Animals and Us, Not So Far Apart

Ever since Galileo argued that the sun was the center of the solar system, the idea of Earth as the universal hub has been the classic example of scientific arrogance. It’s certainly a foolproof example of the way humans consider themselves the rule by which everything else should be measured, but when we use it, there’s a sense that we don’t make that kind of mistake anymore. Yet even today scientists are swayed by the notion that humans stand at the center of the biological universe, especially when it comes to what we care about most: our minds.

For years, scientists believed that the parts of the human brain that supported complex thought and language had only recently evolved. The mental life of animals was treated as primitive and utterly distinct from ours. But an explosion in animal research is showing that many components of human thought are shared with other species. Evidence shows that parrots can understand numbers, crows make tools, elephants and hyenas live in complex, rule-governed societies, and chimpanzees make sense of the world in many of the same ways we do. The implication is indisputable: Humans are not unique.

Click here for the full article.

Tags: Animal Research, Chimpanzees, Cognition, Crows, Elephants, Ethology, Hyenas, Parrots, Science, Tool Use