| 0:37 | Intro. [Recording date: July 27, 2025.] Russ Roberts: Today is July 27th, 2025, and my guest is primatologist and author Christine Webb, of New York University. She's the author of The Arrogant Ape: The Myth of Human Exceptionalism and Why It Matters, which is our topic for today. Christine, welcome to EconTalk. Christine Webb: Thanks so much for having me. |
| 0:56 | Russ Roberts: Why do you call human beings arrogant apes? Christine Webb: So, the arrogant ape is a catchy phrase, I think. There's alliteration there. So, there was a strategic move in making that the title. But, the arrogant ape does not refer to all human beings. It doesn't even refer necessarily to a particular group of human beings, a particular culture, nor does it refer to an individual. For me, the arrogant ape represents a character, and I was inspired by the concept of hubris in Greek tragedy, this sort of arrogance that leads protagonists to their downfall, but they're often unaware that they even hold this arrogant worldview. And so, the arrogant ape is sort of this mask, this character, I think, that many humans inherit or don as a result of a worldview that sometimes they're not even aware that they have. Russ Roberts: And, what price do we pay for that arrogance? Christine Webb: Well, I would argue that arrogance is at the root of the ecological crisis. And, I say 'at the root' and not 'the root of,' because I think the root of the ecological crisis is complicated, and I think like root systems, there's many interlinked causes. But I think human exceptionalism is a big one. Russ Roberts: Why? Christine Webb: I think that when we believe that we are separate from and superior to the rest of life on earth, it leads us to treat other beings and their environments as mere resources or objects to be exploited. It doesn't make us feel connected to them, a part of them. It doesn't make us feel like our well-being depends on the well-being of the rest of the living world. So, placing ourselves outside of that world is part of what allows us to exploit it with abandon. |
| 2:52 | Russ Roberts: I'm open to that possibility that how we treat the world reflects our cultural baggage, inheritance, legacy, and so on. But, what I found most interesting about the book is the impact of our arrogance on our ability to understand the world as opposed to how we treat it. And, I thought you were very persuasive. I'm a bit of a skeptic about your fundamental thesis, but you made some headway with me, and that was because you really chronicle a lot of the different ways that human beings as scientists by putting themselves at the center of things--excuse me, not at the center, at the top of things, the arrogance part--have handicapped our ability to understand the natural world. So, talk about that a little bit. Christine Webb: Yeah, so I suppose that would be a second answer to your question, that another way in which this worldview really comes back to hurt us and haunt us is that it limits our science. And, in the book I talk a lot about doing more ethical science that takes seriously the perspectives and the interests of the beings we're working with and that we're studying, and how that is not only more permissible from an ethical point of view, but therefore leads to richer science. So, one of the examples that I always give has to do with research in comparative cognition, which is essentially where we're comparing the cognitive abilities of species. Typically, these studies look at the cognitive abilities of humans compared to our closest living primate relatives--chimpanzees or bonobos. Those kinds of cognitive comparisons are often biased from the start for a number of reasons. For one, they're typically comparing the abilities of chimpanzees who live in highly restricted man-made environments like labs or zoos. These chimpanzees have often been separated from their biological mothers at birth. They're separated from the group during testing protocols. They're tested on human tasks like plastic puzzles and computer touch screens. The human samples in these studies are typically fully autonomous Western humans. We often call them WEIRD humans. We've heard of this acronym before. WEIRD stands for Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich Democrats. And that's the subset of humankind that figures most prominently in psychology research; but they're highly unrepresentative of humanity on the whole, right? So, the human samples are also highly unrepresentative of humans on the whole, just like the chimpanzee samples are highly unrepresentative of their sort of wild or natural counterparts. And so, the humans--maybe they're children--they come into the lab just for the day. At the end of the experiment, they return to their natural homes, often living with their families. During the study they're often sitting on their parents' lap, right? They're in a very comfortable position. They're tested with other humans, on human tasks, with human materials. And then, sometimes these studies will conclude that humans are superior on a particular cognitive ability or social tendency, like [?] sociality, cooperation, altruism. But of course, the deck is stacked against them, right? This is not a valid comparison, and this is really an unscientific comparison. No one would think it's appropriate to study humans living in that environment and take them as the benchmark for human