At first glance, babies might not seem that smart. Not that it’s their fault! They’re just young, their minds like Silly Putty — mushy and malleable to whatever adults want to impress on them. Heck, French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau called babies “perfect idiots.” Yet a growing body of science argues otherwise, claiming that babies know a whole lot more than we think they do, from physics to statistics.
Check out some of their unbelievably brainy abilities in the slide show below.