Inside the Animal Mind

** by George Page. This is the companion to the PBS program Nature, which was created and hosted by the author. My brother, an animal in his own right, gave this to me for Christmas this year.

Page gives a wide-ranging review of research and anecdotes to support this thesis: that there are far more similarities between humans and animals than some humans would care to acknowledge. He largely succeeds, alluding to the research of many prominent (I assume they are at least) researchers in "cognitive ethology", as the study of animal intelligence is apparently called.

I had two problems with the book, neither of which was hugely important. First is the writing, or maybe the editing. There were many areas in the prose where I thought the writing could be greatly tightened up, made more concise and understandable. It's far from unreadable, but I think the editor could have done a much better job.

The other problem was the research. Page cites one person, Donald Griffin, so much that it feels sometimes as if Griffin should be co-author, or should have written his own book (which he has, several in fact). In addition, the book is clearly not written for an audience that's particular interested in the science behind the claims, because everything is written in a very anecdotal fashion. That's probably a good thing, but it's something to be aware of.

Still, these are relatively minor problems, and I enjoyed reading the book. I'd like to see the TV show that goes with it; to actually see some of the animals described in the book would be great.

Posted by Joe on April 29, 2002 03:10 PM