cognition, let's say in prisons. That would be the equivalent. So, it's striking to me that this is acceptable in science. And then, the question is, 'Okay, well why would we accept this in science?' And, I think the assumption is that those difficult environments, those deprived environments, don't harm the chimpanzees as much as they would the humans. Otherwise, how is this a valid comparison? And, I think that assumption, that environments don't matter as much for other beings as they do for our own development and well-being, is a problematic one, right? And, it's a very human-centric one. Russ Roberts: Yeah, I really like the idea, the choice of task. We do tend to pick tasks that we're really good at. I don't view it as quite as sinister as you might, but I think the right analogy might be if--you know, Americans and Europeans both play football, but they mean something very different by football. So, if you invite a great European football team to play American football, they're going to get crushed. And vice versa: if a European team invited an American football team to play European football, they'd be crushed. And it wouldn't tell you much about anything actually because they're kind of orthogonal to each other. |
| 8:14 | Russ Roberts: And, talk about some examples from the animal world, or animals either that you've witnessed or have read about, and then written about, achieve some impressive cognitive feats. Christine Webb: Yeah. So, one of the most amazing encounters I ever had with another animal happened in the desert, was with a Chacma baboon, a desert-adapted Chacma baboon. His name is Bear. And, he was a juvenile at the time, causing quite the ruckus within his social group, but also amongst the human researchers. He was kind of always challenging us and prodding us and getting our attention, climbing on people. It wasn't the best situation, as you can imagine. And, one day I was in the field with a colleague. There were always two people in the field following a particular troop of baboons. And, things got more intense and scary than they had in previous altercations with Bear. So, Bear and a bunch of other baboons surrounded her[?another baboon?], and they started slapping her legs and vocalizing. And, it was just a very tense moment that could have escalated into something much worse. Fortunately, she wasn't hurt that bad. She just had some scratches on her legs, but it didn't escalate into a full-on aggressive conflict. Anyways, she was terrified. I was terrified. It was a horrible experience. And, we were even questioning after that incident whether we should continue to follow this troop, whether it was safe. So, the next day I'm following the same troop again, but at a much greater distance. And, over the ridge marches Bear and his entourage yet again. And, this time they're making a beeline for me. And, I was in this very awkward position, sort of wobbling down this very steep rocky incline. And I could not easily get out of their way, and I didn't want to have a sudden movement or act scared at all. I wanted to act calm and measured. And so, on the surface, I really did remain calm. But, inside I was panicking. I was really, really scared. And as Bear continued to approach, he came right up to me. He put his hand in between my legs, and he looked up at me, and he bared his teeth into this incredibly forced grimace, this like baring all of his teeth and smiling at me in a way. But, as a primatologist, I know that this kind of bare teeth display is a pacifying gesture. It's something baboons do to appease one another and to ease tensions. Right? And so, in that moment, Bear was trying to show his benign intent. He was signaling to me that, 'Okay, I'm not going to do something bad.' And, it was an incredible moment for me because a baboon had never done this to me. I've never heard of a baboon doing this to other researchers, although it may well have happened before. And, I was really trying to make sense of: 'Okay, what was Bear doing?' He was such a terror always. So, why would he do this? And, the most parsimonious explanation I kept returning to was that Bear knew what I knew. Bear knew that I had witnessed what had happened the day before. And, he was trying to make amends. He was trying to say, 'That's not going to happen today. That's not going to happen to you.' And, scientists have a proper name for this ability to know what I was thinking and feeling, which is theory of mind. It's the capacity to know and understand what others are thinking. And, I learned as a graduate student that humans were unique in their capacity for theory of mind: that we alone can know what another human is thinking or feeling. And not only did Bear show that ability, but he showed it for a member of another species, which was astounding to me. So, that really challenged my assumptions about what separates humans from other animals, and much of what I had been taught as the sort of cognitive markers of human uniqueness. And, I have many examples like that, but it often is from the animals themselves revealing something, showing me something in a moment of trust and surprise. |
