A friend of mine recommended this book to me about ten years ago. I'm finally getting around to reading it. This friend had absolutely no interest in going to the zoo. "Read this book," she said, "then you will understand." Now I've read it and I do understand why she doesn't like to go to zoos. This book written by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy starts out talking about emotions. People disagree how many emotions we have. Some philosophers say we have four, others six, and some say 12. But we really can't prove emotions. If you induce an emotion a MRI will show action in certain parts of the brain, but that really isn't solid evidence. People say they feel emotions but how do we know they are telling the truth or are even self-aware enough to recognize their own emotions? Scientists scold each other for anthropomorphizing animals (giving them human traits). But if we compare the behavior of a human parent with a deceased child to a elephant with a deceased child and the behaviors are the same, how can we know for sure the elephant isn't feeling grief and loss? Lots of examples of all kinds of emotional behavior are given in anecdotes involving elephants, orangutans, dogs, spiders, dolphins, lions, lizards, octopus, parrots, chimpanzees, beaver, deer, butterflies, rhinos, hyenas, coyotes, baboons, lynx and goats. I thought this book was thought-provoking and fascinating. I finished it in two days.
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