Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? (Frans de Waal)

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
Frans de Waal
Norton
Nonfiction, Animals/Science
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION: For centuries, despite anecdotal evidence and the work of a few often-belittled pioneers, the idea that nonhuman animals might possess active cognition, or be more than simple stimulus-response machines, was scoffed at by layman and scholar alike. Over the years, under the weight of increasing evidence, the study of animal cognition has bloomed, leading to surprising revelations about the minds of everything from wasps and fish to elephants and apes. Tool use, social politics, self recognition, delayed gratification, theory of mind, and more have been found across the animal kingdom. From his own studies with primates and others in the field, de Waal presents findings that challenge humanity's traditional seat atop the imaginary ladder of evolution and enlightenment.

REVIEW: If there's one thing humans excel at, it's storytelling - particularly, telling ourselves stories of our own superiority and uniqueness, stories that have colored our perceptions of the world around us for generations. Even as evolution has moved from radical notion to accepted fact (or at least the theory that best fits all available evidence), it's amazing, and a little depressing, how even highly educated people still cling to those stories that grant humans a place apart from other species. The author delves into the history of evolutionary cognition, from before Darwin through the strict behaviorist models to more recent revelations, and some speculation on what discoveries might be coming as techniques improve and exploration continues. It's fascinating, even watered down for us uneducated laypeople. The studies of de Waal and other scientists increasingly show how cognition - yes, even human cognition - couldn't evolve in a vacuum. It's a tool evident, to some degree, across many branches of the tree of life, even if it doesn't always manifest in easily recognized ways. And why should it? Human cognition fits human lifestyles; other animals' cognition would, by necessity, best suit their own lifestyle, their anatomy and environment and challenges. As human scientists relinquish the idea of humans as the defining pinnacle of intelligence and awareness, learning to see each animal on its own terms, they make some amazing discoveries. Yet for each discovery, "slayers" move the goalposts, changing the stories they tell themselves, determined to preserve their idea of human superiority. (de Waal differentiates these from skeptics, which are a necessary part of any scientific field, challengers that drive new experimentation and ensure self-checking on results and methodology, rather than outright dismissing anything not fitting preconceived ideas.) At the end, de Waal expresses hope that the "slayers" of the field appear to be a dying breed, comments I couldn't help reading with a slight twinge of sorrow; with a disproportionate number of "slayers" elevated to positions of outsized power, my own country seems bound and determined to roll the clock backward on all manner of science, particularly science that challenges their stories. For the sake of science and the future of the world, I sincerely hope de Waal is right...

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