| 12:54 | Russ Roberts: So, I really learned a lot from the book about animals; and a small part of the book is about plants also, their capabilities. And, you do challenge the idea in many examples, like the one you just did, that man is the only animal that, fill-in-the-blank. Human beings are the only creatures that, fill-in-the-blank. And maybe at the end we'll talk about some of the ones that crossed my mind, but you didn't write about. But, having said that, I do feel like human beings are the dominant, or at the top, which you are very much an opponent of in this book. And, you point out, just as an example, you say, quote: We're not the biggest, fastest, or strongest. Blue whales, cheetahs, and rhinoceros beetles outdo us there. Nor are we the most numerous or long-lived: ants and sea sponges, not to mention most bacteria and plant species, easily have us beat there, too. Other species outperform humans in countless ways. Just try competing with eagles on vision tests, or dolphins on tests of echolocation. So, we turn to our intellect. It was decided we must have the edge there, too. End of quote. Now, I think we do have the edge on intellect. It's true that we have--what I learned from your book is we've probably grossly underestimated the capabilities of all kinds of species to do all kinds of things that we thought we were really phenomenal at: communication, reasoning, the use of tools, and so on. But, we are really good at this thinking thing. I think we're the only animal that has abstract thought. We're the only animal that writes books like this, like The Arrogant Ape. You couldn't imagine an ape complaining about their place in the scientific or physical world and publishing a book that tried to set the record straight. Only an arrogant ape like yourself would be capable of it. So, to some extent--well, I'll say it differently. You opened my eyes to a lot of things, that makes the book extremely interesting. But, have you gone too far? And, let me just add one more thing. We honor, ourselves--the best among ourselves--often using intellect, for better or for worse. It is the criterion we tend to use to judge each other, at least in 2025. In 1730, it might have been physical strength or physical speed. And, in certain athletic contests, that's still important. But, intellect is how we rank ourselves, more or less. Understanding, of course, there's something foolish about it. Intellect is not one-dimensional. Even IQ [Intelligence Quotient] is not a very good measure of how smart people are. But, do you think you've gone too far? Christine Webb: So, these are great questions, and I appreciate--I mean, this reminds me of conversations that we would have in the classroom a lot. Where there was always at least one student who would have your perspective, and it made for a better conversation every week. And, so, first of all, I think it depends on how we define intellect or intelligence. Right? There's so many different ways of defining intelligence. We talk about emotional quotients now, right? Emotional intelligence. There's spatial intelligence. There's what we would formally call IQ, intelligence quotients. There's creativity, there's abstract reasoning. There's so many different kinds of intelligence. And so, how are we defining intelligence? And maybe on some measures or some definitions of intelligence, humans do excel compared to other species. But I would argue that other species excel on other metrics of intelligence. And, perhaps most fundamentally, the definition of intelligence that many scientists in animal cognition and related fields use is the capacity to solve novel problems in one's environment. And when I think about what we're doing today, there we have a problem in our environment called the climate crisis, and we have solutions, but we're not enacting them. So, we're not actually solving anything. In many cases, we're making it worse. And so, under that very basic definition of intelligence, I have a hard time believing, particularly at the current ecological moment when we are in a fraught relationship with our environment that is begging for alternative solutions and actions, and they're not getting implemented. So, I have a very hard time with the notion that humans are the most intelligent species under that definition alone. But, to your point about taking it too far, one of the mistakes that I made in the beginning of thinking about these ideas was to assume that everything that humans do, other species can do in some way, shape, or form. And, I don't believe that anymore. I am not going to argue that a gorilla is out there contemplating what book he's going to write about and then doing it. Right? I think that humans are unique, and I think that all species are unique, and I think we should honor that uniqueness. And so, I do think it can be taken too far to assume that we're all the same or we're all so similar. I think humans have unique things about them, just like I think dragonflies have unique things about them that make them interesting and worthy of moral concern in their own right. |
