Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Amsterdam Atlas Contact 2016
Description
Nature. Science. Nonfiction. From world-renowned biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal comes this groundbreaking work on animal intelligence destined to become a classic.What separates your mind from an animal's? Maybe you think it's your ability to design tools, your sense of self, or your grasp of past and future?all traits that have helped us define ourselves as the planet's preeminent species. But in recent decades, these claims have been eroded�or even disproved outright�by a revolution in the study of animal cognition.Take the way octopuses use coconut shells as tools; elephants that classify humans by age, gender, and language; or Ayumu, the young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame. Based on research involving crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, and of course chimpanzees and bonobos, Frans de Waal explores both the scope and the depth of animal intelligence. He offers a firsthand account of how science has stood traditional behaviorism on its head by revealing how smart animals really are�and how we've underestimated their abilities for too long.People often assume a cognitive ladder, from lower to higher forms, with our own intelligence at the top. But what if it is more like a bush, with cognition taking different, often incomparable, forms? Would you presume yourself dumber than a squirrel because you're less adept at recalling the locations of hundreds of buried acorns? Or would you judge your perception of your surroundings as more sophisticated than that of a echolocating bat?De Waal reviews the rise and fall of the mechanistic view of animals and opens our minds to the idea that animal minds are far more intricate and complex than we have assumed. De Waal's landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal?and human?intelligence.… (more)
Media reviews
... De Waal argues that we should attempt to understand a species’ intelligence only within its own context, or umwelt: the animal’s “self-centered subjective world, which represents only a small tranche of all available worlds.” There are many different forms of intelligence; each should
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be valuated only relative to its environment. “It seems highly unfair to ask if a squirrel can count to 10 if counting is not really what a squirrel’s life is about,” de Waal writes. (A squirrel’s life is about remembering where it stored its nuts; its intelligence is geospatial intelligence.) And yet, there’s apparently a long history of scientists ignoring this truth. For example, they’ve investigated chimpanzees’ ability to recognize faces by testing whether the chimps can recognize human faces, instead of faces of other chimps. (They do the former poorly and the latter quite well.) They’ve performed the famous mirror test — to gauge whether an animal recognizes the figure in a mirror as itself — on elephants using a too-small, human-size mirror. Such blind spots are, ultimately, a failure of empathy — a failure to imagine the experiment, or the form of intelligence it’s testing for, through the animal’s eyes. De Waal compares it to “throwing both fish and cats into a swimming pool” and seeing who can swim... Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member norabelle414
De Waal deconstructs every myth that humans have invented about how intelligence sets humans apart from animals. From tool use to language to anticipating the future, there is no metric that humans can devise (and they do keep changing the bar as often as possible) that can prove that human
I really enjoyed the first part of the book, which talks about the oldest history of cognitive science, both of humans and of animals, and the very weird things that humans used to think about animals. (It’s so odd to me that anyone who has ever interacted with a pet could think that animals can’t have personalities). Once you get further into the book, it feels reactionary. When the proponents of “humans are definitively more intelligent” move the bar, de Waal proves them wrong, and they just move the bar again. It’s a losing battle. I’d much rather the book talked about cool types of intelligence that animals have, especially those that humans DON’T have. Overall it was a very enjoyable book. I listened to part of it as an audiobook narrated by Sean Runnette, which was very good. I would warn, however, that although there is a leopard on the cover of most editions, there is no discussion of leopards in the book and in fact most of it is about chimpanzees (if I had known this I would not have scheduled my book club to read it right after the Goodall book.)
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intelligence is greater, in any way, than that of all other animals.I really enjoyed the first part of the book, which talks about the oldest history of cognitive science, both of humans and of animals, and the very weird things that humans used to think about animals. (It’s so odd to me that anyone who has ever interacted with a pet could think that animals can’t have personalities). Once you get further into the book, it feels reactionary. When the proponents of “humans are definitively more intelligent” move the bar, de Waal proves them wrong, and they just move the bar again. It’s a losing battle. I’d much rather the book talked about cool types of intelligence that animals have, especially those that humans DON’T have. Overall it was a very enjoyable book. I listened to part of it as an audiobook narrated by Sean Runnette, which was very good. I would warn, however, that although there is a leopard on the cover of most editions, there is no discussion of leopards in the book and in fact most of it is about chimpanzees (if I had known this I would not have scheduled my book club to read it right after the Goodall book.)
