Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

by Frans De Waal | | This book has not been rated.
ISBN: 0393246183 Global Overview for this book
Registered by jlautner of Henderson, Nevada USA on 12/28/2016
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by jlautner from Henderson, Nevada USA on Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Ordered from Amazon Prime Now while in Las Vegas on December 22 and was delivered one hour later.

Journal Entry 2 by jlautner at San Luis Obispo, California USA on Saturday, January 7, 2017
Well, yes we are smart enough to know how smart animals are. But we resist knowing, or perhaps better to say we resist understanding what we observe.

For years the mechanistic approach was the only one widely accepted. That is, studies of other animals only reported what they saw and never suggested any "intention" on the part of the animal. All instinct, all living in the present. There were a few scientists who bucked this trend, and now we have Frans DeWaal, who unashamedly posits that humans are simply another animal whose traits are found in other animals to other degrees. Some animals do some tasks better than humans and some do worse. But the real point is that we are not some special species sitting on top of a ladder while all other animals are below us in order.

Animals evolved in different directions in response to different circumstances. Thus a cat has ears that are stunningly better at hearing than a human or even a dog. Thus a cheetah can run incredibly fast. And we might be better at some cognitive skills than others. We can't be placed on a scale, however, and it is ridiculous to compare a dog to a human, for example, to say a dog is "as smart as a three-year-old child". The child can do some things the dog can't but the dog can do things the child can't. They can't fairly be compared in this way.

In this book DeWaal examines animals in a wide range of ways, from social skills to telling time to solving problems. And of course the use of tools. Study after study supports his position that the differences between man and other animals is, as Darwin said, a matter of degree, not kind.

A particularly interesting aspect of the book is his finding that many scientists seem to be unable to overcome their bias toward humans and construct experiments to favor the human and evaluate the outcomes to slant toward human as well. Scientists are meant to be unbiased in this respect but are probably unaware of this bias.

It's a beautifully written book that I will have on my shelf for a while. There is one question I wish DeWaal had answered: he points out that there is a difference in what we can learn from field study and what can be learned from laboratory study. Clearly there are advantages to be found in laboratory study. But the question is: what right do we have to put other animals in laboratories, however benign the conditions? I just wish he had addressed the question. Regardless, it's an excellent book that I will treasure.

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