This post is in response to When Animals Wear Pants: Anthropomorphism and Learning By Boby Ho-Hong Ching Ph.D. I have learned that anthropomorphism is a deeply suspect word, used to defend cruelty to ...

At the start of Elizabeth Hobson’s career as an ecologist, she knew to stick to one rule: Never anthropomorphize the animals you study. For plenty of people, assigning human characteristics to another ...

Autumn begins tomorrow. Suffused already with a seasonal nostalgia, I'm replaying scenes of summer in my head. Among them is sitting in a dark theatre, watching apes clamber across San Francisco's ...

I recently gave a talk to an audience of scientists and university professors during which I referred to the "personality" of dogs and the fact that dogs can experience emotions such as love and ...

People talk to their plants, pray to human-like gods, name their cars, and even dress their pets up in clothing. We have a strong tendency to give nonhuman entities human characteristics (known as ...

In Disney’s new documentary Monkey Kingdom, the animals are characters: The trailer focuses on a macaque dubbed “Maya,” and describes her “dreams” for her son. This approach isn’t surprising—wildlife ...

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