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LibraryThing member kristykay22
This book is part overview of the field of animal cognition / part memoir, and completely filled with interesting anecdotes, facts, and scientific studies about how animals of all types (including, to a certain extent, humans) think, and how we can improve the ways we study that. de Waal is a
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well-respected member of the cognitive evolution community and has published several books on animal behavior for the general public. His broad experience and ability to write for the non-scientist make this a fascinating and readable volume. As I was reading this, I noticed how many stories you see in the media about scientific studies of animal cognition, and it highlighted for me how breezy the media is with "discoveries" and how careful scientists have to be with how they set up their experiments. A nice introduction into the scientific mindset, and a humbling look at the ways that all living creatures think and act and live in community. Show Less
LibraryThing member annbury
Frans de Waal is a noted primatologist and ethologist, and as such is eminently qualified to address a long-standing dispute in psychology -- is human cognition different in kind than that of other animals, or is it simply different in degree? The first answer, summed up in the "behaviorist" theory
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of animal behavior, assumes that animals do not think, but instead respond to external stimuli in the moment, or over time. Human beings show conditioned behavior too, but are also capable of thought, making them essentially different from other animals -- or perhaps more accurately from animals. De Waal shows how this attitude traces back to human egotism and perhaps even to religious views. He then deconstructs it point by point, in reported observation of various species that suggest that animals do indeed think. I have read several of Mr. de Waal's other books and enjoyed them thoroughly. This one sums up his own and other people's research to make a strong case for a much more wideranging view of intelligence and cognition. The book may be a tad repetitive at times, but it is entertainingly written, and well worth reading. Show Less
LibraryThing member Stbalbach
There have been two major books published recently on the current thinking about animal intelligence, this one and Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel by Carl Safina. I've read both and the choice is very clear: Safina. Not to say this one is terrible but Safina's book is so well written and
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most of the information there is contained here. Frans de Waal is more in the weeds, more technical and scattered, though for a general audience. It's a good followup. Show Less
LibraryThing member ohernaes
de Waal's perhaps biggest point is the continuity of abilities between humans and other animals, and he makes the case well for a wide range of abilities, like memory, forward looking behavior, problem solving, tool use, various social skills, and animals (in particular apes, monkeys, birds,
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elephants). That is perfectly plausible to me, so I did not need convincing on that point, but I was fascinated by the ways other animals, in particular chimps, do better than humans on some traditional cognitive tasks. Examples are the extremely quick memory of chimps (link) and the fact that chimps may remember solutions to tasks/puzzles years later once they have learned it. A quibble: de Waal often appears unnuanced when writing about other fields, and sets up straw-men to argue against, which is not that interesting. Recommended. Show Less
LibraryThing member Gwendydd
This is a fascinating description of the current state of the field of animal cognition. de Waal shows how the field of animal cognition has been driven by humans' need to set themselves apart from other animals - any time an animal proves itself capable of something humans had thought was unique
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to humans, we have to redefine what makes us different. When Jane Goodall demonstrated that apes use tools, one scientist said, "We're going to have to redefine tool, or redefine ape, or redefine human." The entire field of animal cognition is a history of these redefinitions. de Waal also points out that many studies of animal cognition refuse to take into account what it is like to be an animal - for instance, some tests of tool use require that monkeys use their hands in certain ways that not all monkeys are capable of. There are lots of studies comparing ape intelligence to human toddler intelligence, but these studies are largely unfair because the tests are administered by humans, and a human toddler is going to feel far more comfortable in the presence of a human than an ape will. de Waal argues for taking animal intelligence at face value, acknowledging that there are different kinds of intelligences, and getting rid of humans' need to feel special. Along the way, he presents the methods and results of dozens of really fascinating experiments. I found this to be a very interesting read. Show Less
LibraryThing member jenn88
This book is written by world-renowned biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal. He gives us insight into the minds of animals; minds that are far more intricate and complex than we originally thought. There are lots of interesting tidbits in here based on research involving crows, dolphins,
