![]() “The work,” he writes near the end of this captivating book, “is beautiful, and urgent, an almost holy quest for deeper intimacy. Safina, human consciousness is at least as pressing a concern as animal consciousness, and possibly more in doubt. “But believing that only humans have minds is like believing that because only humans have human skeletons, only humans have skeletons.”įinally, though, you get the feeling that for Dr. “Only humans have human minds,” he concedes. Throughout, he demonstrates a keen grasp of the scientific literature across a range of disciplines and a refreshing skepticism about the terms of debate. ![]() Block the hormone many mammals and birds lose interest in socializing, pairing, nesting and contact.” Elsewhere he writes about brain size relative to body size, and the role of neuron density in determining mental dexterity. That question also leads him to the most scientifically grounded sections of the book, discussing for example the chemical and neurological bases of emotions: “Oxytocin drives bonding,” he reminds readers, “and it makes elephants and many other species act social or sexual. Safina is in calling for humans to tread more humanely on the earth - his desire for ecological harmony sometimes carries pleasing echoes of the poet Gary Snyder - “Beyond Words” remains most interesting when it focuses on the core question of nonhuman consciousness. “And if so, why?”īut of course the nobility of animals is all a matter of perspective: Ask harbor seals how they feel about killer whales. Safina describes the drama as “all too human.” “What I had not imagined,” he writes of a Yellowstone wolf pack that fractured after hunters killed its alpha member, “was the politics involved, the personalities, the vendettas and coalitions, the family turmoil following tragedy, the loyalties and disloyalties.” Dr. Safina draws out haunting resonances between animal lives and our own. The strategy of making us see animals as individuals is undeniably effective, as anybody who has followed the story of Cecil the lion can attest. Again and again he follows the same formula, familiar from nature documentaries: Draw close to the animals, explain their habits and family structures and personalities until we perceive them as individual characters, then detail the ways human culture is destroying their way of life.įor elephants, that means ivory poaching for wolves, the threat of hunters and trappers for killer whales, everything from overfishing to underwater military explosions to the continued practice, in some places, of capturing young whales for use in aquarium shows. Safina’s readers feel as strong a connection to these animals as he does. The effect - and surely the intention - of such lively, physical description is to make Dr. When he suddenly bursts through the surface, his mass and momentum startle me wide-eyed.” He begins a series of high-arcing lunges, with lots of splashing and commotion. This big one over here with the high, wavy dorsal fin is K-25. “The closest whale, right behind us, is L-92. A couple of other whales slice rapidly through the surface, quickly switching directions.” Here he is, for instance, describing killer whales as they forage for salmon off Vancouver Island in British Columbia: “Several whales bow their backs and dive steeply. We, among all animals, are most frequently irrational, distortional, delusional, worried.”Ĭredit. ![]() And at another point: “There is in nature an overriding sanity and often, in humankind, an undermining insanity. ![]() “Maybe more than anything, what ‘makes us human’ is our ability to generate wacky ideas,” he writes. Safina takes frequent droll pleasure in puncturing claims to human exceptionalism. This renegade spirit is a source of the book’s great charm, the pepper in its woo-woo sauce. “You have to deeply deny the evidence to conclude that humans alone are conscious, feeling beings.” “Why do researchers judge the mental performance of other animals against a standard that humans could not possibly reach?” he asks. He accepts as a given that animals are capable of thought and emotion, a proposition that, as he notes impatiently and not a little defensively, is far from settled among animal behaviorists. Safina, a marine conservationist and professor at Stony Brook University on Long Island, is clearly unafraid to challenge scientific orthodoxy.
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