TofuFlyout Industrial-Sized Deals Shop Men's Classics Shop Men's Classics Shop Men's Learn more nav_sap_disc_15_fly_beacon $5 Albums See All Deals Storm Free Fire TV Stick with Purchase of Ooma Telo Luxury Beauty Home Improvement Shop all gdwf gdwf gdwf Amazon Echo Amazon Echo Kindle Voyage GNO Shop Cycling on Amazon Deal of the Day

Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures 1st Edition

by
Virginia Morell (Author)
› Visit Amazon's Virginia Morell Page
Find all the books, read about the author, and more.
See search results for this author
Are you an author? Learn about Author Central
Virginia Morell (Author)
144 customer reviews
ISBN-13: 978-0307461445
ISBN-10: 0307461440
Why is ISBN important?
ISBN
This bar-code number lets you verify that you're getting exactly the right version or edition of a book. The 13-digit and 10-digit formats both work.
Scan an ISBN with your phone
Use the Amazon App to scan ISBNs and compare prices.
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

Wish List unavailable.
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Buy used
$8.98
Condition: Used - Very Good
In Stock. Sold by het-pakhuis, Fulfilled by Amazon
Condition: Used: Very Good
Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.
37 Used from $3.16
Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$10.59
— —
Hardcover, Deckle Edge, February 26, 2013
"Please retry"
—
$6.72 $3.16
Paperback
"Please retry"
$10.59
$6.57 $5.79
Audible, Unabridged
"Please retry"
$23.95
or Free with Audible 30-day free trial
Audio CD, Audiobook, Unabridged
"Please retry"
—
$71.45 $18.75
More Buying Choices
17 New from $6.72 37 Used from $3.16
54 used & new from $3.16
See All Buying Options
Free Two-Day Shipping for College Students with Amazon Student Free%20Two-Day%20Shipping%20for%20College%20Students%20with%20Amazon%20Student

InterDesign Brand Store Awareness Textbooks
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
Best Books of the Month
Best Books of the Month
Want to know our Editors' picks for the best books of the month? Browse Best Books of the Month, featuring our favorite new books in more than a dozen categories.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 291 pages
  • Publisher: Crown Publishers; 1st edition (February 26, 2013)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0307461440
  • ISBN-13: 978-0307461445
  • Product Dimensions: 6.5 x 1 x 9.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (144 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,837 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 56 people found the following review helpful
Good Data for Animal Ethics
By William Bagley on December 24, 2012
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
The book is a well written interweaving of scientific, philosophical, and ethical reflections about animals combined with stories and interviews about events and experiments related to whether or not animals think and feel. I like the way that the author shows a kind of methodological bias that predisposes the researcher to not believing that animals can think and feel, a criterion that would make it hard to prove that we can think and feel (similar to the behaviorist arguments of B. F. Skinner proposed in BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY). The author further goes into several select experiments to do prove, to me, that animals can think and feel. There are some choice quotes seeded throughout the book and are designed to provoke some thinking of our own about the subject, like (page 50):

"Intelligent circuitry can be assembled in any brain, that's my big belief," Schuster said, where he did several of his archerfish studies. (He's since moved to Bayreuth.) "It's not limited to those animals with large brains and many neurons," he said. "if evolution requires it [this kind of intelligent circuitry], it will be assembled--even with a small number of neurons."

And (page 96):

"People have wondered about this for centuries," Berg said. In captivity, he added, parrots do not simply react when humans speak to them (as dogs, cats, chimpanzees, and other animals do); they also articulate responses, almost as if talking back, and sometimes even use words in the correct context; as Alex did. "Those kinds of vocalizations absolutely send a shiver up the spine of cognitive scientists," Berg said, because they suggest that parrots have some innate understanding of the purpose and functions of words as sounds that convey meaning.Read more ›
3 Comments Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Animals are wiser than we think!
By P. B. Sharp TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on February 4, 2013
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
"Animal Wise" " is a scientific study and is no way cutesy-poo or sentimental. However, Virginia Morell's love of animals shines throughout the narrative. I don't think anybody who has ever owned a pet would consider him a furry automaton (or even a scaly automaton if the pet is a lizard) without feelings. Animal behaviorist author Morell had the opportunity to visit Jane Goodall's chimpanzee sanctuary in Tanzania. She observed, along with Jane, a chimp family close up and detected deceit on the part of one wily chimp. Jane remarked that when she was writing her first articles long ago, her editors insisted on her calling chimps "it" not he or she. She said that if she called a chimpanzee "deceitful" some scientists would start screaming. Jane, however, in her many books gives chimpanzees very human like personalities and thoughts such as love, hate, fear and jealousy.

