When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals (7 page)

UNFEELING BRUTES

reluctant pets in clothing, give them presents in which they have no interest, or assign their own opinions to the animals. Some dogs are even taught to attack people of races different from their owners'. Many dog lovers seem to enjoy believing that cats are selfish, unfeeling creatures who heartlessly use their deluded owners, compared with loving, loyal, and naive dogs. More often, however, people have quite realistic views about their pets' abihties and attributes. The experience of living with an animal often provides a strong sense of its abilities and limitations—although even here, as for people living intimately with people, preconceptions can be more persuasive than lived evidence, and can create their own reality.

Consider three statements about a dog's behavior: "Brandy's upset because we forgot her birthday," "Brandy feels left out and wants your attention," and "Brandy is performing the submissive display of a low-ranking canid." The first two statements can both be called anthropomorphic and the last is the jargon of ethology, the scientific study of animal behavior. The first statement is probably anthropomorphic error or projection; the speaker would feel bad if his or her birthday were forgotten and assumes the dog feels the same, but of course the idea that the dog knows what birthdays and birthday parties are is far-fetched. The third statement describes an "ethogram" of the dog's actions and avoids any mention of thought or feeling. It is an incomplete description, one that deliberately describes events and avoids explaining them, restricting its own predictive ability. The second statement interprets the dog's feelings. While it could be mistaken, it is only anthropomorphic if dogs cannot feel left out and cannot want attention—which most dog owners know to be untrue. In the end, it may be the most useful of the three statements.

Perhaps the richest source of anthropomorphic error occurs in human thinking about wild animals. Since people live with domestic animals, erroneous theories about their behavior are likely to be disproved in the course of events. But since most people's contact with wild animals is so limited, theories about them may never run up against facts, and we remain free to imagine ravening wolves, saintly dolphins, or crows who follow parliamentary procedure.

HUES ELEPHAMS IfEEP

Science considers anthropomorphism toward animals a grave mistake, even a sin. It is common in science to speak of "committing" anthropomorphism. The term originally was religious, referring to the assigning of human form or characteristics to God—the hierarchical error of acting as though the merely human could be divine—hence the connotation of sin. In the long article on anthropomorphism in the 1908 Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, the author (Frank B. Jevons) writes: "The tendency to personify objects—whether objects of sense or objects of thought—which is found in animals and children as well as in savages, is the origin of anthropomorphism." Men, the idea goes, create gods in their own image. The best-known example of this tendency comes from the Greek author Xenophanes (fifth century B.C.). He notes that Ethiopians represent the gods as black, Thracians depict them as blue-eyed and red-haired, and "if oxen and horses . . . had hands and could paint," their images of gods would depict oxen and horses. The philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach concluded that God is nothing but our projection, on a celestial screen, of the essence of man. In science, the sin against hierarchy is to assign human characteristics to animals. Just as humans could not be like God, now animals cannot be like humans (note who has taken God's place).

Antnropomorpnism as Contagion

Young scientists are indoctrinated with the gravity of this error. As animal behaviorist David McFarland explains, "They often have to be specially trained to resist the temptation to interpret the behavior of other species in terms of their normal behavior-recognition mechanisms." In his recent book The New Arith'opomor-phism, behaviorist John S. Kennedy laments, "The scientific study of animal behavior was inevitably marked from birth by its anthropomorphic parentage and to a significant extent it still is. It has had to struggle to free itself from this incubus and the struggle is not over. Anthropomorphism remains much more of a problem than most of today's neobehaviorists believed. ... If the study of animal behavior is to mature as a science, the process of liberation

UNFEELING BRUTES

from the delusions of anthropomoqjhism must go on." His hope is that "anthropomoqDhism will be brought under control, even if it cannot be cured completely. Although it is probably programmed into us genetically as well as being inoculated culturally that does not mean the disease is untreatable."

The philosopher John Andrew Fisher has noted, "The use of the term 'anthropomorphism' by scientists and philosophers is often so casual as to almost suggest that it is a term of ideological abuse, rather like political or religious terms ('communist' or 'counterrevolutionary') that need no explication or defence when used in criticism."

