Not the sharpest cookie in the jar

Harvard University astronomy professor Avi Loeb was discussing life on other planets and the possiblity that other life forms have advanced faster than we have. Here’s an excerpt from a CBS local interview in Boston:

“We know that half of the sun-like stars have a planet the size of the Earth roughly the same distance from the star, so they can have liquid water on the surface – that’s the chemistry of life,” he said. “That means that if you roll the dice billions of times in the Milky Way galaxy, we’re probably not alone, and moreover we’re probably not the sharpest cookie in the jar, the smartest kid on the block.”

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2021/01/07/avi-loeb-extraterrestrial-book-alien-technology-oumuamua/‘We’re Probably Not Alone’: Harvard Astronomer Believes Alien Debris Passed Earth In 2017boston.cbslocal.com

This is a nice example of an incongruent conflation (two idioms with opposite meanings mashed together) of “sharp cookie” (someone very smart, witth, or clever) and “not the sharpest knife in the drawer” (not intelligent). Interestingly, this same malaphor was uttered by Stephen Colbert the other night on the Late Show. A big thanks to Ron MacDonald for finding this one on CBS local interview and Susan Ivison for hearing it on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.