Charles Darwin, the author tells us, believed that animals are thinkers, different from man only in degree. Of course we are not going to see a Nobel Prize laureate among the ape population but chimps' agile brains are functioning on a level not so very far removed from our own with 98% identical DNA Chimps may be the most proficient animal. Humans are not more highly evolved than chimps, however.

Morell takes us on an amazing journey around the world to visit scientists who are studying a bewildering variety of animal behavior in insects on up to vertebrates. Each chapter concerns one animal. In England we visit ant enthusiast Nigel Frank who has proved ants (always referred to as she as the workers are female - the drones are winged males who fertilize the queen, then die) are capable of "teaching" let alone perform functions that come close to "thinking.Read more ›
Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
For animal lovers, science buffs, or anyone with a curiosity bump!
By Angie Boyter VINE VOICE on February 8, 2013
Format: Hardcover Vine Customer Review of Free Product ( What's this? )
Do animal have minds? Are they aware of themselves as entities? Do they love? Grieve? Are lower-order animals capable of learning, or do they just operate on instinct? How much of our thinking and emotions do we share with our fellow creatures, and how much is uniquely human? Those who have loved furry companions tend to one extreme; those not fortunate enough to have had a relationship with a non-human companion tend to the other and may regard most animals as little more than a mobile bundle of instincts. In Animal Wise, science and nature writer Virginia Morell follows the work of dedicated scientists trying to learn the truth about the inner lives of animals from ants to dolphins and chimps.
Each chapter is devoted to the work on a particular species. It begins with ants and runs through fish, parrotlets, parrots, rats (who laugh!), elephants, dolphins (both wild and captive), chimpanzees and other primates, and finally dogs and wolves. Interestingly, Morell, who lives with both cats and dogs, notes that little work has been done on cognition in cats, an omission that I would infer might derive from the innate nature of the subjects as much as a lack of interest.
There are many different things to enjoy in Animal Wise. The animal behavior she documents is delightful and often touching, whether it be archer fish bringing down their prey by squirting them with jets of water or dolphins helping injured members of their species. Equally fascinating are Morell's descriptions of the extremes to which the scientists must go to carry out their work. For example, she recounts the almost bizarrely painstaking process whereby Dr. Nigel Franks and his teams paint tiny dots on the bodies of ants so that they can identify individuals in the course of their study.Read more ›
2 Comments Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Most Recent Customer Reviews

A must read for everyone

Best book on the planet....a must read for everyone on this shared planet.

Published 1 month ago by lori g
Four Stars

This is very interesting, very sophisticated.

Published 1 month ago by Cottonwood the Ratlady
A WEALTH OF EXCITING INFORMATION

This is a wonderfully researched and beautifully written book. It is easy to read, takes you all over the world, and introduces you to creatures you might not have known about or... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Linda Lee Stronza
Must read

Something literally everyone should read

Published 2 months ago by david reid
This is a great title that delves into our understanding about how we...

This is a great title that delves into our understanding about how we understand animal thought and emotions. Read more

Published 2 months ago by M. Wilson
Animals DO think!

This is a stellar book. It's well written, reasonably comprehensive, and thoughtfully engaging. The book deftly covers contemporary research on animal cognition. Read more

Published 2 months ago by Book Junkie
but I love animals & so far it's a very interesting read

Haven't finished it yet, but I love animals & so far it's a very interesting read...

Published 4 months ago by CJ
Five Stars

Amazing, life is very complicated

Published 5 months ago by trimcoin
I still feel that taking out the evolutionary ideas there is a lot of...

Virginia has spent many months of personal time and research talking and observing the different researchers in their animal studies. Read more

Published 6 months ago by Jazziegirl
Ah if only humans were so easy to understand

enjoyable read! insightful glimpse into the thoughts and lives of our fellow creatures. Ah if only humans were so easy to understand!!

Published 6 months ago by Jan326

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.