In a science dominated by men, women have been deemed especially prone to empathy, hence anthropomorphic error and contamination. Long considered inferior to men precisely on the ground that they feel too much, women were thought to overiden-tify with the animals they studied. This is one reason why male scientists for so long did not encourage female field biologists. They were too emotional; they allowed emotions to sway judgments and observations. Women, it was felt, were more likely than men to attribute emotional attitudes to animals by projecting their own feelings onto them, thereby polluting data. Thus did gender bias and species bias converge in a supposedly objective environment.

Td accuse a scientist of anthropomorphism is to make a severe criticism of unreliability. It is regarded as a species-confusion, a forgetting of the line between subject and object. To assign thoughts or feelings to a creature known incapable of them would, indeed, be a problem. But to ascribe to an animal emotions such as joy or sorrow is only anthropomorphic error if one knows that animals cannot feel such emotions. Many scientists have made this decision, but not on the basis of evidence. The situation is not so much that emotion is denied but that it is regarded as too dangerous to be part of the scientific colloquy—such a minefield of subjectivity that no investigation of it should take place. As a result, any but the very most prominent scientists risk their reputations and credibility in venturing into this area. Thus many scientists may actually believe that animals have emotions, but be unwilling

H-HEN ELEPH4NTS fVEEP

not only to say that they beheve it, but unwilHng to study it or encourage their students to investigate it. They may also attack other scientists who try to use the language of the emotions. Non-scientists who seek to retain scientific credibility must tread carefully. An administrator at one internationally known animal training institute remarked, "We don't take a position on whether animals have emotions, but I'm sure if you talked to any one of us we'd say, 'Sure they have emotions.' But as an organization we would not want to be depicted as saying they have emotions."

Linguistic Tatoos

From the belief that anthropomorphism is a desperate error, a sin or a disease, flow further research taboos, including rules that dictate use of language, A monkey cannot be angry; it exhibits aggression. A crane does not feel affection; it displays courtship or parental behavior. A cheetah is not frightened by a Hon; it shows flight behavior. In keeping with this, de Waal's use of the word reconciliation in reference to chimpanzees who come together after a fight has been criticized: Wouldn't it be more objective to say "first postconflict contact"? In the struggle to be objective, this kind of language employs distance and the refusal to identify with another creature's pain.

Against this scientific orthodoxy, the biologist Julian Huxley has argued that to imagine oneself into the life of another animal is both scientifically justifiable and productive of knowledge. Huxley introduced one of the most extraordinary accounts of a deep and emotional tie between a human being and a free-living lioness, Joy Adamson's Living Free, as follows:

When people like Mrs. Adamson (or Darwin for that matter) interpret an animal's gestures or postures with the aid of psychological terms—anger or curiosity, affection or jealousy— the strict Behaviourist accuses them of anthropomorphism, of seeing a human mind at work within the animal's skin. This is not necessarily so. The true ethologist must be evolution-

UNFEELING BRUTES

minded. After all, he is a mammal. To give the fullest possible interpretation of behaviour he must have recourse to a language that will apply to his fellow-mammals as well as to his fellow-man. And such a language must employ subjective as well as objective terminology— -fear as well as impulse to flee, curiosity as well as exploratory urge, maternal solicitude in all its modulations in welcome addition to goodness knows what complication of behaviourist terminology.

Huxley's argument ran counter to mainstream scientific tiiink-ing when he wrote that in 1961, and it remains so today. A contemporary example is provided by Alex, the African grey parrot, who was being trained or tested by experimenters who varied the requests they made of him to avoid cueing and to prevent Alex from becoming bored. WTien reviewers of a paper that researcher Irene Pepperberg submitted to a scientific journal vetoed her use of the term boredom, she remarked:

I had a referee go ballistic on me. And yet, you've watched the bird, he looks at you, he says "I'm gonna go away." And he walks! The referee said that was an anthropomorphic term that had no business being in a scientific journal. ... I can talk in as many stimulus-response type terms as you want. It turns out, though, that a lot of his behaviors are wtry difficult to describe in ways that are not anthropomorphic.