| 18:47 | Russ Roberts: Yeah, I think that moral concern is powerful, and I accept the critique that--it's one of the themes of the book, that our treatment of the natural world stems from our feelings of superiority. And, I think that's undeniably true. And, I think your book makes one challenge that presumption. And, I love the idea that all species are unique. I don't think that climate change is an example of our stupidity. I don't think the problem--in fact, you could argue it's the opposite: that the problem with climate change and our impact on the environment through the production of carbon is because of our skill at pulling carbon out of the ground and using it to do extraordinary things that bring great pleasure to people. So, it's hard to give that up. I don't think that's irrational. I think it's an incentive problem of collective action, a problem of politics. Now, I don't know if animals do collectively foolish things, over-consume a resource. I could imagine that they might struggle to look ahead to the future as well. But, I'm curious for your thoughts on that? Christine Webb: Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about this double-edged sword idea that Justin Gregg writes about. There's a book called If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal. He wrote this book that kind of deals with the trade-offs that are involved in human intelligence, which I think is what you're pointing to, that our extractive capabilities are in some ways a sign of our superior intelligence, right? And, I don't completely disagree with that, but I would also agree that a sign of intelligence would be the ability to live in sustainable relation with the rest of nature. And, we're not doing that, right? So, I think that there are trade-offs to all different forms of intelligence. There's a tendency in evolutionary biology to confound evolutionary success with ecological dominance. So, when people talk about humans being the most evolutionarily successful species on earth because they've managed to spread all over the earth and inhabit all of these different environments, that's one way of defining evolutionary success for sure. But, another way of defining evolutionary success, which Robin Wall Kimmerer does in her work and her writing on mosses, would be the ability to sustain thriving interspecies communities. I mean, mosses have been around for hundreds of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years compared to humans' 200,000. And so, what if we measured evolutionary success, or defined evolutionary success, not as ecological dominance but as sustainability, as longevity over many, many generations. And then, we would maybe consider that ability to live in balance with those around us a measure of evolutionary success. Russ Roberts: We might be in trouble on that, our longevity. This is where we are, I think, much more capable of destroying ourselves than most species are. I think, by the way--the 'we've spread to every corner of the globe' and so on--I think the hubris of the human race, the species, is that we've figured out stuff we didn't know before. And that's an aspect of our success that I think other species can't match. Now, it's not a competition. The whole thing is kind of foolish. But, the fact that human beings live somewhat comfortably around the center of the earth in the state of nature and not so well at the poles is something we've overcome. We can live in the poles. It's not easy, but we're good at that. It's true that most animals are faster than humans, but we've figured out a way to fly faster and move faster with cars, and airplanes, and rockets. I mean, I think one of the most remarkable parts of the human experience is its dynamism; and other species, as far as I know, don't do that. For what it's worth, I'm not going to--again, I don't think there's this right to eat them. I'm a meat eater. I'm not proud of it. I think it's a problematic viewpoint, I mean a problematic lifestyle. But, I think the ability of humans to make progress is something to celebrate. But, it certainly doesn't give us the right to abuse animals or the environment. Christine Webb: I think, yeah, we certainly agree that we should not use those--whatever--metrics that we're using to call progress, as justification for exploitation. But, I would just say that, I would add that in gaining a certain kind of knowledge, do we lose another kind of knowledge? So, for instance, we might, I don't know, be good at, in let's say countries like the United States, developing technologies like cars, and airplanes, and rockets. But, what kind of knowledge have we lost? I mean, there's these stats about how kids and adults can recognize hundreds of corporate logos, but they can't tell you 10 species living in their local community? I mean, I think that that in and of itself, that's a form of sophisticated knowledge that's not in any way less important, or interesting, or sophisticated. It is a different form of knowledge. But, I think, yes, we might have gained a lot of knowledge, but we've also lost certain kinds of knowledge. And, I think that a lot of that knowledge is forever lost. Some of that knowledge is being protected and modeled by certain human communities who are still alive today, which is--coming back to this arrogant ape: who is the arrogant ape? I don't think it's all of humankind, nor do I think it's even a particular culture necessarily. I think it's kind of this way of acting, and moving, and being in the world, and that it's not necessarily true that an individual is an arrogant ape for their entire lives. People change. So, yeah, just to make the point that the arrogant ape is not all of humankind; and I think it's really important to acknowledge that, because of course, those humans who are the most at risk of the worst consequences of the ecological crisis are often the ones who are the least responsible for causing it in the first place. And so, there's just so much diverse experience across humans on many of the things we're talking about. |
