are humans smart enough to know how smart animals are

The problem is that as soon as we locate a line of demarcation (tool use, cooperation, advance planning), we find that apes will cross it, given the right circumstances. In de Waal’s mind, the answer to this question is not much, but many people are anxious to find something that sets us apart from the animals. Maybe my favorite thing about this book is de Waal’s indictment of the constantly shifting goalposts for what differentiates humans from the rest of the animal world. As well as featuring plenty of anecdotes that will make you go “holy shit why are animals so smart” - including this thing about chimpanzees assembling mini-tool kits to accomplish complex tasks - he continually reminds the reader of the limitations on what we’re able to know about animal brains. If you’re interested at all in the way animals think, de Waal’s book is a thoughtful and accessible primer to zoopsychology.

I hope that in the new world order our octopus overlords will remember that I ate no octopus in my life and left the dissecting of them to my lab partner. As soon as the jar was smeared on the outside with herring “slime,” making it taste like fish, the octopus swung into action and started manipulating it until the top came off. Despite having excellent eyes, octopuses rarely rely on vision to catch prey. it turned out to be one of those human misjudgments. This greatly puzzled the scientists, because the delicacy was clearly visible and moving about.

When octopuses were given a transparent jar that contained a live crawfish 1, they failed to do anything. The most common limitation on tests of animal cognition is not animal, but human, intelligence.

Are we smart enough to make concise titles? Often but not always! Snarking aside, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are (affiliate link: Book Depository) is a wonderfully accessible overview of studies of animal cognition.ĭe Waal’s basic argument is that as humans get better at designing tests that take into account animal physiognomy, habits, and social structure, animals perform better on those tests. My fingers are tired from typing it all out.

Are humans smart enough to know how smart animals are