Wild Minds: What animals really think by Marc Hauser, Allen Lane/The
Penguin Press, 拢18.99, ISBN 0713994711
IN Wild Minds, Marc Hauser鈥檚 own wild and curious mind leads us on a
fascinating and enlightening journey into the worlds of other
animals鈥攅xploring what they think about and what makes them tick.
But he begins on an odd note with heavy-handed criticism of Jeffrey Masson
and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, both best-selling writers about animals. Hauser
berates them for being too anthropomorphic, relying too heavily on anecdotes and
common sense. He dislikes the way they disparage science for not delivering much
useful information about the mental and emotional lives of animals.
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I鈥檓 not as protective of science nor as sensitive as Hauser to this kind of
criticism. I think shaking up science can only improve it. Hauser鈥檚 view is
strongly scientistic although he does recognise that anecdotes may be useful
stepping stones to rigorous research. In the future, we will need all sorts of
information to help us to learn about animal minds.
So what does Hauser offer us? His book examines all the views of animal minds
from evolutionary, to comparative to ecological. He relies mainly on studies of
animal behaviour, neuroscience and child development. 鈥淗ard鈥� data is his focus,
data stemming from 鈥渟ystematic observations and well-controlled experiments鈥�.
This database, while slim, is generally most useful for non-human primates. He
omits discussion of non-experimental data, but he鈥檚 employing a double
standard.
Recently, Hauser himself speculated wildly on the question of
self-recognition (www.linguafranca.com/0004/monkeys. html), a hot topic
in the study of animal minds. He observed free-ranging rhesus monkeys staring at
pieces of a broken mirror and suggested that the mirrors may have enabled the
monkeys to recognise themselves. The logic might go like this: 鈥淚 am holding a
mirror in my hand. There is another monkey鈥檚 face. It can鈥檛 be another monkey
because I am not carrying one. It must be me.鈥� I鈥檓 inclined to think that such
freewheeling speculation is useful, and I鈥檓 not sure why Hauser is so critical
of others who try it.
Hauser鈥檚 trawl through the hard science leads him to argue that all animals
have a universal 鈥渢ool kit鈥濃�攁 set of mental abilities for acquiring
knowledge about objects, number and space. Then he discusses how animals use
their tool kits. Hauser grants that lions, for example, might be able to assess
number. Animals navigate using landmarks, but there鈥檚 no convincing evidence
that they use shortcuts. And when it comes to that thorny question of whether
animals actually recognise themselves, Hauser guides us through a minefield of
competing views, egos and a pinch of solid data. The jury is still out on
whether animals have a sense of self. But can they learn or teach? He concludes
that 鈥渉umans may be the only species to have evolved the mental tools for
imitation and teaching鈥�. Humans are also likely to be the only species using
rules to generate new and meaningful expressions. Hauser concludes that animals
aren鈥檛 moral agents: they鈥檙e not responsible for their actions, don鈥檛 know right
from wrong, and feel neither guilt nor shame.
Unlike others who study animal minds, Hauser believes that some animals have
thoughts鈥攅ven though they are without language, or at least language as we
characterise it. It鈥檚 too early to say whether or not primates have beliefs,
desires and intentions, or know what others might be thinking about. But, I
would extend his conclusions to many other animals.
Agree or not with Hauser鈥檚 views, there鈥檚 a lot of interesting stuff in
Wild Minds. In the future, lab-bound scientists, field researchers and
philosophers will have to share ideas and data. Research has to extend its focus
to a broad array of animals鈥攁nd we need to appreciate the differences
between species. Little is gained by asking if chimpanzees are smarter than
wolves or if wolves are smarter than rats. Fact is, we still don鈥檛 know much
about the wild minds of most of the awe-inspiring animals with which we are
fortunate to share the planet.