| 26:50 | Russ Roberts: Yeah. I don't think knowledge of the natural world is lost. I think it's not accessed by most, by many Western wealthy people. They are estranged--we are estranged--from nature to a large extent. But I don't think that knowledge is lost. And I think, to a large extent--I mean, it's an interesting question; you might disagree with me--but I think a lot of the arrogance of--well, just call it Western civilization for now, the arrogance of Western civilization--helped create many of the things that we understand about the world, including medicine, including science. And, you could argue there's a trade-off: that we would be better off living more in harmony with nature without some of the things we've discovered through the relentless applications, say, of the scientific method. I think about Sebastian Junger's book, Tribe. On this program he talked about how, in colonial American times, people who were kidnapped by Native Americans often didn't want to come home after a while because they found themselves having a more communal life that they valued, a life closer to nature, and they found many rewards to a less material lifestyle. And, I think that's always been true in human experience. There's a certain romance about that, but some of that romance is well-earned. We'll talk maybe a little later about the feeling of belonging, and certainly less advanced civilizations: peoples, nations, have compensation in the fact--less advanced, meaning materially less advanced--are often more advanced in their connection to the earth or their connection to each other. And so, I don't want to minimize that. At the same time, I wouldn't want to romanticize some of the challenges of what we might call indigenous life, which is often nasty, brutish, and short, and hard, very hard, whereas-- Christine Webb: Because of the conditions in which they live, or because of ethnic and racial oppression-- Russ Roberts: No, the conditions in which they live. The challenges of getting enough calories to live beyond the age of five if you're a child, to survive childbirth if you're a woman, to repair yourself after an accident. Things that are effortlessly done in Western civilization and modern societies. I think protein--collecting enough protein to get through the day, the week, the month, and the year--is not a small thing through most of human history. So, that we have overcome that through the application of our intellectual faculties is not a small thing. And, you could argue there's trade-offs, meaning we lost something. And, I'm open to that. That's all I'm saying. Christine Webb: Right. And then, also there's this assumption that somehow these things that we've gained are applying to all humans equally, where there's food shortages, there's hunger crises in many parts of the world, including, I mean, in the United States where many of these advancements took place in the first place. So, I think the inequitable access in and of itself is a sign that, oh, maybe these aren't as much of a--I don't want to call it--you're not calling it a panacea, but they're not as much of solutions or advancements as we thought they were if it's only helping a certain subset of the population at the expense maybe of others. Russ Roberts: Well, I don't think that's true historically. It might be true to any one moment in time. I think the last 250 years are a rather extraordinary improvement in living standards in almost every part of the world. There are exceptions, and certainly there's inequality. |
| 31:25 | Russ Roberts: But, let's shift gears; and come back to this if you want. But, is there inequality in the chimpanzee community and in the baboon community? Tell me what, in terms of the social structure, what do we know about that, and how do primatologists think about it? Christine Webb: There are absolutely hierarchies within baboon, chimpanzee, and many other primate communities. I think it's really interesting that--I feel like we tend to have these two views of nature and therefore of humans. We're either fundamentally competitive, and hierarchical, and conflict-ridden, driven; or we are fundamentally cooperative, and peaceful, and tolerant. And, yeah, you see headlines all the time that will emphasize one of these stories over the other. Whereas in reality, I think most scientists who I know would agree that nature is always an interplay between conflict, and hierarchy, and cooperation. In fact, when I learned about dominance hierarchies in chimpanzees and baboons, I learned that they were a way of preventing conflicts because they help allocate the distribution of resources. You know that guy's going to get first dibs, and so you don't have to get into a fight with him every time. So, yeah, in some ways these sort of hierarchical arrangements can be a way of preventing conflicts in the first place. So, at the same time, I think it's really important to emphasize that conflict and cooperation kind of go hand in hand. Right? They're not, like, two different stories. They're very much part of the same story. And there's many different examples of that. Just to give one before I make a broader point is that in chimpanzees who I've worked with, it's often the most socially tense moments that facilitate cooperative acts. So, it's those tense moments that necessitate cooperative acts like resource sharing and reassuring one