Exploring Animal Intelligence with Frans de Waal: How Smart Are Animals Really?

Are you curious to know how smart animals really are? Frans de Waal's book, 'Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?' is the perfect gift for anyone interested in animal psychology and zoology. With its high-quality binding and pages, this book is both informative and visually stunning. Get ready to be amazed by the intelligence of animals!
92
B2B Rating
27 reviews

Review rating details

Value for money
86
Theme
91
Print quality
81
Overall satisfaction
92
Informative
87
Giftable
95
Easy to read
97
Binding and pages quality
91

Details of Exploring Animal Intelligence with Frans de Waal: How Smart Are Animals Really?

  • Item Weight ‏ ‎: 12.8 ounces
  • Best Sellers Rank: #6 in Evolutionary Psychology #19 in Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology#81 in Cognitive Psychology
  • Paperback ‏ ‎: 352 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ ‎: 978-0393353662
  • Publisher ‏ ‎: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition
  • Customer Reviews: 4.5/5 stars of 1,820 ratings
  • ISBN-10 ‏ ‎: 0393353664
  • Dimensions ‏ ‎: 5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches
  • Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology: Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology
  • Cognitive Psychology (Books): Cognitive Psychology
  • Evolutionary Psychology (Books): Evolutionary Psychology
  • Language ‏ ‎: English

Comments

chris: arrived quickly v good condition - wouldnt know it was pre-owned

United Kingdom on Nov 01, 2023

smita krishnan: I bought the book as a gift for someone.

India on Sep 04, 2023

Client d'Amazon: This book is simply amazing! You'll learn so many things about the animals and their way of adapting and thinking. We, humans, really ought to be more humble when it comes to the other animals intelligence and behaviour.
Only 4 stars because the book arrived in rough shape, the cover was half torn.

France on May 01, 2022

Bill Rayner: This is a fairly good book. Maybe the Frans de Waal didn't write it for people like me, so I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and 4 stars. The good thing about the book is that it includes many anecdotes about how animals of various types have demonstrated their mental abilities in experiments and in observations in the wild - chimpanzees, other apes and primates, birds, dolphins, elephants, and more. The down side is that de Wall can't resist doing what professors and researchers love to do - knock the theories and conclusions of other professors and researchers, most of whom predated de Waal's generation. This is probably a decent book for someone who wants to be a professor or researcher in animal cognition, and who cares about alternative academic perspectives. Myself, I learned enough about the misguided professors who preceded de Waal in the first few pages, and I didn't need it hammered into me throughout the book. I didn't even bother to read the last four pages because it was more of the same. And what de Wall was proposing makes perfect sense to me - what was the point of continuing to try to convince the reader that the outdated behaviorist approach is wrong as...

Canada on May 20, 2021

Alex Tee: It's a very interesting book, however there is much more scientific rhetoric than I was expecting. If you are an animal lover, or you have pets yourself, much of what is in this book will already be known to you, especially when it comes to statements about what motivates animals to do what they do.

If you are a student of Animal Behaviour, or Ecology, or any kind of scientific field regarding animals, then this is a valuable and interesting book. Frans de Waal does an excellent job of keeping an unbiased view when it comes to animals and the study of their abilities. He clearly points out the unfairness regarding certain tests - one set of standards for children, and another for apes, and also the importance of ensuring your test fits the natural abilities of the animal in question. A good example of this being the Elephants and the mirror.

The only thing I find disappointing is that even though he defends the social and cognitive abilities of his subjects (apes) he still has a distinctly scientfic, and somewhat cold tone towards them. It's as though he knows they are "good" but not as good as us. Which is a pity, because it seems to be the favoured approach to...

United Kingdom on Nov 14, 2016

Richard Reese (author of Understanding Sustainability): Primatologist Frans de Waal has made a career out of pounding his head against the rugged wall of human exceptionalism — the belief that humans are the only species that is conscious, self-aware, rational, cooperative, goal-oriented, empathetic, and so on. This wall of calcified grandiosity has resisted change for a long time, and has inspired an abusive relationship with the rest of the family of life. With his new book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, de Waal has launched a new assault on the cult of exceptionalism.

