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Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals

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For most of the twentieth century, scientists avoided questions about how animals might feel and what they might think. They wanted to be viewed as objective in their study of animals and not use terms laden with human meaning. This led many to a view of non-human animals as being without emotions or thinking, and guided solely by reflex, instinct, and trial-and-error learning. But beginning with the work of pioneers such as Jane Goodall and Donald Griffin, scientists have discovered great surprises about how animals socialize, communicate, and think. As Jonathan Balcombe describes in his new book Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals, no longer is it viewed as heresy for researchers to examine such aspects as reason, culture, and even moral awareness in animals. His book documents that researchers around the world have found more thought and feeling in animals than humans have ever imagined.

Second Nature gives us an understanding of the complex ways in which animals perceive and react with other animals and the environment. It starts out looking at animal senses, and shows how in many cases animals not only have sharper senses than we do, they often have full senses that we don't have. Birds can sense magnetism. Some fish can both make and sense electricity, and use it to perceive what is near them. Bats can make sounds far out of our hearing range, and use this to "see" flying insects similar to how we use light to see. What do these senses feel like to these animals?

From here, Balcombe goes on to look at animal intelligence, and this is where the book begins to get really fun. There is a section looking at fish--animals that many people have prejudged to be lower animals, cold-blooded and machine-like. Some scientists have argued that fish cannot even feel pain, since they don't have the same brain structures we use to feel pain. But in the 400 million years or so since we last shared a common ancestor with most fish, fish brains did not stop evolving and adapting to a more complex and continually changing environment. In one of the more amusing studies that Balcombe describes, three carp were played recordings of Bach's classical music and also the blues of John Lee Hooker. All three fish learned to distinguish between the two musical genres and even could generalize from the specific artists to multiple artists within each genre.

Following this are chapters on emotions, awareness, communications, sociability, and even morals and virtue--all examined from a scientific basis. Many of the examples are sure to amaze you. But for those more interested in the philosophy--what it all means--the last couple of chapters will be the most interesting. Quoting George Bernard Shaw that "custom will reconcile people to any atrocity," Balcombe looks at how we can be so caring and kind to animals in one part of our lives and then so cold, indifferent, and cruel under other circumstances. People might be very loving to their dogs or cats, but when they think of animals as groups or things, such as species or populations or renewable resources, they lose track of the individual importance of each of the individuals. Talking about "fish stocks" or "harvest limits" treats these sentient individuals as mere commodities--no more important that talking about tons of sand. But then Balcombe goes on to show how things are changing and how more people are coming to realize that animals are sentient, feeling individuals who deserve our respect.

Jill Schatz and Peter Spendelow

I remember as a child eating meat products with names like `jellied veal', `liver-sausage', `corned beef', `hazlet', `ox-tail soup' and `tongue'. They were just labels at the time, for things I put in my mouth. Only much later would I associate them with animals.

Now, reading Jonathan Balcombe's new book `Second Nature - The Inner Lives of Animals' I'm asking myself why it took so long to make that rather obvious connection. In fact, it's got me thinking about a whole host of issues related to how we as a species perceive and treat other animals - nonhuman beings as Balcombe prefers to call them. For the issues Second Nature addresses have as much to do with human morality and ethics as they do with animal behaviour.

Balcombe wants to open our eyes to the possibility of accepting animals as fellow sentient beings, with feelings and emotions as real to them as ours are to us; beings with lives that are pleasurable and worth living for their own sake; lives worthy of sensitivity and respect. As Balcombe puts it: "My chief aim in this book is to close the gap between human beings and animals - by helping us understand the animal experience, and by elevating animals from their lowly status."

He begins by setting out the evidence for animal sentience, emotion and feeling, then discusses the implications this has for human attitudes and actions.

Part I summarises the findings of numerous field and laboratory studies that demonstrate a range of animal capabilities, experiences and sensitivities we usually associate more with people. Part II is a description of how animals use these qualities to interact and communicate between themselves and with other species, including man. Part III focuses on the relationship between humans and animals, and includes a discussion on popular perceptions and how they are changing with what Balcombe sees as an emerging new paradigm in attitudes and awareness.

Central to Balcombe's plea is the assertion that humans and animals differ in degree rather than kind. Each type of animal, Balcombe says, including man, has evolved to operate in its own world, or `umwelt', equipped with an appropriate package of sensory experience and feelings suited to that world. We shouldn't assume life experience in one umwelt is inherently superior to that in another. Humans can never directly experience another animal's umwelt (who can say what personal echo-location or magnetic navigation feels like? - to use Balcombe's examples) but we accept that animals have complex sensory capabilities. Which begs the question why, when emotions and feelings are at least as real and necessary to us as senses in explaining our lives and behaviours, would we deny them in animals? Second Nature is certainly thought provoking on these questions.

Many readers will I expect, from watching natural history on TV or casual reading, recognise something of the better known case studies about Washoe the chimp, grieving elephants, and intelligent ravens. That said, the number and diversity of cited studies is impressive, and most of the content is new to me.

