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Do Animals Think?, by Clive D. L. Wynne
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Does your dog know when you've had a bad day? Can your cat tell that the coffee pot you left on might start a fire? Could a chimpanzee be trained to program your computer? In this provocative book, noted animal expert Clive Wynne debunks some commonly held notions about our furry friends. It may be romantic to ascribe human qualities to critters, he argues, but it's not very realistic. While animals are by no means dumb, they don't think the same way we do. Contrary to what many popular television shows would have us believe, animals have neither the "theory-of-mind" capabilities that humans have (that is, they are not conscious of what others are thinking) nor the capacity for higher-level reasoning. So, in Wynne's view, when Fido greets your arrival by nudging your leg, he's more apt to be asking for dinner than commiserating with your job stress.
That's not to say that animals don't possess remarkable abilities--and Do Animals Think? explores countless examples: there's the honeybee, which not only remembers where it found food but communicates this information to its hivemates through an elaborate dance. And how about the sonar-guided bat, which locates flying insects in the dark of night and devours lunch on the wing?
Engagingly written, Do Animals Think? takes aim at the work of such renowned animal rights advocates as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall for falsely humanizing animals. Far from impoverishing our view of the animal kingdom, however, it underscores how the world is richer for having such a diversity of minds--be they of the animal or human variety.
- Sales Rank: #240149 in Books
- Published on: 2006-03-13
- Released on: 2006-03-13
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x .70" w x 6.00" l, .85 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 288 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Animal expert Wynne (Animal Cognition: The Mental Life of Animals), an associate professor of psychology at the University of Florida, delivers a detailed yet enjoyably written exploration of recent discoveries of modern animal behavior. In answering the question whether animals "think" or have the consciousness of self that humans do, his main point is simple: "We don't have to pretend that some species have consciousness equivalent to ours. They don't and they don't need it to matter to us and deserve our attention." Wynne is clearly arguing against the view of animal rights advocates such as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall who ascribe human attributes to animals. But Wynne is no reactionary—he strongly sympathizes with those who wish to improve the treatment of animals. But he forcefully argues that what animals may "know"—for example, the honeybee recognizes time of day—is "coded in the connections of the neurons; they are not conscious ideas." However, in contending that "the psychological abilities that make human culture possible... are almost entirely lacking in any other species," he delightfully presents the many remarkable abilities of such animals as the bat, which "sees" using echolocation, "one of the most astonishing discoveries made about any animal's world in the last fifty years"; and dolphins, who use a form of sonar. It helps his arguments that Wynne is often as entertaining as he is erudite ("Like journalists listening in for excitement on police radio frequencies, dolphins channel-surf through the sound frequencies fish use").
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Review
"[An] enjoyably written exploration of recent discoveries of modern animal behavior. . . . Wynne is clearly arguing against the view of animal rights advocates such as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall who ascribe human attributes to animals. But Wynne is no reactionary--he strongly sympathizes with those who wish to improve the treatment of animals. . . . It helps his arguments that Wynne is often as entertaining as he is erudite."--Publishers Weekly
"In this critical account of selected research, Clive Wynne takes aim at over-sentimental anthropomorphism, particularly on the part of animal-rights advocates. He argues that the degree to which animals are like us cannot be the measure of how much they are worthy of our respect and protection. . . . All this material is presented in a clear informal and entertaining way, enlivened by historical asides."--Sara J. Shettleworth, Nature
"Wynne has a pleasant writing style and a knack for engaging the reader. . . . [H]is book offers many insightful descriptions of animal behavior. . . . He seems to take delight in animals, and possesses great knowledge about them, yet he prefers them at arm's length. The constant message is that animals are not people."--Frans B.M. de Waal, Natural History
"Wynne's new book provides a timely corrective to many myths about animal minds, without detracting from the wonders of the natural world."--Nicola S. Clayton, Science
"[Wynne] is a lively writer with a congenial sense of humor, an obvious passion for truly understanding the minds of animals, and a sincere desire to come to terms with what all this means for the larger philosophical and ethical questions about the place of man and animals in the world."--Stephen Budiansky, Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science
"A fun read . . . packed with clever experiments, intriguing anecdotes, and a delight in the diversity of animal behavior."--Sy Montgomery, Discover
"Readers will delight in this insightful, well-referenced book."--Choice
"Lucid and witty. . . . Mr. Wynne makes a compelling case against true rationality in animals, but he resists the temptation to reduce animals to mere 'machines,' as Descartes famously did; he is too seized with wonder at the marvels of animal behavior to adopt so barren a model. In the end, Mr. Wynne prefers to accept our fellow animals for what they are, as they are."--Eric Ormsby, New York Sun
"An intelligent and balanced discussion of our attitudes towards other species and what (if anything) animals think. . . . A refreshingly skeptical and pugnacious investigation."--P.D. Smith, The Guardian (UK)
From the Inside Flap
"Wynne's expert, lucid, sharply argued (and even witty) study provides a wonderful account of what is understood about how animals think and the serious challenges that face scientific study of these fascinating questions. It also offers very reasonable and suggestive thoughts about the place of humans within the rich and complex world of mental achievements and limitations."--Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"I had more fun reading this book than I have had from any other book in a long time! It is clever, erudite, and accessible."--Jonathan Marks, University of North Carolina, Charlotte
"Clive Wynne has written a vitally important book. A fascinating and authoritative account of the latest research on animal minds, Do Animals Think? is also a much-needed corrective to the half-truths, exaggerations, and fairy tales that have become all too common in this field."--Stephen Budiansky, author of If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness
Most helpful customer reviews
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
Three Stars
By Barbara Oberg, Sr
Somewhat stated, but interesting.
