Beyond Words : What Animals Think and Feel (9780805098891) by Safina Carl

Author:Safina, Carl
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780805098891
Publisher: Macmillan

PART THREE

Whines and Pet Peeves

Our present subject is very obscure, but, from its importance, must be discussed at some little length; and it is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.

—Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals

The problem is that rules are simple, and animals are not.

—Bernd Heinrich, The Geese of Beaver Bog

Never Mind Theory

Experiments showed at first that wolves could not follow human hand pointing to find hidden food. Dogs often can. But the wolves had been tested with a fence separating them from the human who was pointing. Dog tests were of course barrier-free, and dogs usually had their most familiar human companions with them. When experimenters finally leveled the playing field, wolves did as well as dogs—with no training.

* * *

Experiments can be powerful for learning about behavior. But sometimes, experimental situations are so pinched and artificial—as with wolves behind fences—that they hide capabilities they’re trying to investigate. Real-life behaviors and decisions can’t always be stuffed into an experiment.

Any ecologist who watches free-living animals feels humbled by the depth and nuance of how they negotiate the world and how easily they slip the noose of human observation as they go about their business of working to keep themselves and their babies alive.

On the other hand, laboratory studies seem preoccupied with “testing” academically generated concepts such as “self-awareness” and—my pet peeve—“theory of mind.” It’s not that these ideas aren’t helpful. They are. It’s that animals don’t care about academic classifications and testing setups. They have no interest in arguments over wafer-thin slices of categories, such as whether an otter smashing a clam with a stone is using a tool but a gull dropping a clam on a stone is not using a tool. They care about survival. Some academic researchers, meanwhile, chop concepts into so many pieces, you’d think behavior was shish kebab. So in this section I want to have a little fun with some muddles that behavioral scientists have created. We’ll be blowing away some smoke and breaking some mirrors. And as for the kebab, the first skewer goes to “theory of mind.”

* * *

“Theory of mind”—such an awkward phrase—is an idea. Exactly what the idea is depends on whom you ask. Naomi Angoff Chedd, who works with autistic children, tells me it is “knowing that another can have thoughts that differ from yours.” I like that definition; it’s helpful. Dolphin researcher Diana Reiss says it’s the ability to feel that “I have an idea of what’s on your mind.” That’s different. Still others assert—oddly, I think—that it’s the ability “to read the minds of others.” The “mind-reading” camp gets the most press, and its adherents get the most carried away with themselves. Italian neuroscientist and philosopher Vittorio Gallese writes of “our sophisticated mind-reading abilities.”

I don’t know about you (I guess that’s my point), but I cannot read anyone’s mind. Informed guessing based on experience and body language is just about all we can really do. If a sketchy-looking stranger crosses the street to come toward us, our first problem is that we can’t know what they’re thinking.

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