When it comes to animal behavior, Hauser (Psychology/Harvard) opts for the empirical high road over intuition every time: Anecdotes are sweet, and may prompt interesting questions, but he doesn’t go basing theories on them. For Hauser, the way into an animal’s brain is via systematic, controlled experimentation informed by the latest news from the front in evolutionary theory, cognitive science, neuroscience, and human infant development (because of their similarly prelinguistic status). He has nothing against Jeffrey Masson or Elizabeth Thomas Marshall; he just wants to distinguish between their hunches and the fruits of “objective scientific methods.” Even when animals— —behavior and neurochemistry are similar, this doesn’t guarantee that the intervening thoughts or feelings are the same” as in humans. For the record, Hauser states that “I don—t believe we will ever know what it is like, exactly, to be a bat, a bird or a bonobo,” yet from his fund of developmental, adaptive, and phylogenetic research, he concludes that all animals have a universal mental tool kit; a basic capacity to recognize objects, count, and navigate; and a divergent set of specialized tools, shaped by environmental pressures, to cope with their own ecological and social needs. Reviewing the evidence for emotions, communication, and the use of rules in animals, he agrees they exist. He concludes, however, that without language “they are Kafka-creatures, organisms with rich thoughts and emotions, but no system for translating what they think into something that they can express to others——and without a sufficiently expressive system, there is no question of is or ought in the animal mind. Although Hauser’s style is dry, it is never dismissive, and what his language lacks in music (altruism becomes “direct fitness costs”), he makes up in verve and excitement. A sober, rationalist take on why elephants weep and why dogs’ lives may be as mysterious to them as to us. (15 b&w illus.)
Pub Date: March 9, 2000
ISBN: 0-8050-5669-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1999
In a whirlwind tour of 13 archaeological sites around the world, Fagan's sleepy, fact-heavy narrative fails to present major scientific discoveries as much more than the sum of their plodding details. Fagan (Quest for the Past, 1994, etc.) has a solid grasp of the complexities and innovations of the discipline's techniques. Nevertheless, his central point, that archaeologists are now using advanced scientific technology and have transformed themselves from ``diggers to time detectives,'' should come as no surprise to anyone with even a mild interest in science. The book is compelling in those sections where Fagan details the highly specific conclusions that archaeologists draw from mundane bits of evidence (bone-fragment analysis reveals the prehistoric Anasazi of the American Southwest practiced cannibalism) and the use of high-technology instruments to explain the mysteries of ancient civilizations (the use of NASA satellites to determine how the Maya fed their large population). But Fagan undermines his stated purpose by discussing several major discoveries that were based on low-technology innovations (the flotation tank that separates out prehistoric seeds from a site on the Euphrates river) and no technology (the interpretation of Mayan glyphs by creative linguists). Nowhere does the book explain why these particular discoveries were profiled, and not all chapters include explanatory illustrations beyond a map. As such, Time Detectives is plagued by a general sense of incoherence, which is heightened by overgeneralizations, absurd arguments (the ``similarity'' between violent conflict among the pre-Columbian Chumash Indians and present-day homicide statistics), and glaringly obvious statements: ``No single genius `invented' agriculture.'' The most serious flaw is Fagan's failure to communicate the excitement of archaeological research. We are left with a detailed but superficial review of the important findings of several modern archaeologists. (8 pages b&w photos, not seen; 26 line drawings)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-671-79385-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
In this eloquent memoir, on the eve of his 80th birthday, Hay (The Bird of Light, 1991) reviews the lessons of a life lived close to nature. Widely recognized as the dean of modern nature writing, Hay divides his retirement between Cape Cod and Maine. Here he cultivates a deepening connection to nature, whether in reading the wild grasses to understand the land that lies beneath or observing in trees the stages of growth that parallel his own. As a child in Manhattan, he was first enchanted with nature in a diorama of timber wolves chasing deer across the moonlit snow at the American Museum of Natural History. There is much to be said for the ``eye of a child,'' Hay recalls, as it conveys a wonder that does not seek to control or define what it sees. Adults miss that wonder when they rush to explain rather than appreciate such mysteries as why pilot whales strand themselves on a beach. He laments the distance that the introduction of technology has opened up between humankind and nature. In the fishing industry, dragnets and radar have encouraged grossly wasteful harvesting that has destroyed entire marine ecosystems. When we repeatedly cut ourselves off from the realities of nature by viewing fish in terms of profit and loss rather than as essential food, we risk ``casting ourselves into a limbo, a darkness of our own making.'' Everywhere around him, Hay sees our desecration of nature, from the death of the Chesapeake Bay to the Dust Bowl of the Great Plains. Both his point and his examples are less than fresh, but he compellingly presents his argument that ``we ignore a deeper reality that the land is better known through respecting its mysteries than putting it on a shopping list.'' This memoir shows no diminution in Hay's genius for expressing a powerful and contagious appreciation of nature.
Pub Date: Jan. 23, 1995
ISBN: 0-8070-8532-4
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Beacon Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1994
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