Do Animals Think? »

Clive D.L.Wynne is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Florida. He is the author of "Animal Cognition: The Mental Lives of Animals"

"Wynne's expert, lucid, sharply argued (and even witty) study provides a wonderful account of what is understood about how animals think and the serious challenges that face scientific study of these fascinating questions. It also offers very reasonable and suggestive thoughts about the place of humans within the rich and complex world of mental achievements and limitations."—Noam Chomsky, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"I had more fun reading this book than I have had from any other book in a long time! It is clever, erudite, and accessible."—Jonathan Marks, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

"Clive Wynne has written a vitally important book. A fascinating and authoritative account of the latest research on animal minds, Do Animals Think? is also a much-needed corrective to the half-truths, exaggerations, and fairy tales that have become all too common in this field."—Stephen Budiansky, author of If a Lion Could Talk: Animal Intelligence and the Evolution of Consciousness

Publishers Weekly

Animal expert Wynne (Animal Cognition: The Mental Life of Animals), an associate professor of psychology at the University of Florida, delivers a detailed yet enjoyably written exploration of recent discoveries of modern animal behavior. In answering the question whether animals "think" or have the consciousness of self that humans do, his main point is simple: "We don't have to pretend that some species have consciousness equivalent to ours. They don't and they don't need it to matter to us and deserve our attention." Wynne is clearly arguing against the view of animal rights advocates such as Peter Singer and Jane Goodall who ascribe human attributes to animals. But Wynne is no reactionary-he strongly sympathizes with those who wish to improve the treatment of animals. But he forcefully argues that what animals may "know"-for example, the honeybee recognizes time of day-is "coded in the connections of the neurons; they are not conscious ideas." However, in contending that "the psychological abilities that make human culture possible... are almost entirely lacking in any other species," he delightfully presents the many remarkable abilities of such animals as the bat, which "sees" using echolocation, "one of the most astonishing discoveries made about any animal's world in the last fifty years"; and dolphins, who use a form of sonar. It helps his arguments that Wynne is often as entertaining as he is erudite ("Like journalists listening in for excitement on police radio frequencies, dolphins channel-surf through the sound frequencies fish use"). (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.