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发帖数: 23737 | 1 http://www.amazon.com/Wild-Minds-Animals-Really-Think/dp/product-description/0805056696
Amazon.com Review
What's that squirrel thinking as it runs across the street? Behavioral
neuroscientist Marc D. Hauser, a professor of psychology at Harvard
Universityasks, asks big questions about little brains in Wild Minds: What
Animals Really Think. While his subjects aren't accessible for interviews,
he believes that we can gain insight into their interior lives by examining
their behavior in the context of their social and physical environments.
Thus, while comparing the actions of chimps, rats, honeybees, and human
infants, he is careful to keep in mind that each of them has different needs
that require different kinds of intelligence and emotion and ought not be
judged by the same criteria.
Looking at counting, mapmaking, self-understanding, deception, and other
intelligent activities, Hauser shows that the birds and the bees have more
on their minds than we've come to believe. Acknowledging the vast gulf of
language that separates our species from all others, he still maintains that
this tool is but one of many and is no better an indication of "superior"
intelligence than is the bat's fantastically well-developed echolocation
system.
In the last chapter, Hauser looks at moral behavior and decides that animals
can be "moral patients but not moral agents"--that is, their inability to
attribute mental states to others keeps them blameless for their actions but
their sensitivity to suffering earns them fair treatment from the rest of
us. Whether or not you agree with that, you're sure to find Wild Minds a
refreshing look at the thoughts of our mute cousins. --Rob Lightner
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From Scientific American
One can find people, usually not scientists, who tell of psychic dogs and
cats, weeping elephants, mischievous monkeys, altruistic dolphins and
moralistic apes. And one can find people, usually scientists, who hold that
animals are mindless and irrational, driven by instinct and overwhelmed by
their passions. Hauser, who is a professor of psychology at Harvard
University and a close observer of a variety of animals in action, takes a
middle ground. "All animals are equipped with a set of mental tools for
solving ecological and social problems," he writes. "Some of the tools for
thinking are universal, shared by insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and
mammals, including humans. The universal toolkit provides animals with a
basic capacity to recognize objects, count, and navigate." He depicts the
use of the toolkit with fascinating descriptions of the activities of
chimpanzees and other primates, lions, bats, birds, bees and various other
creatures as they go about their business.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
By A Customer
As George Page pointed out in his New York Times review,most scientists fail
when they try to write a popular account of the science they practice. Marc
Hauser's book "Wild Minds" does not fail. It is not, unlike most books,
filled with jargon. Nor is it condescending. It is a non-technical, but
intelligent treatment of an important problem: what animals think and how
they think. In the first part of the book, Hauser shows that all animals
have brains with three distinctive capacities or what he calls "tools".
these are the capacity to recognize objects, count how many there are, and
navigate through space. In part two he describes several specialized tools
that only some animals have. Specifically, the ability to learn from others,
recognize themselves(i.e., a sense of self), and deceive others. In part
three, he takes these tools explores how they play a role in systems of
communication and possibly, developing a moral society. The examples are
well chosen, and vivid. This is a book of passion, and a more than welcome
addition to the field.
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Subtitle should be how animals and human minds differ, January 15, 2003
By Peter A. Kindle (Kansas City, Missouri)
Hauser has written a remarkably accessible introduction to comparative
psychology. While containing the main points one might expect in a textbook
outline, he does an excellent job of presenting this information in an
interesting narrative form.
Hauser begins with an introductory chapter that presents his basic approach
and cautions against anthropomorphisms.
Chapters two through four comprise a unit that focuses on those mental
capacities shared by animals and human beings. Both can identify objects and
predict their movement. Both can distinguish quantity. Both can navigate
through space. Perhaps it takes a course in cognitive psychology to
appreciate these commonalities, but I believe that Hauser does an excellent
job of presenting research results for lay consumption. His presentation of
animal and human infant studies of the expectancy-violation principle is
alone worth the cost of the book.
The second section, chapters five through seven, focus on mental capacities
which seem to be qualitatively common in animals and humans, but
quantitatively distinct. Hauser presents a well-balanced account of the
evidence for self-awareness, teaching, and deception among animals.
The final section contains two chapters on mental capacities that appear to
be almost unique to human beings - language and morality. Hauser's careful
review of animal communication is amazing, as is his locus of morality in
the ability to inhibit selfish tendencies to maintain social conventions.
I recommend this book without reservation. No reader will regret spending
time with this book. It is quite stimulating. |
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