In the 1970s, when de Waal was in college, behavioral psychology was the hot trend. It asserted that animals were mindless, machine-like organisms that did nothing more than robotically respond to stimuli with responses. Animals were incapable of cognition — knowing based on perception and judgment. They could not have desires or intentions. Many scholars remain reluctant to consider the possibility that animals possess various forms of intelligence. Whoops, I meant non-human animals. In our culture, the two categories of fauna are humans and animals (not wombats and non-wombats).

In the last 20 years, new research has been...

United States on Aug 20, 2016

Book Shark: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? By Frans de Waal

“Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” is an insightful look at animal intelligence backed up by evidence from controlled experiments. Dutch/American biologist with a Ph.D. in zoology and ethology and author of Our Inner Ape and others, Frans de Waal, takes the reader on a journey of the sophistication of nonhuman minds. This entertaining 352-page book includes the following nine chapters: 1. Magic Wells, 2. A Tale of Two Schools, 3. Cognitive Ripples, 4. Talk to Me, 5. The Measure of all Things, 6. Social Skills, 7. Time Will Tell, 8. Of Mirrors and Jars, and 9. Evolutionary Cognition.

Positives:
1. Engaging and well-written book that is accessible to the masses.
2. A fascinating topic in the hands of a subject matter expert, nonhuman cognition.
3. Entertaining and insightful. The book is easy to follow. Professor de Waal is fair and even handed. He is careful to not oversell nonhuman cognition while providing a mixture of stories, experiments and observations to back his points. “I will pick and choose from among many discoveries, species, and scientists, so as to...

United States on May 03, 2016



Exploring Animal Intelligence with Frans de Waal: How Smart Are Animals Really? Exploring the Hidden World of Animal Intelligence: The Remarkable Story of Alex and Me Unlocking the Hidden World of Animal Intelligence: The Story of Alex and Me
Exploring Animal Intelligence with Frans de Waal: How Smart Are Animals Really? Exploring the Hidden World of Animal Intelligence: The Remarkable Story of Alex and Me Unlocking the Hidden World of Animal Intelligence: The Story of Alex and Me
B2B Rating
92
97
96
Sale off $4 OFF $12 OFF $4 OFF
Total Reviews 27 reviews 26 reviews 26 reviews
Item Weight ‏ ‎ 12.8 ounces 12 ounces 7.7 ounces
Best Sellers Rank #6 in Evolutionary Psychology #19 in Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology#81 in Cognitive Psychology #153 in Animal Behavior & Communication#245 in Bird Care#886 in Bird Field Guides #16 in Bird Care#23 in Ornithology #116 in Bird Field Guides
Paperback ‏ ‎ 352 pages 232 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ ‎ 978-0393353662 978-0061672477 978-0061673986
Publisher ‏ ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition Harper; 1st edition Harper Perennial; Illustrated edition
Customer Reviews 4.5/5 stars of 1,820 ratings 4.5/5 stars of 3,259 ratings 4.5/5 stars of 3,259 ratings
ISBN-10 ‏ ‎ 0393353664 0061672475 9780061673986
Dimensions ‏ ‎ 5.5 x 1 x 8.3 inches 5 x 0.86 x 8 inches 0.8 x 5.2 x 7.9 inches
Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology
Cognitive Psychology (Books) Cognitive Psychology
Evolutionary Psychology (Books) Evolutionary Psychology
Language ‏ ‎ English English English
Before you spend your money, check out our reviews. Every time.
Best2buy Newsletter
Don’t miss out on the hottest seasonal and trendy products. Subscribe to our newsletter today.
Don’t miss out on the hottest seasonal and trendy products. Subscribe to our newsletter today.