Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think - Hardcover

Hauser, Marc

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805056696 ISBN 13: 9780805056693

Publisher: Henry Holt and Co., 2000

Synopsis

Do animals think? Can they count? Do they have emotions? Do they feel anger, frustration, hurt, or sorrow? Are they bound by any moral code? At last, here is a book that provides authoritative answers to these long-standing questions. Most pop-science books tend to anthropomorphize and romanticize animals, presenting them as furry little humans or as creatures that cannot think or feel at all. Marc Hauser, an acclaimed scientist in the field of animal cognition, uses insights from evolutionary theory and cognitive science to examine animal thought without such biases or preconceptions. For example, do species that share food or travel in large groups have greater innate mathematical abilities? Hauser treats animals neither as machines devoid of feeling nor as extensions of humans, but as independent beings driven by their own complex impulses. In prose that is both elegant and edifying, Hauser describes his groundbreaking research in the field, leading his readers on what David Premack, author of The Mind of an Ape, calls "a masterful tour of the animal mind."

About this title

About the Author

Marc Hauser, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Harvard University, researches in Puerto Rico, and Uganda. He has been profiled by such programs as American Profiles and has been published in American Scientist and Discover, among others.

Reviews

One can find people, usually not scientists, who tell of psychic dogs and cats, weeping elephants, mischievous monkeys, altruistic dolphins and moralistic apes. And one can find people, usually scientists, who hold that animals are mindless and irrational, driven by instinct and overwhelmed by their passions. Hauser, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard University and a close observer of a variety of animals in action, takes a middle ground. "All animals are equipped with a set of mental tools for solving ecological and social problems," he writes. "Some of the tools for thinking are universal, shared by insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals, including humans. The universal toolkit provides animals with a basic capacity to recognize objects, count, and navigate." He depicts the use of the toolkit with fascinating descriptions of the activities of chimpanzees and other primates, lions, bats, birds, bees and various other creatures as they go about their business.

EDITORS OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN

When it comes to animal behavior, Hauser (Psychology/Harvard) opts for the empirical high road over intuition every time: Anecdotes are sweet, and may prompt interesting questions, but he doesn't go basing theories on them. For Hauser, the way into an animals brain is via systematic, controlled experimentation informed by the latest news from the front in evolutionary theory, cognitive science, neuroscience, and human infant development (because of their similarly prelinguistic status). He has nothing against Jeffrey Masson or Elizabeth Thomas Marshall; he just wants to distinguish between their hunches and the fruits of ``objective scientific methods.'' Even when animals behavior and neurochemistry are similar, this doesn't guarantee that the intervening thoughts or feelings are the same'' as in humans. For the record, Hauser states that ``I dont believe we will ever know what it is like, exactly, to be a bat, a bird or a bonobo,'' yet from his fund of developmental, adaptive, and phylogenetic research, he concludes that all animals have a universal mental tool kit; a basic capacity to recognize objects, count, and navigate; and a divergent set of specialized tools, shaped by environmental pressures, to cope with their own ecological and social needs. Reviewing the evidence for emotions, communication, and the use of rules in animals, he agrees they exist. He concludes, however, that without language ``they are Kafka-creatures, organisms with rich thoughts and emotions, but no system for translating what they think into something that they can express to othersand without a sufficiently expressive system, there is no question of is or ought in the animal mind. Although Hauser's style is dry, it is never dismissive, and what his language lacks in music (altruism becomes ``direct fitness costs''), he makes up in verve and excitement. A sober, rationalist take on why elephants weep and why dogs' lives may be as mysterious to them as to us. (15 b&w illus.) -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Deeply skeptical of popular tales of altruistic dolphins, psychic dogs and cats, empathetic elephants and moralistic apes, Harvard animal scientist Hauser believes that such stories are fraught with assumptions and misleading comparisons between animal and human minds. Aiming to strike a balance between those scientists who view animals as mindless, instinct-driven automata and laypersons who assume animals are just like us, Hauser, a professor of psychology, draws heavily on animal cognition studies, neuroscience and evolutionary theory to delve into animals' "wild minds," shaped by environmental pressures and specific social contexts. This "admittedly reductionistic approach" sheds new light on social learning in octopuses, baboons, birds, guppies and rats; on the imitative behavior of songbirds, dolphins and chimpanzees; on rhesus monkeys' reconciliation habits; and on communication in echolocating bats and dancing honeybees. Although Hauser believes that emotions play a central role in animals' decision making, his views are sometimes hard to distinguish from those of behaviorists: he insists that animals lack moral senses, a deep understanding of death or the capacity for empathy, sympathy, shame, guilt and loyalty, because they lack self-awareness--a conclusion with which many pet owners will sharply disagree. Though Hauser disdains anthropomorphizing and takes pains to avoid it, we learn that "the animal kingdom is filled with honest Joes and poker-faced cheaters," the latter including "extremely cagey" chickens and great apes with "unscrupulous, Machiavellian intelligence." An intriguing compendium of little-known animal research, this unconvincing inquiry raises more questions than it answers. Hauser's belief that animals are "Kafka-creatures, organisms with rich thoughts and emotions, but no system for translating what they think into something that they can express to others" ultimately serves to narrow his field of vision. B&w drawings. Agent, John Brockman. (Mar.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Hauser tackles the question of animal cognition in a new way--by rejecting the anthropomorphism inherent in interpreting animal behavior as we would interpret human behavior. Hauser's main premise is that "All animals are equipped with a set of mental tools for solving ecological and social problems." But this "universal toolkit" diverges when species evolve to confront unique ecological or social conditions. In clear, logical arguments, Hauser develops this concept of animals thinking but in different ways from one another and from humans. The first section explores how animals view material objects, their ability to count, and their navigational skills--all traits needed by every species, but in different degrees. The second section covers mental abilities, such as self-knowledge, how animals learn, and deception. The final section discusses skills necessary for living in groups--communication and a sense of morals. This entertaining yet highly scientific work is a terrific antidote to all the badly researched popular writing on animal emotions and intelligence and belongs in every library. Nancy Bent

Recently, there have been a number of books, both wildly speculative and calmly scientific, on the topic of the intellectual and emotional abilities of wild animals and pets. Wild Minds is similar to Stephen Budiansky's If a Lion Could Talk (LJ 9/1/98) in asserting that animals have not been proven to possess the kind of cognitive and emotional characteristics that more anthropomorphic writers claim. Rather, Hauser (psychology, Harvard), an expert on animal cognition, draws parallels between animals and human infants, finding in both a fundamental inability to communicate through language and a lack of true self-awareness. He describes experiments, anecdotes, and field studies to demonstrate how science can provide clues and insights into animal cognition but how difficult it is to truly tease apart the various possible root causes of behavior. For example, do we really understand why elephants appear to mourn and attempt to revive their dead companions? Do they truly understand that another elephant is dead, or are they engaging in behavior that has another meaning entirely? Do animals truly act out of altruism, as humans, who have a concept of moral motivations, understand it? Hauser concludes that animals share some emotions with humans, such as fear and anger, but not such "moral" emotions as guilt, embarrassment, and empathy, which derive from self-awareness. This intriguing book demonstrates just how challenging it is to gain true insight into animal minds but also how rewarding it will be to understand them, free of assumptions that they are "just like us..
---Beth Clewis Crim, Prince William P.L., VA
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0805056696
• ISBN 13: 9780805056693
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320