Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Ratings27
Average rating4
This book is mind-blowing. Anyone who has any interest in, or interaction with, animals should read this. I have always had a high opinion of animals' intelligence, but even I could not help but be amazed by the things I read in this book about the cognitive abilities of animals (in the least patronizing way possible). The most important thing I learned when I first read this book was that there is no hierarchy of intelligence as is commonly thought. When we say, for example, "dolphins are extremely intelligent" or "dogs are smarter than cats", what is the reference point? Humans. Because we are humans, we compare every other organism's intelligence to our own. This is natural. However, as de Waal points out, there are multiple intelligences, as many as every species, and comparing the intelligences of other organisms evolved within other ecological niches than ourselves to our own way of thinking is incorrect. The more correct thing to say would be "dolphin cognition is very similar to our own" or "dogs' cognition is more similar to ours than cats' is". We are not the smartest organism. We think an animal is "smart" when they think and act like we do instead of looking at how well their cognitive abilities allow them to live their own non-human lives in their own non-human environments. Every animal has the best intelligence for the environment and life history they evolved within. That is evolution's whole thing after all. I highly recommend reading this and then following it with de Waal's Mama's Last Hug.
This book is mind-blowing. Anyone who has any interest in, or interaction with, animals should read this. I have always had a high opinion of animals' intelligence, but even I could not help but be amazed by the things I read in this book about the cognitive abilities of animals (in the least patronizing way possible). The most important thing I learned when I first read this book was that there is no hierarchy of intelligence as is commonly thought. When we say, for example, "dolphins are extremely intelligent" or "dogs are smarter than cats", what is the reference point? Humans. Because we are humans, we compare every other organism's intelligence to our own. This is natural. However, as de Waal points out, there are multiple intelligences, as many as every species, and comparing the intelligences of other organisms evolved within other ecological niches than ourselves to our own way of thinking is incorrect. The more correct thing to say would be "dolphin cognition is very similar to our own" or "dogs' cognition is more similar to ours than cats' is". We are not the smartest organism. We think an animal is "smart" when they think and act like we do instead of looking at how well their cognitive abilities allow them to live their own non-human lives in their own non-human environments. Every animal has the best intelligence for the environment and life history they evolved within. That is evolution's whole thing after all. I highly recommend reading this and then following it with de Waal's Mama's Last Hug.
