'Animal Cognition' is a relatively new subfield that borrows much from psychology, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology, but it is firmly rooted in its parent field of ethology. Still more impressive was how Kuif, every time she was called into a separate area for feeding, would first take the time to visit the alpha male, the alpha female, and several friends, waking them up if they were sleeping, and giving them a farewell kiss. Are We Smart Enough gives an overview of the study of animal cognition, its history, past and current controversies, and where the field might go next (as of 2016). De Waal describes a female chimp named Kuif who learned to feed an adopted baby chimp with a bottle and knew to withdraw the bottle when the baby needed to burp. Take chimpanzees, which share 99% of their DNA with humans. In some cases, what's striking is how similar other species are to humans. And countless more cases of bad science over the centuries. He criticises supposed tests of dog intelligence that really just showed what breeds were best at following orders. Biologist and primatologist Frans de Waal argues we have vastly underestimated the extent of intelligence possessed by creatures as diverse as octopuses and crows. He points to a whole series of flawed cognition tests that gave human babies clear advantages over ape babies. Everyone who has spent time with animals knows they have intelligence, but we have been taught to believe that humans are far smarter. De Waal talks at length about the spotted history of the field, describing experiments where researchers wrongly concluded that non-human primates don’t recognize faces and that elephants don’t use tools or recognise reflections.
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