Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

by Frans de Waal

The backward logic of these philosophers reminded me of a creationist I once saw peel a banana on television while explaining that this fruit is curved in such a way that it conveniently angles toward the human mouth when we hold it in our hand. It also fits perfectly in our mouth. Obviously, he felt that God had given the banana its human-friendly shape, while forgetting that he was holding a domesticated fruit, cultivated for human consumption.

Being notorious escape artists, orangs may dismantle their cage so patiently, from day to day and week to week, while keeping dislodged screws and bolts out of sight, that keepers fail to notice what they are doing until it’s too late. In contrast, until recently all we knew about wild orangs was that they sometimes scratched their butt with a stick or held a leafy branch over their head during rain.