Take Kelly the dolphin for example, who was taught to trade paper litter found in her pool for fish, but discovered the fish flow could be maximised by trading smaller pieces of paper torn from a larger sheet she had stashed away at the bottom of the pool. And tests for empathy, where increased stress reactions were measured in animals who witnessed the suffering of another animal - not necessarily of the same species.

Consciousness is a key theme in Second Nature, with Balcombe describing how chimpanzees have demonstrated a `theory of mind' by showing they are consciously aware of consciousness in other chimps.

Other studies support the proposition that animals, elephants for example, follow individual lives that are the product of their unique experience. And that animals, like us, deal with feelings over the short and long term; they remember experiences, their memories shaping what they become. There are even indications that elephants have a sense of the future and their own mortality. Further examples illustrate conditions ranging from depression in starlings, to post traumatic stress disorder in elephants, to anxiety in mice - including their remarkable ability to self-medicate.

Exploring the relevance of instinct, intelligence and language, Balcombe rejects simplistic models that associate instinct with animals and intelligence with humans. Instinct does not preclude conscious experience, and intelligence is not a good measure for moral standing. As Balcombe puts it: "Animals are as intelligent as they need to be". The evidence shows that many animals, far from following some kind of invariant program, are capable of learned behaviour and can adapt flexibly to new challenges. And as regards language, as it's not linked to sensory activity, animals are able to suffer with or without it.

Balcombe closes the animal-human gap from both directions, elevating our opinion of animal capabilities while questioning the superiority of our own. We are reminded that animal senses and capabilities - physical, and on occasion mental - can be superior to ours. Balcombe points to our penchant for industrial scale cruelty and destruction, questioning our right to label other species as uncivilized. Our culture, Balcombe says, particularly through the media, overplays the negative aspects of animals' lives, pushing the `red in tooth in and claw' image of a natural world where animals permanently struggle at the edge of survival, flailing at the smallest injury.

Part III sees Balcolme getting into his narrative stride, explaining where he thinks our relationship with animals might be heading. Under the heading `A New Humanity' he describes a shift from a traditional attitude of `might makes right' towards a more informed and caring paradigm - a transition he likens to the changes of mind-set that accompanied the end of slavery and the winning of womens' rights. The process has already started, with impacts most tangibly captured in animal related legislation for the protection of species, improvements in the treatment of animals we eat, and tighter controls on laboratory animal experimentation.

Interestingly, with Second Nature appealing mostly to our moral sense, Part III includes some purely practical, well stated, arguments for reduced meat consumption based on health, resource conservation and sustainability. This leads to a brief politico-economic discussion on the compatibility of the capitalist/growth model with sustainable environments; inflammatory territory which Balcombe handles with a welcome non-emotive sense of balance.

The somewhat uneasy relationship science seems to have with the idea of animal feelings is one I find interesting in it's own right. Balcolme, a scientist himself, criticises science's tendency to favour the simplest of plausible theories. It's one reason, he says, why we have the dogmatic starting assumption that animals don't have thoughts and feelings, rather than the other way around. Conversely, Second Nature and other works on a connected theme (Masson's and McCarthy's `When Elephants Weep' comes to mind) are particularly open to criticism when authors use language outside the scientific lexicon. There may be concensus on what sentience means, consciousness less so; but what to make of words like goodness, compassion, and selflessness? Personally, I don't have a problem with Balcombe's style because I don't see the issues being wholly resolvable with today's science; we'd need a workable scientific model of moral behaviour for that. A scientific proof isn't going to pop up and tell us to treat animals better, no matter how many books we read. However, and I suspect this is where Balcombe is coming from, I do think science is the best tool for revealing true animal states that might then be judged logically incompatible with, or at least challenge, established moral and ethical standards. Of course, how established those standards ever are is a discussion for another day.

On a critical note, and it's probably the scientist in me kicking up, there were times when I wanted more detail from the case studies, more counter-argument, and deeper discussion of skeptical views. That the early chapters are crammed with properly referenced case studies is a good thing but, in a work of this length, that means trade-offs in content. The shear volume of examples also gives the early chapters something of a `listy' feel, although that corrects in the later, more analytical material. Also, I thought the singling out of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett for criticism was unnecessary and unhelpful, particularly so when Dawkins has discussed the positive implications for animal rights that discovery (or creation) of a hypothetical man-ape hybrid would have. Examples of the darker side of nature, like the apparently cruel egg-laying behaviour of parasitic wasps, are perhaps over-quoted by the atheist camp, but only as arguments against the existence of a benevolent god, not a celebration. Moreover, Balcombe might want to keep the secularists on his team.

Despite these minor niggles, I have to confess Second Nature has caused me to think more deeply than I otherwise would about a topic I'd mentally parked. Commendably, it brings all the relevant issues up to date in one concise volume, and has plenty of references for those who want to dig deeper.

Will Second Nature change readers' attitudes towards animals? I think in some cases it will. What it won't do is resolve any consequential moral dilemma we might have around that next burger purchase. That's something each of us must think about quietly on our own.

