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"The basic facts have come home at last. We are not the only conscious creatures on
earth." Bernard Baars, cognitive psychologist
Koko the gorilla has a sign vocabulary of 500 words and does internet chats. Alex the
parrot knows the names of over 100 different objects, 7 colors, and 5 shapes; he can
count objects up to 6 and speaks in meaningful sentences. Michael the gorilla loved
Pavarotti and refused to go outside when he was on TV. Hoku the dolphin grieved
when his companion, Kiko, died. Flint the chimp died of a broken heart after the
death of his mother, Flo.
While this account of the emotional and intellectual richness of animals may touch
the layperson, it offends the hard-nose scientist. From the scientific perspective, it is
nonsense to speak of animal emotions and minds, since they can't be observed or
measured. It is anthropomorphic to ascribe human-like characteristics to animals. It
is unscientific to name them as if they were people. And such stories at best are
merely anecdotal.
Having misled us for so long about animals, science is initiating a revolution in our
understanding. Through evolutionary theory, genetics, neurophysiology, and
experimental procedures, many scientists are providing strong evidence that animals
feel and think in ways akin to us. The changes began with Charles Darwin. His theory
of natural selection informed us that human beings are in fact animals and, as such,
they evolve according to the same evolutionary dynamics as nonhuman animals.
Darwin argued that the difference between nonhuman and human animals was one
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of degree, not form. Although evolution became the dominant paradigm in biology,
scientists failed to appreciate the implications of his argument for evolutionary
continuity. While Darwin sketched our similarities with animals in The Expression of
the Emotions in Man and Animals, scientists found his argument repugnant. In a
profession that knows no limits to the cruelty it inflicts on animals, mechanism has
proved to be a most convenient worldview, allowing animal experimenters to sleep at
night.
Today we know that human DNA is over 98% identical to chimpanzees and that they
are closer to us genetically than to orangutans. Mammals possess a limbic system
and neocortex, the same functions that enable human beings to experience emotions
and have abstract thoughts. The brain structures of humans and chimps are almost
identical. All mammals possess oxytocin, a hormone involved in the experience of
pleasure during sex and that plays a key role in mother-infant bonding. If the
emotions and thoughts of human beings have a chemical and physiological basis,
and animals have a similar make-up, it is likely they too feel complex emotions like
love and can think in creative ways.
In Good Natured: The Origins of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals,
Franz de Waal argues that "the great apes" (chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and
gorillas) laid the foundation for many human behavioral and familial dynamics. Both
he and Jane Goodall conclude that chimpanzee societies demand complex social
skills far beyond that allowed by behaviorism. Their world is governed not only by
instincts and chemicals, but also through rules and norms. Like us, they live in a
culture of shared communication and learning that is passed down from generation
to generation.
Donald Griffin's work in Animal Thinking (1984) and Animal Minds (1992) dealt
powerful blows to the behaviorist tradition of John Watson and B.F. Skinner.
Considered to be the father of cognitive ethology, and famous for discovering bats
use echolocation to map their terrain, Griffin took seriously the notion that animals
can think and made compelling arguments to that effect. Since Griffin's work, a rich
scientific literature has been assembled proving the sophistication and flexibility of
animal minds. Through countless instances of observation and experimentation, a
solid case for animal intelligence has been established that is changing not only our
view of animals, but ourselves.
Given the tools of American Sign Language and lexigram symbols, great apes are
communicating to human beings and one another their needs, desires, and thoughts.
Dolphins understand and follow simple commands like "Put the ball in the hoop." In a
famous experiment, birds -- who also are tool makers and users -- have solved the
problem of how to eat food dangling from a line by looping the string and holding it
with their feet. Beavers exhibit great flexibility in building their dams and solve
problems posed to them on a case-by-case basis. Various tests with mirrors and
hidden objects suggest that chimpanzees and bonobos might have self-
consciousness and awareness of other minds. Thousands of experiments in the field
and laboratory have demonstrated that animals such as prairie dogs, squirrels, and
even chickens convey not only emotion but also information in their complexly
differentiated alarm cries for the presence of predators. Recent studies suggest birds,
primates, and whales may use a grammar-like structure in their communication.
George Page's book Inside the Animal Mind cites experiments where adult chimps
use analogical reasoning better than children and some adults. One researcher found
cases where pigeons performed better on categorization tests than his own
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undergraduates. In his book Wild Minds, Marc Hauser adopts the stance of a "healthy
skeptic" toward many claims about animal emotions and intelligence. From an
evolutionary perspective, he argues that all animal brains have to cope with similar
problems, and therefore each species has its own special "mental toolkits" for
processing information about objects, number, and space. Variations lead to
differences among species, with homo sapiens evolving toward an unprecedented
complexity. Still, he concludes, "We share the planet with thinking animals ...
Although the human mind leaves a characteristically different imprint on the planet,
we are certainly not alone in this process."
The argument of cognitive ethology is not that animal emotions and consciousness
are as complex as ours, but that they exist in remarkably rich forms. Human beings
are unique in the degree to which they possess intelligence; no other species, to my
knowledge, has written sonnets or sonatas, solved algebraic equations, or meditated
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on the structure of the universe. But humans are not unique in their possession of a
neocortex; of complex emotions like love, loneliness, empathy, and shame; of
sophisticated languages, behaviors, and communities; and perhaps even of aesthetic
and moral sensibilities.
The paradigm shift from seeing animals as objects of a scientific gaze instead of
subjects of their own lives has important implications. The genetic, behavioral, and
emotional continuities between humans and great apes, for example, is the
philosophical basis of "The Great Ape" project co-founded by Peter Singer, which
aims to establish our kinship with, and secure basic rights for, our biological relatives.
Similarly, scientific findings about animal intelligence are crucial to the legal rights
for animals movement as described by Harvard law professor Steven Wise in Rattling
the Cage.
Feeling the winds of change from science, philosophy, and law, it seems that
American culture itself is in the midst of a paradigm shift. As we learn to appreciate
the complexity of animals and the deep continuities between their world and ours,
we begin to respect them more and accord them the rights -- to "life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness" -- they so richly deserve. Every oppressed group has fought for
its liberation; now it's the animals' turn. Since they can't speak for themselves, their
liberation demands our own liberation from the long-standing tradition of human
biases toward other species. As we grant animals minds, we begin to free our own.