Ben Waber reviewed Nature of the Beast by Anderson, David J.
A Rigorous Interrogation of the Phenomenology of Emotions in Animals
4 stars
Anderson does a great job systematically deconstructing the meaning of "emotions" and how we can possibly measure them in animals. Starting with behavioral observation, he then gets into neuroscience-based approaches for more deeply interrogating behavior and the intermediate, internal states that persist over longer periods of time. While eschewing anthropocentrism, he makes the common mistake of then claiming that an objective null hypothesis would be that we can't claim that animals have emotions like us. Ridiculous. Naturally, we should expect that we're not special, and that the default is that all animals are like us, with the burden of proof to show that they don't. He also makes the common mistake of claiming that his method is "objective." It's not - it's process-based and quantitative, which is good but not universally true in any real sense. These issues aside, Anderson delivers some real insight into the nature of emotions and …
Anderson does a great job systematically deconstructing the meaning of "emotions" and how we can possibly measure them in animals. Starting with behavioral observation, he then gets into neuroscience-based approaches for more deeply interrogating behavior and the intermediate, internal states that persist over longer periods of time. While eschewing anthropocentrism, he makes the common mistake of then claiming that an objective null hypothesis would be that we can't claim that animals have emotions like us. Ridiculous. Naturally, we should expect that we're not special, and that the default is that all animals are like us, with the burden of proof to show that they don't. He also makes the common mistake of claiming that his method is "objective." It's not - it's process-based and quantitative, which is good but not universally true in any real sense. These issues aside, Anderson delivers some real insight into the nature of emotions and neuroscience more broadly. Highly recommend