Second Nature, The Inner Lives of Animals, is a valuable addition to the growing body of literature about animal emotions. Following on the heels of previous books by Marc Bekoff, Jeffrey Masson and his own Pleasurable Kingdom, Balcombe makes a compelling case for a new, more humane human/animal paradigm. Throwing aside rigidity and close-mindedness, he approaches the subject with an open mind and an open heart. I wholeheartedly encourage anyone who is interested in animals to read this book. It will change the way you think.

Rob Laidlaw
CBiol MSB
Director
Zoocheck Canada Inc.

Jonathan Balcombe has done what most of us dare not. He has paid strict attention to animals. Second Nature is a thoughtful and beautiful account of what he's seen and learned about them and it's an eye-opener. No one who reads this book will see animals or themselves the same way again. The evidence is in and it's conclusive. Animals are Us. I would add to Balcombe's case for the rich inner life and loves of animals that neuroscience supports his evidence. Animals are guided by the same brain chemistry that makes us love and care for each other--that makes the lives of all social mammals worth living. After reading this book we may still eat animals, experiment on them, or ignore their existence, but we can no longer be excused for not understanding the real consequences of our behavior toward them.
Meg Daley Olmert
Author of Made For Each Other, the Biology of the Human-Animal Bond
[ASIN:B004JO85O6 Made for Each Other: The Biology of the Human-Animal Bond (Merloyd Lawrence Books) [Paperback]]]

Even though I've been reading a lot of books concerning animals, I found this book Second Nature absolutely engrossing. The author gives many vivid examples I'd never known before about how animals feel and think as they go about their lives, whether wild or domesticated, and backs up his observations with scientific data. The upshot is that the author enlists our respect and compassion for animals as individuals and as species. It is heartening in the last chapter to hear how much progress has been made just since 2008 for the ethical and empathic treatment of animals, such as more books citing animals' intellectual and emotional lives, the advent of laws for animal rights, and many more courses about the nature of animals at universities. Second Nature is at the top of my list of books I'd recommend about animals.

This book will change how you look at animals and quite possibly, how you look at yourself. Even for the die-hard pet lover like me, it will still awaken you to look beyond what you think you see. In the first part of the book Jonathan Balcombe gently and eloquently shows us how, what and why animals feel, be this gratitude or grief, pain or pleasure. It is clear that nearly all beings, including fish, have a sense of feeling. As Balcombe writes; "We err mightily when we couple the ability to speak with the ability to feel, because language is neither a source nor a product of sensory acuity". As the book continues he shows the reader the double standards that humans have lived by in their rather fragile cohabitation with animals, both wild and domesticated. By the third part of the book he writes of the atrocities that humans do to animals citing vivisection, factory farming, fur factories and puppy mills as a small example. By the end of this book, I found it very hard to look at a piece of meat as food knowing now what the majority of the animals go through before they reach our forks. If you let it, this book will change both your grocery shopping and eating habits. It has certainly changed mine.

This book is very well written and researched. For those of us who know that animals communicate with each other, and they attempt to communicate with people who can't understand, it is enlightening.

"Second Nature" is a profound, deeply thoughtful, and rigorously researched book that offers a rare glimpse inside the often overlooked and misunderstood experiences of nonhuman animals. Jonathan Balcombe, a scientist and humanitarian, shares his expertise as a researcher and animal behaviorist to reveal fascinating insights that challenge us to rethink many of our longstanding assumptions about the other beings with whom we share the planet. It is impossible to dismiss Balcombe's assertion that nonhuman animals are intelligent, sentient, and aware beings; as such, Balcombe calls us to examine some of our most fundamental values--such as compassion, fairness, and justice--and to apply such values to species other than our own.

Jonathan Balcombe has written a stunningly good book. Everyone should read it. He foreshadows the next social revolution--bringing about the humane and respectful treatment of animals.

Jonathan Balcombe is a reputable scientist with a Ph.D. in Animal Behavior. He has authored over 40 scientific papers (peer-reviewed by leaders in the field of Ethology), in addition to several books. His life's work has centered on the education of laypersons (and fellow scientists) by presenting research documenting that animals have perceptions, intelligence, emotions, awareness, and social skills that were considered impossible just a few decades ago. In his most recent book, Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals, Balcombe discusses recent scientific findings as he delves into the innermost lives of animals and how they react to one another, to other animal species (including humans), and to specific circumstances they encounter. He cites well-documented studies confirming that many animal species are capable of showing consideration to one another, can distinguish between fairness and unfairness, perform acts of kindness to one another, and can reason and solve problems revealing an astounding intelligence.

Evidence that chimpanzees can outscore humans on short-term memory tests, and that they even possess a degree of photographic memory is remarkable. Just as remarkable is the interspecies communication between gecko lizards and planthopper insects. And, Balcombe does not leave out the lower vertebrates by documenting that certain fishes feel and show mental and emotional responses once considered highly improbable for that group. Numerous examples are well-documented by Balcombe as he cites studies published in such reputable scientific journals as Science, Nature, New Scientist, Animal Behaviour, Ethology, Neuron, American Zoologist, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Comparative Psychology, as well as many others. His bibliography is impressive.

This book should be owned and read by all those who love, befriend, and defend animals.