Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are

Article

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are is a recurring book in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between April 22, 2021 and July 10, 2021. The archive places it in contexts such as “‘Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are’ is ostensibly a book about a subfield of ethology - animal cognition”; “Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are , reviewed by Jeff Russell”. It most often appears alongside ACX, Addiction By Design, African Gray Parrots.

Metadata

  • Category: Books
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: April 22, 2021
  • Last seen: July 10, 2021

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

April 22, 2021 · Original source
[This is the fourth of many finalists in the book review contest. It’s not by me - it’s by an ACX reader who will remain anonymous until after voting is done, to prevent their identity from influencing your decisions. I’ll be posting about two of these a week for several months. When you’ve read all of them, I’ll ask you to vote for your favorite, so remember which ones you liked. - SA] Book Review - Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are is ostensibly a book about a subfield of ethology - animal cognition. It turns out to actually be about a lot more things than that, as "animal cognition" and the history of its study touches on a lot of different scientific fields and the various approaches, methodologies, and ideologies they've had in the past. Before we jump into talking about how the book is useful and why we might care about it in other fields, I want to say right up front that Are We Smart Enough is first and foremost a book about the joy of discovering surprising and interesting things in the natural world, and it reminded me of poring over Zoobooks and the like when I was a kid. Are you looking for a well-written and enjoyable popular science book that will consistently have you going "wow, that's really cool!"? If so, you don't really need the rest of this review, but there's a lot of good stuff in there to unpack.
Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are is ostensibly a book about a subfield of ethology - animal cognition. It turns out to actually be about a lot more things than that, as "animal cognition" and the history of its study touches on a lot of different scientific fields and the various approaches, methodologies, and ideologies they've had in the past. Before we jump into talking about how the book is useful and why we might care about it in other fields, I want to say right up front that Are We Smart Enough is first and foremost a book about the joy of discovering surprising and interesting things in the natural world, and it reminded me of poring over Zoobooks and the like when I was a kid. Are you looking for a well-written and enjoyable popular science book that will consistently have you going "wow, that's really cool!"? If so, you don't really need the rest of this review, but there's a lot of good stuff in there to unpack.
July 10, 2021 · Original source
Order Without Law, reviewed by Phil Hazelden Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are, reviewed by Jeff Russell Why Buddhism Is True, reviewed by Eve Bigaj Double Fold, reviewed by Boštjan P The Wizard And The Prophet, reviewed by Maryana Through The Eye Of A Needle, reviewed by Tom Powell Years Of Lyndon Johnson, reviewed by Theodore Ehrenborg Addiction By Design, reviewed by Ketchup Duck The Accidental Superpower, reviewed by Jon Boguth Humankind, reviewed by Neil Roques The Collapse Of Complex Societies, reviewed by Etirabys Where's My Flying Car, reviewed by Jonathan P How Children Fail, reviewed by HonoreDB Plagues And Peoples, reviewed by Joel Ferris (who is looking for a job, email here)