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Title: Wild Minds : What Animals Really Think by Marc Hauser ISBN: 0-8050-5670-X Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.07 (15 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: An Interesting Book That Doesn't Answer the Question
Comment: As an earlier reviewer stated, the book "Wild Minds" is uninspired. But, it is interesting and well worth reading. One essentially learns how the animal brain has evolved for survival in a species specific manner. Because the animal must survive in a geometric world, the brain functions in accordance with this world; animals come into the world with a certain mental toolkit. This toolkit places certain limitations or restrictions on the specie's ability to adapt however.
One of the most interesting lessons of Hauser's writing is the result of recent research that shows how the brain learns on its own, so to speak, prior to and without consciousness. Hauser's examples drawn from animal experiments are fascinating to contemplate, but he ultimately tells us that we can never really know what an animal thinks or feels. He ends by presenting solid arguments for animals, despite the appearance of altruistic behavior, not having any kind of moral sense.
In the end Hauser acknowledges that we can only seek to understand how an animal's mind functions as far as how it will behave. We will never know how it thinks or feels! Given this, we may wonder about the subtitle which seems to mislead in order to sell books. If you are interested in "what animals really think," you will not find it here. If you are interested in how animal brains function (including the human)in regard to their behavioral adaptations and limitations, as a result of their evolutionary heritage as geared to survival in their environment, you probably will find the book of some interest.
Rating: 3
Summary: too much "we'll never really know"
Comment: His style is a little flat: a scientist writing for popular audience and trying really hard not to talk down. But he organizes the subject really well and clearly, with chapters on tools, numbers, spatial navegation, sense of self, language, moral reasoning. Each one synthesizes a large amount of scientific research on both animals and children, with interesting anecdotes.
The preface makes it clear he's writing against sentimental popular books on the subject that treat animal as being like humans inside, and themselves attack "the scientists." But this book gives a dreary image of the scientists. Each chapter describes some amazing abilities of different animals, describes some exhausting, repetitive experiments to document (it often seems) a small part of what was already suspected, and then concludes that as to the most important part -- "what animals really think" -- science doesn't know. But (drearily), they probably aren't conscious.
He should be clearer than he is in summarizing what the experiments have shown, and in particular about the differences in cognitive performance (not "real thought") btw adult and infant humans, primates (his main interest), birds (who get less attention), rats (still less), and social insects (who make a few star turns).
Rating: 5
Summary: Subtitle should be how animals and human minds differ
Comment: Hauser has written a remarkably accessible introduction to comparative psychology. While containing the main points one might expect in a textbook outline, he does an excellent job of presenting this information in an interesting narrative form.
Hauser begins with an introductory chapter that presents his basic approach and cautions against anthropomorphisms.
Chapters two through four comprise a unit that focuses on those mental capacities shared by animals and human beings. Both can identify objects and predict their movement. Both can distinguish quantity. Both can navigate through space. Perhaps it takes a course in cognitive psychology to appreciate these commonalities, but I believe that Hauser does an excellent job of presenting research results for lay consumption. His presentation of animal and human infant studies of the expectancy-violation principle is alone worth the cost of the book.
The second section, chapters five through seven, focus on mental capacities which seem to be qualitatively common in animals and humans, but quantitatively distinct. Hauser presents a well-balanced account of the evidence for self-awareness, teaching, and deception among animals.
The final section contains two chapters on mental capacities that appear to be almost unique to human beings - language and morality. Hauser's careful review of animal communication is amazing, as is his locus of morality in the ability to inhibit selfish tendencies to maintain social conventions.
I recommend this book without reservation. No reader will regret spending time with this book. It is quite stimulating.
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Title: Inside the Animal Mind : A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence by George Page ISBN: 0767905598 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Evolution of Communication by Marc D. Hauser ISBN: 0262581558 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 27 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $52.00 |
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Title: Evolution and Human Behavior by John Cartwright ISBN: 0262531704 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 24 July, 2000 List Price(USD): $32.00 |
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Title: Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart by Marc Bekoff, Jane Goodall ISBN: 0195163370 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: The Parrot's Lament : And Other True Tales of Animal Intrigue, Intelligence, and Ingenuity by Eugene Linden ISBN: 0452280680 Publisher: Plume Pub. Date: 01 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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