Wednesday, February 20, 2008

How animals think

Here's an interesting article about animals and the way they think. Scientists say that initial studies show that they are smart, but that they do not behave in the same way people with autism do.

Also National Geographic this month has an interesting article called Animal Minds.

2 comments:

Singapore Community Cat said...

The Sentience of Animals.
Much as we want to "degrade" animals to justify continuing abuse, we cannot ignore the facts.

American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This
sen·tience (sěn'shəns, -shē-əns) Pronunciation Key
n.

1. The quality or state of being sentient; consciousness.
2. Feeling as distinguished from perception or thought.


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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This
sentience

noun
1. state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness; "the crash intruded on his awareness" [syn: awareness]
2. the faculty through which the external world is apprehended; "in the dark he had to depend on touch and on his senses of smell and hearing" [syn: sense]
3. the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness; "gave sentience to slugs and newts"- Richard Eberhart [ant: insentience]

Singapore Community Cat said...

Stop Look Listen - Recognising the Sentience of Farm Animals

Charles Darwin so bravely put it, humans and the "higher animals" have "the same senses, intuitions, and sensations, similar passions, affections and emotions . . . the same faculties of imitation, choice, imagination, the association of ideas and reason though in very different degrees" (C Darwin - The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex, 1871). . . .