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Musings

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Volume · Frans de Waal · 6 passages

  1. The mentality of the apes in 1925 which was first ignored and then disparaged, but that now stands as a classic in evolutionary cognition.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
  2. Anyone who intends to conduct experiments on animal cognition should first spend a couple thousand hours observing the spontaneous behavior of the species in question.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
  3. Biologically Prepared Learning: each organism is driven to learn those things it needs to know in order to survive.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
  4. There is a great survival value in communication about things that are absent or events that have happened or are about to happen. You can let others know that there is a lion over the hill, or that your neighbors have picked up weapons.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
  5. Wild orangutans communicate future travel routes. Orangutans are such loners that their encounters in the canopy have been described as ships passing in the night.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
  6. Consciousness arises in the number and complexity of neural connections.

    Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?
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