Inside the Animal Mind: A Groundbreaking Exploration of Animal Intelligence

Page is clearly sympathetic to his subjects, speaking for them where most of them cannot. Investigating tool use and language, he finds the competition not so barren as we had once thought, with finches and gorillas merely heading the lists of nonhuman animals learning clever tricks. Interwoven with his descriptions of bright animals is a story of our own species' long, slow coming to terms with our non-unique status. Perhaps intelligence is not distributed equally, even among humans, but it seems fair to say that we've lost our monopoly. Page's warm, gentle prose also reminds us of our responsibilities to those whose capacity for suffering has been quietly ignored for centuries. Inside the Animal Mind ends with a call to treat animals with respect. --Rob Lightner

Product Description
In the bestselling tradition of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Don't Lie About Love, Inside the Animal Mind is a groundbreaking exploration of the nature and depth of animal intelligence.

While in the past scientists have refused to acknowledge that animals have anything like human intelligence, a growing body of research reveals otherwise. We’ve discovered ants that use leaves as tools to cross bodies of water, woodpecker finches that hold twigs in their beaks to dig for grubs, and bonobo apes that can use sticks to knock down fruit or pole-vault over water. Not only do animals use tools–some also display an ability to learn and problem-solve.

Based on the latest scientific and anecdotal evidence culled from animal experts in the labs and the field, Inside the Animal Mind is an engrossing look at animal intelligence, cognitive ability, problem solving, and emotion. George Page, originator and host of the long-running PBS series Nature, offers us an informed, entertaining, and humanistic investigation of the minds of predators and scavengers, birds and primates, rodents and other species. Illustrated with twenty-four black-and-white photographs, the book is the companion to the three-part, hour-long show of the same name, hosted by Page.

The author makes a very good point in suggesting that our means of measuring animal intelligence are limited...after all we can only test them in ways that we understand. How well would most of us do if we were told to climb a tall tree and make a nest of leaves and, oh yes, raise our young in there as the squirrel does? Or given leave to roam the African plains...without a written map to show us where water sources are,as the elephants do. Would we "pass" those tests? I have my doubts.

Besides, beyond intelligence there is the point that he makes at the end of his book, "but can they suffer?" Yes, I think that is clear and for that reason alone they deserve better treatment than many of them have had at human hands over the centuries. Do unto others...the Golden Rule should not be limited to "other people." Or, as Emily Dickinson wrote, "If I can stop one heart from breaking/ I shall not live in vain/ If I can ease one life the aching/Or cool one pain, Or help a fainting robin/Unto his nest again; I shall not live in vain.