Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

by Frans de Waal

Overview

A New York Times bestseller: "A passionate and convincing case for the sophistication of nonhuman minds." —Alison Gopnik, The Atlantic

Hailed as a classic, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? explores the oddities and complexities of animal cognition—in crows, dolphins, parrots, sheep, wasps, bats, chimpanzees, and bonobos—to reveal how smart animals really are, and how we’ve underestimated their abilities for too long. Did you know that octopuses use coconut shells as tools, that elephants classify humans by gender and language, and that there is a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University whose flash memory puts that of humans to shame? Fascinating, entertaining, and deeply informed, de Waal’s landmark work will convince you to rethink everything you thought you knew about animal—and human—intelligence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393353662
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	100,775
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 7.40(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Frans de Waal (1948—2024), author of Mama's Last Hug, was C. H. Candler Professor Emeritus of Primate Behavior at Emory University and the former director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

1 Magic Wells 7

2 A Tale of Two Schools 29

3 Cognitive Ripples 63

4 Talk to Me 95

5 The Measure of All Things 119

6 Social Skills 165

7 Time Will Tell 205

8 Of Mirrors and Jars 235

9 Evolutionary Cognition 265

Notes 277

Bibliography 291

Glossary 319

Acknowledgments 323

Index 325

Editorial Reviews

"The book is not only full of information and thought-provoking, it’s also a lot of fun to read."

Nancy Szokan

"So, are we ‘smart enough to know how smart animals are’? The question will occur to you many times as you read Frans de Waal’s remarkable distillations of science in this astonishingly broad-spectrum book. I guarantee one thing: readers come away a lot smarter. As this book shows, we are here on Planet Earth with plenty of intelligent company."

Carl Safina

"Astonishing…has the makings of a classic—and is one fascinating read."

People

"Walks us through research revealing what a wide range of animal species are actually capable of…[I]t all deals a pretty fierce wallop to our sense of specialness."

Jon Mooallem

"If you are at all interested in what it is to be an animal, human or otherwise, you should read this book."

The Guardian

For centuries, our understanding of animal intelligence has been obscured in [a] kind of cloud of false assumptions and human egotism. De Waal, a primatologist and ethologist who has been examining the fuzzy boundary between our species and others for 30 years, painstakingly untangles the confusion, then walks us through research revealing what a wide range of animal species are actually capable of…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 be valuated only relative to its environment.

The New York Times Book Review - Jon Mooallem

★ 02/01/2016
In this thoroughly engaging, remarkably informative, and deeply insightful book, de Waal (The Bonobo and the Atheist), a primatologist at Emory University in Atlanta, investigates the intelligences of various animals and the ways that scientists have attempted to understand them. The book succeeds on many levels. De Waal provides ample documentation that animals—including the primates he studies, other mammals, octopuses, birds, and even insects—can be remarkably adept at solving problems. He also explains scientists’ experimental protocols, discussing how bias can creep into experiments and lead to erroneous conclusions. Reiterating Charles Darwin’s “well-known observation that the mental difference between humans and other animals is one of degree rather than kind,” de Waal augments the scientific perspective with a historical one, carefully considering the debates that have roiled the field of animal behavior science for over a century. He describes how chimps collaborate to evade electrified wire and how bonobos occasionally carry tools in anticipation of needing them in the future, telling fabulous stories that shed light on the differences and similarities between humans and other animals. Emphasizing the forms of animal “empathy and cooperation” he has long studied, de Waal teaches readers as much about humankind as he does about our nonhuman relatives. Illus. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"A thoughtful and easy read, packed with information stemming from detailed empirical research, and one of de Waal's most comparative works that goes well beyond the world of nonhuman primates with whom he's most familiar."

Psychology Today - Marc Bekoff

"Engaging and informative."

The New York Times

"A beautifully written and delightfully conceived popular science book, written by an eminent researcher who has dedicated his career to making the general public aware of just how smart animals are."

Science - Nicola Clayton

"When I was growing up, aspiring naturalists or behavioral scientists would be given a copy of Konrad Lorenz’s zoological investigation King Solomon’s Ring to inspire them. With its wide-ranging and thought-provoking content, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? is an appropriate 21st-century replacement. If you are at all interested in what it is to be an animal, human or otherwise, you should read this book."

