A selection of recently reported research shows that a lot of skills we homocentrically used to think of as special to us can be found in the animal kingdom, and sometimes at higher levels than our own.
1. Dogs have been able to identify different classes of photos – whether they are pictures of “dogs” or “landscapes” – classification by category. (And I can’t wait to see what the Japanese are going to do with the dog-adapted touch-screen computer, given the enthusiasm a few years ago for a canine translator).
2. Monkeys are about as good at mental arithmetic as college students.
If we could start thinking of ourselves as just another animal species it might be a very good antidote to hubris.
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