9 of 17 people found the following review helpful.
The Great Divide II
By Music Man
I wrote the letter (below) in reply to Marc Bekoff's American Scientist (AS) review of Clive Wynne's very informative and well written book. Professor Bekoff was given an opportunity by the editors of AS to reply to my letter but he declined. Let me just add a few additional comments evoked by Bekoff's comments on this site.
Bekoff writes that "Many observations show that members of some species imitate other animals, empathize with them, are able to take another's perspective in certain situations (there is neurobiological evidence to support the conclusion that some animals have a theory of mind), and have culture and rather sophisticated patterns of communication."
But by using words like "empathize," and, I would argue, even "think," Bekoff implies that when nonhumans do something that we describe as "empathizing" (or "thinking"), it is the same as when we use the word to describe human behavior. But that is a mistake. Without operationally defining such words each time we use them, we run the risk of confusing behaviors that most likely have different functions, even if they appear to have similar forms. And nonhumans cannot have a "theory of mind" because all the evidence for theory of mind is linguistic.
Bekoff is also wrong that, "The behaviorist view is little concerned with evolution. It also fails to recognize that the behavior of many animals is far too flexible and situationspecific to be explained in terms of simplified stimulusresponse contingencies. Marked withinspecies variability is quite common, and this adaptive variability often (although not always) lends itself readily to "cognitive" explanations invoking consciousness, intentions and beliefs."
All behaviorists that I know (and I know quite a few), including me, are all thoroughgoing Darwinians. We recognize the contribution of natural selction to the behavior of organisms, but, as Bekoff notes, we also recognize the flexibility or adaptiveness of behavior. Bekoff is correct that such flexibility cannot be explained by "simplified stimulus-response contingencies," but who, since John Watson, has tried to do that? That doesn't mean that the principles of operant learning (the science of adaptive behavior within the lifetime of an organism) aren't sufficient to explain the behavior. In fact, "explanations invoking consciousness, intentions and beliefs" are not only not sufficient, they are not parsimonious, invoking as they do unobservable, undefinable, and unmeasurable processes. Such concepts are simply not necessary to explain the behavior of human beings much less other animals.
Bekoff critizes Wynn for not providing any scientific support for his reductionistic explanations, but the scientific support is in the almost one hundred years of accumulated empirical research on animal (and human) learning. From there, any interpretation based on the principles derived from that research is more parsimonious that the made-up explanations involving cognitive structures and processes.
Bekoff implies that all one has to do is to watch free ranging animals to appreciate the flexibility and complexity of animal behavior and to realize that only cognitive exlanations will suffice to understand such behavior. But cognitive explanations, born as thay are from age-old philosophical speculation about unseen and unseeable events, have never sufficed as scientific explanations and they never will.
Wynne is right on target when he claims, according to Bekoff, that "we should be very cautious about ascribing consciousness to animals and that anthropomorphic explanations have no place in the study of animal behavior." To do so in no way diminishes the complexity of the behavior of any species. As another reviewer said, we don't need to compare nonhumans (we're animals too) to humans to appreciate or respect them.
Letter to the Bookshelf
Do Animals Think? by Clive D. L. Wynne
September 21, 2004
The question in the title of Clive D. L. Wynne's book, Do Animals Think? is the wrong question to ask. In his review (September-October 2004), Mark Bekoff continues and expands this line of questioning by asking, do "animals consciously process information about their social and nonsocial environments?" "What is going on in the minds of animals? Do they have desires and beliefs?"
