Wednesday, December 10, 2008

On our nonprimate relatives...

For those interested in animal personhood, there are two must-see Wired Science links: here and and here. It seems that canine cognitive scientists at the Clever Dog Lab have demonstrated that dogs have a well-developed sense of fairness vis a vis unequal rewards for the same behaviour, leading to agitation in the dogs that perceive themselves to be on the short end of the stick. The top ten amazing animal videos are all charming and worth the few minutes it takes to scroll through the You Tube videos. My favorite? Jessica the hippo.




- Terry Tomsick

[Editor's note: And if you are wondering what, if anything, is unique about us, researcher Bekof of the first link notes that 'we're the only species I know of that cooks food and w[e have an] incredible propensity for evil.' The comments following that are also worth the read.]

2 comments:

Kelly Hills said...

Does anyone have any recommendations for more readings along the lines of this, Wilson, deWaal, etc? Especially things to do with ethics, virtues, etc being at least somewhat biologically based?

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a beautiful video. Thanks for posting.