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parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, whales, octopi, and chimpanzees and bonobos which are our closest relatives. Some people assume that animals are superior to us because they can't do what we're capable of doing, but what these people don't understand is that animals know what they have to know in order to survive and that every species is smart in their own way. I really enjoyed learning more about the way animal minds work - very interesting. Show Less
LibraryThing member gbelik
This book is about looking at animals in their own terms, in the context of their lives. It tells of the amazing ways animals cope with their environments in "intelligent" ways, and it explains why our testing of animals often only reflects our own views and abilities. A great book for expanding
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our view of animals. Show Less
LibraryThing member dele2451
De Waal's keen insights into the faulty methodologies crafted to determine animal intelligence, especially in lab settings, are very enlightening. Highly recommended for anyone involved in biology studies and/or the natural sciences. The observations regarding alliance dynamics in various
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international primate groups is also fascinating. Show Less
LibraryThing member Smiler69
I'm glad I read this book, because it's about a topic that interests me a lot, i.e. how ethologists* approach testing animals for signs of intelligence that are in keeping with their environment and physical attributes and needs. I was surprised to discover that ethologists had an uphill battle
*Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait
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through most of the 20th century, and still to this day face fierce opposition from creationists on the one hand and those who refuse to believe human beings might share cognitive and social skills with the rest of the animal world on the other. Lots of fascinating description of observations of animals in the wild and in test sites, which is what I expected and was satisfied with. Unfortunately, I found the writing less than exciting and there were lots of little mistakes that seemed to be proof of poor editing, but it's a short book, which made these faults more tolerable for the sake of the information de Waal has to impart. I was tempted to give this book 4 stars because of how much interest in the raw material I had, but gave it 3.5 because it didn't make for that great a reading experience. But then... I don't read non-fiction all that much, so perhaps my expectations are too high in terms of writing quality?*Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive trait
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LibraryThing member DavidWineberg
There is (yet another) fight raging in science. This one is over how we evaluate other vertebrates. In this fascinating and eye-opening compendium, Frans de Waal says we are prejudiced towards ourselves, always comparing animals’ performance to ours, in unfairly biased experiments designed for
de Waal gives the example of a chimp named Ayumu at a research center in Japan, who can routinely memorize nine numbers in any given order, having seen them for just one fifth of one second. He can then pick them out in order from random numbers presented to him all over the computer screen. No human comes close. That’s a problem for a lot of scientists. The book is full of examples of animals, birds and fish doing highly intelligent things naturally. Our tests twist and pervert their skills to fit the test, showing them less intelligent than they are. We draw the wrong conclusions, often by asking the wrong questions. de Waal shows the way to a far more appreciative and objective way of looking at the world.
My own favorite story in prejudice occurred when scientists induced pain in the feet of mice to see if they could be made to hide it. They found that mice could put on a brave face, but only when a human male tended to them. For females, they let their guard down; they freely showed their suffering. The difference was so strong that it worked even when scientists simply placed a man’s t-shirt near the cage. The mice were totally focused on fear and ignored their own pain. This said two things: mice could hide their own pain, and every experiment using mice is to some extent invalid, prejudiced by the mere presence of humans. Male or female scientists will cause different results.
To that story, de Waal adds attention, motivation, and especially cognition, giving animals the full range of unlimited possibility, including communication (bottlenose dolphins call to each other by name). It is actually true respect. Possibly the most telling sentence about primates (de Waal’s focus) is that the caretakers in a primate center have greater respect for the intelligence of the animals than do the psychologists and philosophers who run the experiments.
Every being is magnificently adapted to its habitat and needs. That they have different strengths, some or none of which might also be present in humans, is basically irrelevant. The whole field of comparative psychology, where we test how animals measure up to humans, is irrelevant and invalid. We need to appreciate the possible, not the comparative.
