. Find her at susanwkemp.com.