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trsr's review against another edition
2.0
For those familiar with Bekoff's writing and blogs, there is little that's new in this book. It is a strong call for viewing and treating animals more humanely, seeing them for 'who they are' rather than 'what they are'. It makes a persuasive case to take the three A's of animal behaviour studies more seriously: anecdote ("the plural of anecdote is data"), analogy, and anthropomorphism. The book also uses anecdote and example to persuade; although it could have done a lot more to explore context and rebut the nay-saying scientists.
readingpanda's review
--ABANDONED--
It's an interesting topic, which makes it seem like it should have also been an interesting book. I made it just over halfway through, but the writing was tedious and although I enjoyed the anecdotes he included, the book didn't hold together that well overall. Positive: I liked the foreword by Jane Goodall. Negative: I found myself skipping paragraphs at a time once Bekoff's writing started.
It's an interesting topic, which makes it seem like it should have also been an interesting book. I made it just over halfway through, but the writing was tedious and although I enjoyed the anecdotes he included, the book didn't hold together that well overall. Positive: I liked the foreword by Jane Goodall. Negative: I found myself skipping paragraphs at a time once Bekoff's writing started.
otis_bronson's review
2.0
Two stars not because I disagree that animals have feelings but because the book was kind of a slog at the sentence level and the argument level. It was at its best discussing how play demonstrates morality in animals. Other than that, the book assumes that much is obvious and the whole thing starts to ring hollow, sadly.
1000unreadpages's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
Interesting and a good starting point to get some insight into the topic of animal emotions.
Lots of anecdotes and found it strange that there weren't references beside things, just a massive list at the back not referring to any points in the book
Lots of anecdotes and found it strange that there weren't references beside things, just a massive list at the back not referring to any points in the book
taiy's review
4.0
Bekoff takes you into the world of cognitive ethology without losing you in science terminology. I loved the book and look forward to reading more of his writings. This book really inspires you to change the world and re-think how you live your life.
enyamorwen's review
4.0
The most important practical takeaway from this book is that "well-being centers on what animals feel, not what they know" (knowledge, intelligence, and emotions aren't necessarily correlated, and the ability to suffer depends on emotions, so we shouldn't base our moral judgments on knowledge or intelligence the way a lot of people do when they say things like "it's okay to eat a fish but not a cow").
Bekoff is more focused on practical considerations than a lot of people. He's aware that the results of science lead to decisions, so he's not afraid to talk about those decisions. I had a history of science professor who said that most scientists hate history and philosophy of science, but Bekoff is definitely an exception-- he's willing to talk about how science is affected by who is doing it, who's funding it, who wants to profit, etc. while a lot of people want to maintain the illusion that they are already perfectly objective and unbiased (or that their methods have the ability to filter out all bias).
He also talks more about proximate causes (neurology) than a lot of the people I've been reading. Most people mention Tinbergen's 4 aims (function, adaptation, mechanisms, and ontogeny) but focus on function and adaptation.
There's one chapter where Bekoff is trying to talk about the intuitive knowledge you can have about what other animals are feeling because of mirror neurons and shared evolutionary history, but he calls it "anthropomorphism" and it throws the whole chapter off. He defines anthropomorphism properly once, but then goes on to call all sorts of things anthropomorphic when they have nothing to do with humans in particular. He even says it's anthropomorphic for humans to find other mammals' babies cute because they "look like human babies", even after explaining that actually those baby features and the adult "cuteness" response to them are older than humans and highly conserved, so human babies look like other babies and not the other way around. He finally quotes Robert Sapolsky on how attributing animal characteristics to animals isn't anthropomorphic, but he continues to call it "anthropomorphism". What's the point of using a word incorrectly just because you want to defend it? Just admit that talking about features that multiple animal species share isn't focusing on one of those species in particular. You always have a bias toward your own species but if you put in a lot of observation hours and you're thinking about what you're studying from the animal's perspective, you'll be fine.
Bekoff is more focused on practical considerations than a lot of people. He's aware that the results of science lead to decisions, so he's not afraid to talk about those decisions. I had a history of science professor who said that most scientists hate history and philosophy of science, but Bekoff is definitely an exception-- he's willing to talk about how science is affected by who is doing it, who's funding it, who wants to profit, etc. while a lot of people want to maintain the illusion that they are already perfectly objective and unbiased (or that their methods have the ability to filter out all bias).
He also talks more about proximate causes (neurology) than a lot of the people I've been reading. Most people mention Tinbergen's 4 aims (function, adaptation, mechanisms, and ontogeny) but focus on function and adaptation.
There's one chapter where Bekoff is trying to talk about the intuitive knowledge you can have about what other animals are feeling because of mirror neurons and shared evolutionary history, but he calls it "anthropomorphism" and it throws the whole chapter off. He defines anthropomorphism properly once, but then goes on to call all sorts of things anthropomorphic when they have nothing to do with humans in particular. He even says it's anthropomorphic for humans to find other mammals' babies cute because they "look like human babies", even after explaining that actually those baby features and the adult "cuteness" response to them are older than humans and highly conserved, so human babies look like other babies and not the other way around. He finally quotes Robert Sapolsky on how attributing animal characteristics to animals isn't anthropomorphic, but he continues to call it "anthropomorphism". What's the point of using a word incorrectly just because you want to defend it? Just admit that talking about features that multiple animal species share isn't focusing on one of those species in particular. You always have a bias toward your own species but if you put in a lot of observation hours and you're thinking about what you're studying from the animal's perspective, you'll be fine.