Clever as a Fox: Animal Intelligence and What It Can Teach Us about Ourselves

"Clever As A Fox," Sonja Yoerg, VA, Bloomsbury, 2001 ISBN 1-58234-115-X, HC, 208 pg. plus 14 pg. Bibio., 6 pg. Index. 9 1/2" x 6 1/4" Dr.Yoerg (PhD in bio-psych., Berkeley) has researched, written & lectured on behavioral dynamics of animals. The book's title is apropos to it's contents as she discourses in well-executed prose -- the "Chain of Being" relative to the 'scala naturae' of Man's perceived cognitive abilities of animals in great depth -- covering species we've come to know and love the best: dogs, cats, birds, pigs, but also frogs, fish, foxes, finches, and the mammal "Flipper" to mention a few. The author has wonderful command of writing, using those splendid explanatives, idioms and speach idiosyncrasies which can make mundane observations exciting & memorable, and it is testimony to the insight she has into the instinct, intelligience & learning patterns of animals both within their clan, species and between species, & the treatise is sprinkled with worthy commentaries on anthropomorphism & historical perspectives on the ever-changing study of the domain of animal behavior & cognition as it may apply to humans. It is a pleasant read.

I purchased Ms. Yoerg's book in San Diego (her hometown). Little did I know that I bought a signed copy! I felt the book was very interesting, and written with great wit. Ms. Yoerg knows her stuff, and has done extensive research in her field. I found her animal/insect comparisions informative, and quite funny (you'll know what I mean when you read about Portia, the spider). I am currently an undergraduate, and will be using her book for some of my research. I would highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a good overview of animal behavior and intelligence.

Yoerg's intellectual history of the study of animal intelligence is informative and witty. She's tough on everyone--from behaviorists to cognitive science types to animal rights kooks--because she seems to want more than pat answers to the questions of who's smart and who isn't. There are plenty of animal stories for readers who enjoy them (who doesn't?) and plenty of meaty issues for those who like a intellectual battles. Altogether a readable, clever book.

In this accessible and smart book, Sonja Yoerg writes that as a child in Vermont she "spent a lot of time lying on the rooty ground under shady trees, looking up through the overlapping layers of impossible green," observing bugs and plants, watching and waiting with an eagle eye, preoccupied during summers by the thrilling specifics of the natural world, until fall, when "all would flame out in red, yellow, orange, take the dive of Newton's apple, and contribute to the leaf pile goal line for touch football." Even as a kid she had the instincts of a scientist - and likely played touch football, too. She brings this brainy, sturdy, and playful approach to this book, too. She is self-aware but not self-absorbed. It's a pleasure. This is not a polemic either in support of or against animal rights. It is a serious conversation regarding the yardsticks used to define and then assess animal intelligence. Dr. Yoerg is especially interested in the origins and the meaning of the persistent human urge to order the animal world. What is animal intelligence?, she asks, and then, even more importantly, Why has it been so important to our society to measure it? She asserts that the ancient (and contemporary) urge to design a hierarchy of intelligence ( usually God first, man next, then apes, and so on) says more about us than about the animals that behavioral and biological research has (often foolishly) refused to observe in context, but instead has sent through mazes, tested in boxes, and hypothesized in a variety of ways over time - for a variety of reasons. Sometimes deeply-held beliefs are turned on their ear. For example it is widely assumed that sheep flocks respond to herding dogs, who in turn are responding to the rancher's whistle. But Gujarti shepherds in India "whistle just like their British counterparts" while the dogs often sleep. The sheep respond to the shepherd's whistle. The dogs protect the flocks from predators - but the sheep "herd" themselves.Dr. Yoerg supplies the reader with some surprising tidbits. "During the Middle Ages, all sorts of creatures were convicted of criminal behavior and tried by the courts," and later, "In 1386 a sow was convicted of the murder of a child and was led to the public execution dressed in man's clothes." (pp. 71-2) Her point is that human opinions regarding the animal world have been a highly mutable thing - subject to religion, politics, economics, and emotion.Dr. Yoerg offers a reasonably detailed historic overview of this contentious field - from Aristotle to the middle ages to Darwin, the behaviorists, the Germans and Gestalt theory as advanced by Wolfgang Kohler, cognitive psychology, and many more. In addition, rather than being a collection of 'things you might not have known about animals,' it is an orderly and thoughtful discussion.There is sly humor (why doesn't a dog use a mirror to right an inside-out ear?) and wealth of interesting information here - why some animals (the rat, the cr