David Wineberg
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us. It bothers people that we are not unique, and it bothers de Waal that animals don’t get the credit they deserve. Ranging all over the world and all over species, the book is an endless marvel.de Waal gives the example of a chimp named Ayumu at a research center in Japan, who can routinely memorize nine numbers in any given order, having seen them for just one fifth of one second. He can then pick them out in order from random numbers presented to him all over the computer screen. No human comes close. That’s a problem for a lot of scientists. The book is full of examples of animals, birds and fish doing highly intelligent things naturally. Our tests twist and pervert their skills to fit the test, showing them less intelligent than they are. We draw the wrong conclusions, often by asking the wrong questions. de Waal shows the way to a far more appreciative and objective way of looking at the world.
My own favorite story in prejudice occurred when scientists induced pain in the feet of mice to see if they could be made to hide it. They found that mice could put on a brave face, but only when a human male tended to them. For females, they let their guard down; they freely showed their suffering. The difference was so strong that it worked even when scientists simply placed a man’s t-shirt near the cage. The mice were totally focused on fear and ignored their own pain. This said two things: mice could hide their own pain, and every experiment using mice is to some extent invalid, prejudiced by the mere presence of humans. Male or female scientists will cause different results.
To that story, de Waal adds attention, motivation, and especially cognition, giving animals the full range of unlimited possibility, including communication (bottlenose dolphins call to each other by name). It is actually true respect. Possibly the most telling sentence about primates (de Waal’s focus) is that the caretakers in a primate center have greater respect for the intelligence of the animals than do the psychologists and philosophers who run the experiments.
Every being is magnificently adapted to its habitat and needs. That they have different strengths, some or none of which might also be present in humans, is basically irrelevant. The whole field of comparative psychology, where we test how animals measure up to humans, is irrelevant and invalid. We need to appreciate the possible, not the comparative.
David Wineberg
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LibraryThing member ajlewis2
Very readable with plenty of good science as well as great stories. There is quite a bit of history including the resistance to considering that animals other than humans might have cognition at all.
A couple ideas that stuck with me:
Cognition develops in the way that it is needed.
Learning has a
Comparing cognition in species is not very useful, and especially not so if experiments are not done on the same level. Example: child sits on parent's lap while being tested in open room. Ape is by himself with a glass wall between him and the experimenter.
A couple ideas that stuck with me:
Cognition develops in the way that it is needed.
Learning has a
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lot to do with social impact and less to do with rewards than than we had thought.Comparing cognition in species is not very useful, and especially not so if experiments are not done on the same level. Example: child sits on parent's lap while being tested in open room. Ape is by himself with a glass wall between him and the experimenter.
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LibraryThing member hhornblower
The most fascinating aspect of this book is about the various descriptions of animal intelligence (though there are plenty in here), but more about the incredible lengths otherwise very intelligent people will go to deny the existence of intelligence in anything other than a human. These are PhDs,
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people you would expect would be open to new ideas. Rather, they use their intelligence to develop even more convoluted explanations as to why animals cannot be intelligent. If anything, this book made me question (even more than I already do) whether human beings are intelligent. Show Less
LibraryThing member tgraettinger
Terrific stories about the capabilities of animals - completely unknown to me.
LibraryThing member murderbydeath
Short answer: no, of course we’re not. For a lot of reasons, but mostly because of thousands of years of cultural confirmation bias.
For the long answer, you can’t go wrong reading this book. De Waal writes a very readable treatise on the subject – where we started regarding our beliefs about
The book didn’t get the full 5 stars because, oddly enough, I felt De Waal was being too politic about at least one question: why are researchers, scientists and laypeople so historically stubborn about insisting that humans are above, and superior to, all other animals? To me, that answer is obvious, though I can see why scientists equate objectivity with atheism. The truth of the matter is that the Western world has been culturally inculcated by Judeo-Christian teachings, whether scientists like it or not, on such a fundamental level, that I doubt many are aware of it. Specifically, Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
Personally – and this is just me – I’ve always had doubts about the original translation of Gen. 1:28 – specifically the words “subdue” and “rule”; I have to wonder if the original language wasn’t closer to something akin to ‘guard’ or ‘protect’, given that Earth may be our home, but it isn’t our house, so to speak. And while I’m going a bit off topic here, I’ll also just say that I do believe that God gave us something that separates us from the other animals: free will. In all my readings and my meagre experiences, we’re the only animals that can choose to be evil for the sake of being evil; we’re the only animals that can choose to hurt ourselves; we’re the only animals that will push our own boundaries just for the sake of pushing them.