The Guardian - Matthew Cobb

"A fascinating history of the study of animal behavior and cognition."

Bark

"This is a remarkable book by a remarkable scientist. Drawing on a growing body of research including his own, de Waal shows that animals, from elephants and chimpanzees to the lowly invertebrates, are not only smarter than we thought, but also engaged in forms of thought we have only begun to understand."

Edward O. Wilson

"A good book. Read it instead of watching TV or playing video games. The whole world will be better as a result."

Daily Beast - Maria Rodale

"Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? will completely change your perceptions of the abilities of animals. This book takes the reader on a fascinating journey of discovery into the world of animal problem-solving."

Temple Grandin

"A passionate and convincing case for the sophistication of nonhuman minds."

The Atlantic - Alison Gopnik

"A fascinating history of the study of animal behavior and cognition."

Bark

★ 04/01/2016
Author of many influential books on primate social behavior and intelligence, de Waal (psychology, Emory Univ.; director, Living Links Ctr., Yerkes National Primate Research Ctr., Atlanta; The Age of Empathy) here takes a critical look at the history of his own field, now called "evolutionary cognition." Combining the best research practices from two opposing scientific disciplines—ethology and comparative psychology—he seeks to understand animals on their terms rather than ours. Easier said than done, however. As de Waal points out, devising species-appropriate intelligence tests requires a great deal of smarts on our part. But it seems that the better we get at testing animals, the more knowledgeable they appear to be. Drawing upon personal experiences, anecdotes, and research findings from a broad range of animal cognition studies, de Waal brilliantly addresses the enormous amount of skepticism and criticism that has plagued this discipline. VERDICT This insightful and fascinating work by a scientist who has been at the forefront of new thinking about primates and what it means to be human is highly recommended. De Waal fans and general readers interested in the field of animal cognition will be delighted.—Cynthia Lee Knight, Hunterdon Cty. Historical Soc., Flemington, NJ

Library Journal

Sean Runnette narrates with a scholarly voice, at times waxing philosophical. A chimp can plan ahead, gathering straw for warmth against expected cold temperatures. An elephant knows to use a box as a step to get to fruits. Gorillas can disarm poachers' snares. Observations like those make Frans de Waal think humans have underestimated animals' intelligence and cognition. The author’s philosophical or theorizing moments can bog this material down, but not for long. The audiobook keeps returning to its strength, the numerous examples, not just of chimps but also of many other species. The stories of honey badgers who escape captivity, dolphins who work with fishermen, and parrots who actually converse are fascinating. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

JULY 2016 - AudioFile

★ 2016-02-03
Intrigued by the search for intelligent life? No need for space travel—it's happening right here on Earth, and the results are amazing. De Waal (Psychology/Emory Univ.; The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates, 2013, etc.), the director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, tells us that it takes human ingenuity and respect to comprehend the level of intelligence of an animal. In example after example, he entertainingly demonstrates how researchers with those qualities have revealed surprising things about animal cognition and the porousness of the wall between human and animal cognition. First, for the nonscientist, the author provides some background on scientific thinking about animal behavior, putting paid to the bygone notion that animals are simply stimulus-response mechanisms or are solely driven by genetically endowed instincts. In recent years, scientists have begun to recognize the many surprising abilities of animals. The author's field is primate behavior, and most of the examples come from that field, but elephants, octopuses, squirrels, and magpies are among the many other animals to appear in these pages. He shows us many animals both in the wild and in captivity solving challenging problems, planning future actions, having better-than-human memories, making and handling tools, communicating, and demonstrating empathy and cooperation. De Waal is persuasive in arguing that the difference between the cognition of the human and those of other animals is one of degree, not of kind, and the clarity of his writing makes for a highly readable book. A welcome bonus is the inclusion of rather charming, simple drawings by the author that give the essence of an activity better than a photograph might. For general readers, he includes a helpful glossary, and for those who want more details about the research cited, there is an extensive bibliography. After this edifying book, a trip to the zoo may never be the same.

Kirkus Reviews