[Cognitive psychologist Dr. Diana] Reiss points out that the
threshold for showing cognitive abilities in animals is much higher than it is
in humans, even obviously damaged humans with severe mental dysfunction ... we still believe he or she has essential
human qualities, including a cognitive life that is soul-like. Animals, on the
other hand, have to perform at nearly superhuman levels to be even considered
as having something we might call "mind," whatever that is.
In
fact, this is precisely one of the big problems for Reiss. What we call mind
tends to be circularly defined as something that humans have. But this kind of
definition, even if only implicit, is useless. It creates ignorance in
precisely the wrong way -- by appearing to mean something, when it in fact
means nothing. This has the effect of stalling inquiry rather than propelling
it. As Reiss asks, "Why do we think animals don't think? We begin with a
negative starting assumption and then must prove that they do."
Even worse perhaps is that there is an implicit double standard in the
thresholds for what is considered proof and how the data are to be obtained.
This is what the late Donald Griffin, a Harvard researcher in animal behavior
who discovered the sonar abilities of bats, called "paralytic
perfectionism" -- setting the standards so high that progress is virtually
impossible.
Ignorance: How It Drives Science
Stuart Firestein
p. 92-93
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