What is wrong with exploring the idea, based on many such observations in a research setting, that parrots and humans may have a shared capacity for boredom?

Naming

In the study of animal behavior it has long been taboo for scientists to name the animals. To separate individuals, they might be called Adult Male 36, or Juvenile Green. Alost field workers over the generations have resisted this precept, naming the animals

HUES' ELEPHANTS HTEP

they spent their days watching, at least for their own use, Spot-Nose and Splotch-Tail, Flo and Figan, or Cleo, Freddy, and Mia. In their published work, some reverted to more remote forms of identification; others continued to use names. Sy Montgomery reports that, in 1981, anthropologist Colin Turnbull declined to provide a supporting statement for Dian Fossey's book of observations on mountain gorillas because she assigned names to the gorillas. It is even more common not to name animals in laboratories, perhaps for the same reason that farmers often avoid naming animals they expect to slaughter: proper names have a humanizing effect, and it is harder to kill a friend.

Rebutting the view that naming animals only causes one to assign them human traits, elephant researcher Cynthia Moss notes that the opposite happens to her: people remind her of elephants. "WTien I am introduced to a person named Amy or Amelia or Alison, across my mind's eye flashes the head and ears of that elephant." The no-name norm has gradually changed, particularly among primatologists, perhaps because of the outstanding work of researchers who named—and admitted that they named—the subjects they studied. Bekoff and Jamieson, a field biologist and a philosopher, have argued that it is not only permissible but advisable to name animals under study, since empathy increases understanding. Yet as recently as 1987, researchers studying elephants in Namibia (then South-West Africa) were instructed by park authorities to assign the animals numbers because names were too sentimental. Granted that a number is more dehumanized than a name, does that make it more scientific? Assigning names to them—referring to a chimpanzee as Flo or Figan—can be called anthropomorphic, but so is assigning numbers. Chimpanzees are no more likely to think of themselves as F2 or JF3 than as Flo or Figan.

We do not know if animals name themselves or each other. We do know that animals recognize other animals as individuals and distinguish between them. Names are the way humans label such distinctions. Bottle-nosed dolphins may identify and imitate one another's signature whistles, something very close to a name. A similar phenomenon has been observed in captive birds. When their mate was removed, caged ravens and Shama thrushes "fre-

UNFEELING BRUTES

quently uttered sounds or song elements which were otherwise principally or exclusively produced by the partner. On hearing these sounds, the bird so 'named' returned at once, whenever this was possible." The ability to call a mate by name could be even more useful to wild birds. Some animals clearly respond emotionally to being given a name. Mike Tomkies in Last Wild Years writes that "only the ignorant pour scorn on this habit of mine of giving names to the creatures that, over the years, have shared my home. And also others that have not. So long as it is not a harsh sound, it matters little what the name is, but there can be no doubt whatever that an animal or bird will respond differently, become more trusting, once it is given a name."

If naming the animals one studies promotes empathy toward them, this may help rather than occlude insight into their natures. The essential fact glossed over in the attack on anthropomorphism is that humans are animals. Our relation to animals is not a literary exercise in creating charming metaphors. As the philosopher Mary Midgley puts it: "The fact that some people are silly about animals cannot stop the topic being a serious one. Animals are not just one of the things with which people amuse themselves, like chewing-gum and water-skis, they are the group to which people belong. We are not just rather like animals; we are animals." To act as if humans are a completely different order of beings from other animals ignores the fundamental reality.

Antkropomorpnism Witnout Really Meaning It

Even fierce opponents of anthropomorphism concede that it often works in trying to predict animal behavior. By considering what an animal feels or thinks, we may improve our ability to project how it will act. Such guesses have a high success rate. While successful prediction does not prove that the animal actually felt or thought what was imagined, it is a standard test of scientific theories. John S. Kennedy, the animal behaviorist who views anthropomorphism as a disease, concedes nevertheless that it is a useful way to predict behavior. Kennedy argues that anthropomor-