Ellen IJzerman (Prowisorio)’s Reviews > The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters > Status Update

Whereas roughly 30 percent of English words are verbs, that proportion is 70 percent in Potawatomi. Nouns in English are often verbs in Potawatomi, suggesting that what English speakers perceive as static objects are understood as more dynamic and alive in her native language. For example, rather than using “fox” as a noun, the Potawatomi [...] might describe a fox with a verb that conveys the action of being a fox.

How ironic that one of Hans’s greatest competencies gets framed as “killjoy” evidence that he wasn’t so intelligent after all! And that one of the most interesting, illuminating dimensions of the research—the embodied understanding that emerged between species—became emblematic of what is to be avoided when trying to understand animal minds.

Dat dus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As Darwin once wrote, “It is a significant fact, that the more the habits of any particular animal are studied by a naturalist, the more he attributes to reason and the less to unlearnt instincts.”

Theories about consciousness are complicated, and I wouldn’t insist that the possibilities I’ve raised here are all true. I would insist only that human exceptionalism masks our ability to judge these possibilities without bias, and that they are at least as plausible as the weirdly inconsistent notions that currently pass for common sense.

Of course, denying (or conveniently doubting) other species’ ability to feel pain helps us manage dissonance about harming them. Again, this is ironic given the prominent role of animal experimentation in human pain research, which presupposes that we have similar biological and psychological responses to pain.

It’s not only sobering to consider all the medicinal possibilities we’ll never realize when forests and other ecosystems are destroyed (nearly half of all Western medicine comes from plants); it’s also humbling to wonder whether great feats of “human” imagination like CRISP-R would have even been possible without other species getting there first.

A great quote attributed to the late astronomer Carl Sagan exemplifies the point: “It is of interest to note that while some dolphins are reported to have learned English—up to fifty words used in correct context—no human being has been reported to have learned dolphinese.”