another. And then, those individuals who form relationships that are based on some kind of friendliness, tolerance, reciprocity--those relationships allow those individuals to out-compete others. And so, again, it's, like, where do you stop? They're always entangled, cooperation and competition. But, I just came across this study yesterday actually, an amazing study done in 2020, I believe, published in 2020, that looked at all of the major journals in ecology and just did this kind of lexical analysis for, okay, what are they focused on? Are they more focused on competition and predation, or on cooperation and mutualism? And despite the fact that competition, cooperation, predation, and mutualism, these are equally abundant in nature, right? It's not that one outshines the other. But, I think it was in the journal Ecology, almost two-thirds of the time competition was mentioned, and less than 2% of the time the word cooperation, or the theme of cooperation, was mentioned. And, I think that was one of the most pronounced examples, but this was true over many of the main journals of this field. That, even though these are equally important forces in evolution, we tend to focus on the competition, the dominance, mastery, hierarchical narrative. And part of my work, and that of my mentors, has been to focus on the other side of the story too, just to even out this imbalance. Not to say it's all that, not to say it's all pretty and cooperative, but to balance out the narrative. Russ Roberts: Yeah. I'm not sure what we learn from this, but NFL [National Football League] football is more popular than Ultimate Frisbee, or less competitive forms of Frisbee--that's even a better example. Ultimate Frisbee is competitive, but it's less violent, I guess. So, I guess that's another reason it struggles to attract people's attention. We're not just the arrogant ape: we're a competitive, violent ape. So, it doesn't surprise me that a lot of scientists find that more appealing. |
| 36:11 | Russ Roberts: I think one of the most powerful things about your book I think I enjoyed the most and found most thought-provoking--and I want you to elaborate on it--is what I would call the inner life of animals. You talked about a theory of mind of Bear, the--is he a baboon? Russ Roberts: But, I think through most of human history when we looked at--we've talked a lot about primates, so I want to move away from primates. Most of human history--we look at dogs, and cats, pets, cows, sheep, domesticated animals of various kinds, and then animals in the wild, wolves, coyotes, birds--it's hard for us to imagine that they imagine anything. And, I think that's a shortcoming on our part. And I thought your book did a very provocative job of pointing out that, just, for example, birds--which we think of as being stupid because their brains are tiny, pea-shaped, walnut-sized, they're small--and that that's a misunderstanding. And, I think of their capabilities and maybe their inner life, which we have limited access to, as you point out many times in the book. But I think what's powerful is that, I think through most of human history we thought of animals as instinctual, and us--humans--having agency. The idea of an animal playing. The idea of an animal enjoying something. The idea of an animal planning something. The idea of a bird communicating with a human and doing something more than just staying alive was seen as a form of anthropomorphism--help me out. Christine Webb: Anthropomorphism. Russ Roberts: That's the word, anthropomorphism. And, your book makes the case: there's a lot of evidence that they have some--we don't have access to it directly--but some kind of inner life. So, talk about that. You can talk about Len Howard if you want, which is an amazing story. I did not know about her. Or other examples from the animal kingdom that open your eyes, open one's eyes. Christine Webb: Yeah. I will start with the story of Len Howard and then jump into some of your questions. So, Len Howard, she was a musician and also wanted to study birds. I think maybe had some formal training in studying birds, but I'm actually not quite sure about that. But she knew that she wanted to study birds, and she knew that she wanted to understand them in a different way than the kind of governing scientific paradigm at the time, which was to study birds in captive settings, often when they're kind of terrified of humans--understandably--and see what they were capable of. And so, Len, trying to move away from that paradigm, moved into this place called Bird Cottage--it was in the countryside of England--where she opened her doors and windows to the many different kinds of birds who lived in the area; and over many, many years formed a trusting relationship with them. I mean, there's amazing photographs. She has this book called Birds As Individuals. There are amazing photographs that really show how trusting this relationship with the birds is. They're hiding in her hair and perched on her fingers as she's writing on the typewriter. And, through this trusting relationship, she came to know them as individuals, and she came to understand their mental lives, which I believe is also how humans come to understand other individuals' mental lives. It's through relationship. It's through getting to know them, right? C.S. Lewis has this famous quote: 'You can't study men. You can only get to know them.' And that's