Anyway – back on topic – De Waal doesn’t address deeply embedded cultural bias, which struck me as odd. But that’s really my only niggling objection. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found much in it that made me think hard about animal intelligence and what it means to be aware of self, others and our surroundings. But then again, I’m his audience: I have always believed animals are smart, aware, and cognisant and that humans have never been as special as we think we are.
For the long answer, you can’t go wrong reading this book. De Waal writes a very readable treatise on the subject – where we started regarding our beliefs about
Show More
animal intelligence, and how we got to where we are today, using a well balanced blend of anecdotes and scientific experiments. While his area of study is primatology, he also delves into research conducted by colleagues on birds, elephants, dogs, a few fish wales, dolphins, and the octopus. He systematically addresses each of the arguments that have been made as to what sets humans apart, and how these arguments have been torn down by research over time.The book didn’t get the full 5 stars because, oddly enough, I felt De Waal was being too politic about at least one question: why are researchers, scientists and laypeople so historically stubborn about insisting that humans are above, and superior to, all other animals? To me, that answer is obvious, though I can see why scientists equate objectivity with atheism. The truth of the matter is that the Western world has been culturally inculcated by Judeo-Christian teachings, whether scientists like it or not, on such a fundamental level, that I doubt many are aware of it. Specifically, Genesis 1:28:
And God blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and all living creatures that move upon the earth.
Personally – and this is just me – I’ve always had doubts about the original translation of Gen. 1:28 – specifically the words “subdue” and “rule”; I have to wonder if the original language wasn’t closer to something akin to ‘guard’ or ‘protect’, given that Earth may be our home, but it isn’t our house, so to speak. And while I’m going a bit off topic here, I’ll also just say that I do believe that God gave us something that separates us from the other animals: free will. In all my readings and my meagre experiences, we’re the only animals that can choose to be evil for the sake of being evil; we’re the only animals that can choose to hurt ourselves; we’re the only animals that will push our own boundaries just for the sake of pushing them.
Anyway – back on topic – De Waal doesn’t address deeply embedded cultural bias, which struck me as odd. But that’s really my only niggling objection. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed the book and found much in it that made me think hard about animal intelligence and what it means to be aware of self, others and our surroundings. But then again, I’m his audience: I have always believed animals are smart, aware, and cognisant and that humans have never been as special as we think we are.
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LibraryThing member A.Godhelm
Ethology over behaviorism, shotgun approach to experimental examples across species with many layered problems of intelligence, consciousness and theory of mind giving a mosaic picture of all of them being an evolutionary gradient rather than a spark of human exceptionalism.
LibraryThing member steve02476
Sweet book about animal intelligence and how it has been studied by scientists. Convincing arguments that animals are smart and that they're smart in many different ways - intelligence is not a simple linear scale with humans at one end and all other creatures at the other end. I liked the simple
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drawings by the author, it made him and the book more approachable. Show Less
LibraryThing member bangerlm
Lots of great stories about the amazing capabilities of animals. It has always rubbed me wrong when people are derided for anthropomorphizing animals for describing their emotions or motivations, when often those explanations seem the most straight-forward. I loved the cross-over in ideas from
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other stuff I have read about our culture framing our scientific questions, which in turn frames our culture, and we often don't realize we are stuck in this rut. Show Less
LibraryThing member msemmag
An interesting introduction to evolutionary cognition. Covers a lot of ground in the field, but also takes time to point out the flaws and blind spots that make it such a tricky field to define and measure.
LibraryThing member jcvogan1
Opened my eyes to a whole world of research. The details of the experiments and how they were designed to engage with the animals on their terms is fascinating.
Subjects
Awards
Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year (Nonfiction — 2016)
Notable Books List (Nonfiction — 2017)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2016)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2016
ISBN
9789045028583