You know, when I was a little boy I remember how Science(tm) in the media used to tell us all sorts of nonsense and just got away with it when we didn't have personal experience to the contrary. I'm not just talking “safe & effective” and who shot JFK. All manner of nonsense that some “expert” just made up. One of them was cat intelligence.
We were told by the media that cats were very unintelligent. This extended to many other animals as well, whereas something like a dog was considered intelligent. You know how it turned out those conclusions were reached? The ones performers could train easily, they called “intelligent,” and the ones they couldn't get to do tricks on command, they called “stupid.”
Have a kitty.