These are not scientific, but rather philosophical, questions that have been debated without resolution for centuries. It is not a contest (between behaviorists and cognitivists or anyone else) that can be settled by appealing to any sort of data either. There is no experimentum crucis. Nevertheless, Bekoff doesn't hesitate to throw his hat into the ring by concluding that the answers lie somewhere in the middle; between the "firm behaviorist stance," presumably taken by Wynne, that "animals are merely thoughtless robotic automatons to those who argue that all are thinking creatures with rich cognitive lives." According to Bekoff ("a rich cognitivist"), "a number of animals have the capacity for thinking about certain situations and showing flexible, adaptable behavior, whereas others may behave reflexively, with little or no thought at all."
The real scientific question about nonhumans, however, is not whether or what they think or whether they "consciously process information," but what they do in what contexts and what causes them to do it. These are the only questions that can be addressed by an objective science without resorting to irresolvable speculation about vague and muddy philosophical concepts.
Do many nonhumans show flexible, adaptive behavior? Definitely. Does that indicate consciousness (whatever that is)? Who knows? It depends on how one uses the term "consciousness." Do we need to speculate about an animal's consciousness or so-called cognitive processes to fully understand its behavior? The answer is an unequivocal "no."
If we behavioral scientists (evolutionary biologists, ethologists, behavior analysts, neuroscientists and even geneticists) can discover the physical events that are responsible for behavior, then there is nothing left to explain or about which to speculate.
Psychologists, ethologists, and neuroscientists are still intrigued by the lofty and ultimately unanswerable philosophical questions about mind and consciousness. Despite persistent optimism in some ranks, these questions will never be answered until the concepts are defined in objective, measurable terms involving the animal's behavior and its physical causes. Once that is done, the questions will become moot because we will have a complete understanding of nonhuman (and human) behavior.
Until then, the debate about human and nonhuman mind and consciousness will continue ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
10 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Calling all Cartesians
By George N. Bates
This is a well-written but specious book by a man on a mission. That mission is to advance the notion that, in all of the animal kingdom, humans alone are truly conscious; because consciousness, if you believe Prof. Wynne, is predicated on human language. And that anyone who thinks otherwise, from Griffin to Goodall to the average dog or cat owner, is delusional, subconsciously projecting their own emotional states and cognitive abilities onto "dumb" animals. Based on such assumptions the author questions everything from the ability of nonhuman animals to feel fear, anger, frustration, love or jealosy, to experience pleasure, and even to perceive pain. This worldview has all the freshness of a moldering corpse -- a 17th Century one to be exact. Rene Descartes promoted similar views, only he based his on religious dogma while Wynne posits, with an equivalent paucity of scientific evidence, the primacy of human language.
Discredited during the Age of Darwin, this conceit that animals other than humans are unconscious automatons is periodically disinterred -- like an ober-vampire that can't be killed no matter how many stakes are driven into its heart -- and peddled by a new generation of sophists: first Watson, followed by Skinner, and now Wynne. In an era when cognitive ethology has supplanted behaviorism as the dominant paradigm, Prof. Wynne swims against the current; a very small fish but one who occupies an even smaller pool. Like the doubters who don't believe that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus, or that smoking causes cancer, or that anthropogenic climate change is upon us, Prof. Wynne grasps for the seat at the table reserved for the contrarian position, thereby insuring frequent interview requests from credulous
journalists trying to cover all possible points of view, even the most outlandish.
It would be easy to dismiss Prof. Wynne's stated views as obsolescent and so much self-serving poppycock except that he has no hesitation about employing them to disparage and undermine justified public concerns about animal suffering. This plays directly into the hands of those sinister entities that profit from animal abuse and would understandably prefer to not be encumbered by animal welfare regulations as they go about their nefarious activities. Voltaire wrote, "if we believe absurdities, we will commit atrocities." And one of the leading purveyors today of just such dangerous absurdities is Clive Wynne.
Prof. Wynne is now reportedly focusing his research attentions on the comparative behavior of wolves and domestic dogs, a field already amply picked over by everyone from Lorenz to Miklosi. Elsewhere, Prof. Wynne has confidently assured cat owners that the reason cats crawl into their owners' laps is all due to a simple thermotropism; a claim anyone who has actually lived with indoor domestic cats knows to be ludicrous. So, canid enthusiasts can, no doubt, look forward to another round of similar dubious speculations in Prof. Wynne's next book.
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