what Len Howard did with the birds. She got to know them. And, her book is filled with insights about their interior worlds that really surprised me. So, one is their capacity for teaching, so that when fledglings are about to leave the nest and don't really know about glass or other harmful things in the environment, how mothers will teach their fledglings about glass by taking a worm or a bit of food on one side of the glass so that the fledglings will peck on it, and then moving to the other side so that they're attracted to the food, and then going back to the glass so that they try to get it but realize the glass is there, so they learn that glass is there, as opposed to just flying into it one day. And, it was only through careful observation of these birds, as individuals, that she understood their capacity for teaching, which is another one of these cognitive rubicons that we thought separated humans from other forms of life. And so, I love this example because it emphasizes how the way that we study other animals is paramount to what we can learn about their interior worlds. And, coming back to this point about being in relationship with others, I think as a scientist you're often trained to sort of separate yourself from your study systems, to not form relationships with the individual animals that you study. But, in some ways, that lack of relationship I think can actually introduce more noise into the data. Right? If you are studying an individual who is terrified of you, how much are you really going to learn about their emotional and cognitive worlds? Not very much. So, I think--and I've written a lot about this not just in the book but also in my sort of scientific life as a primatologist--the importance of empathy, and forming relationships, and getting into a trusting relationship. Barbara Smuts, who is a mentor and friend of mine, she has written beautifully about this and her experiences of working with baboons. And, only really by getting to know them as individuals, through relationship, is that how she came to understand their rich mental worlds. And just to shift gears slightly, I think there is this-- coming back to your assumption or your point that many people assume that dogs, and cats, and birds, that they're not imagining or they're not planning. And, where did that assumption come from in the first place is a really interesting one, historically. I think a lot of it is maintained today by this presumption of unknowability. Like, we can never really know with absolute certainty what's going on in the mind of a dog, or a baboon, or a robin. And while that might be true, that's equally true of us right now. I can't know with certainty what's going on in your mind, even though you have human language to describe your interior states. That's not as reliable as we like to think. I think language is just another behavior. It's just another source of information. But, your body language, your pupil dilation, our history, our relation--all of those things are much, I think, more reliable indicators of your interior world. Russ Roberts: Well, you might struggle to know my interior world, but you have to also remember, I struggle. Christine Webb: I love that. Yeah. Russ Roberts: If you said, 'What are you thinking right now?' I could put words on it. I might be fooling you intentionally. More likely I'm unconsciously fooling myself. But, I think you're onto something, in the pet world in particular. We want so much to communicate with our pets, and they don't talk. And, it's a very frustrating thing. And so, I guess it is somewhat natural, again, through most of history, but I think it's changed in the last 40 years even, to assume they're not thinking anything. They're not talking, so they're not thinking anything. But, they have emotion in their eyes or appear to. Again, we don't know, but they certainly act as if they have an inner life that is, like you say, it's hidden from us, from our fellow human beings. It's not surprising it's not revealed very accurately in our animal friends. But, it would be absurd to go to the other extreme and say, 'Well, they're just automatons. They're just the product of instinct, and they don't have any inner life at all. They're just machines.' Christine Webb: Right. Yeah, precisely. And, I think we could just as easily say that a human is acting as if they feel an emotion, but we don't normally say that. We normally assume that. Russ Roberts: I worry about it. I do worry about it. Christine Webb: Right. Well, yeah; and I love this point that we don't even know our own subjective selves. I mean, I don't know, our own consciousness--my experience of blue the same yesterday as it was today? It's all a mystery. And we should honor that. And that doesn't mean we just throw our arms up in the air and say, 'Okay, well, we can't really know,' but we do the best that we can with the sources of information that we do have. And, in the relationships where we really get to know someone, then those sources of evidence become more and more apparent, and we don't need to say, 'Okay, they're acting as if they feel sad.' We just can say with confidence, 'They're sad.' And, there's always the possibility that we're wrong. But-- Russ Roberts: Sure, and that's true, again, of our fellow human beings. |
| 46:27 | Russ Roberts: But, I think at the other extreme, I happen to be sympathetic to the view that we have free will while being open to the possibility that we don't. But, certainly my reading, which no dog has ever suffered through, of various tractates, treatises, and books on the question of whether human beings have free will has pushed me in a particular direction. And, I may be living in a total delusion that an animal will never have to worry about because they have not read all the propaganda on one side or the other, whichever side you're sympathetic to. Christine Webb: Yeah. That point reminds me of this whole idea of, okay, you know, so much of what humans are doing--like, we're on autopilot so much of the time, right? So, much is happening beneath our conscious awareness. So, even if we, like, wanted to argue that other animals, other forms of life, were less conscious than humans--which I don't think that's a sound evolutionary argument necessarily, or one that I believe. But, even if we wanted to say, it's like, 'Okay, so their consciousness is more limited,' but that also might mean that their subconscious world is more limited, and maybe they're living actually more in their conscious, and we're the ones who are just tip of the iceberg, and then everything's beneath the surface. Like, in either case, you could sort of question this notion of human superiority--right?--that maybe a lot of it is just happening beneath the surface, and we have no idea, no control over it whatsoever. Russ Roberts: When we think of the meditative or mindfulness ideal of be here now, I suspect animals are better at that than we are. I don't think they're very good at planning. I don't think--be interested if you disagree--but I don't think they know they're going to die. And, we are burdened by that in intense ways. They don't have a culture that discusses death, as far as I know, or that communicates the idea of death. So, those birds playing in Len Howard's hair or on her keyboard, fingers maybe were just enjoying themselves, not worrying about the fact that winter is coming and they're going to have a tough time, or a bunch of them are going to die, or their fledglings are never going to--a bunch of them by definition don't make it, almost for sure. And, they just can be birds. Christine Webb: Yeah, I mean, I think this idea of planning or having a sense of future, I do think other animals are certainly capable of that. When you look at birds who are caching food for the winter coming--and they're making plans, they're storing them in thousands of separate locations that they know that they'll be able to access. Dan Gilbert in his book, Stumbling on Happiness, he talks about this thing called 'The Sentence,' which you said before: 'The human is the only animal that'--and he completes that sentence with 'has a sense of the future.' But, he also says in that same part of the book that every scientist tries to say this, but often they're proven wrong later in their career or something like that. And I think that there has been pretty good evidence that animals can plan and have a sense of the future. This question about death is a really interesting one. It's the basis of what's called terror management theory, which is that because humans have a sense of their own mortality that infuses so much of their lives and causes sort of angst and distress, and also reminds them of their own animality--like, their own animal bodies and maybe their inability to transcend that. So, there's a lot of interesting work on the relationship between terror management theory and humans seeing themselves as animals, or not. I wonder, in these conversations--so I don't think humans have a unified understanding of death. I think that we have absolutely no--and does every human know that they're going to die? What does that even mean? Some people think that they're going to an afterlife, so is that actually dying? Some people believe--I don't really understand. I don't understand this concept of death. So, I sort of come back to this point of, I'm not sure that we have a solid grasp on this either. And, therefore to deny it to other animals, who I think are also--they do show signs that they're trying to survive, right? They're not running into the jaws of predators out there. I mean, they're acting as if they understand and have a will to live. So, I'm not prepared to deny them that capacity. Maybe--it sounds like you are. |
| 51:42 | Russ Roberts: Well, I would just say one thing, that--I don't think I've ever heard anyone make this observation, but it seems embarrassingly true. It's very commonly said that every person is going to die. And, people say this as if it's an empirical fact. They say, 'Well, everybody dies.' And yet, there's about 10 billion people on this planet who are alive and have yet to die. And, the presumption that they will die is, I think, a good one, but it's not a closed, open-and-shut case that everybody who is alive today is going to eventually die. We say that because we believe intellectually in mortality, but as an empirical matter, it is not an established fact. But, people treat it like it's a fact, like the earth revolves around the sun. It's not of the same kind. But, having said that, I want to come back to your point about animals', creatures' understanding of their own mortality, and their ability to plan, and make a separate point that I'd like to hear your reaction to. So, the squirrel, the bird, many creatures cache food for hard times. So, do human beings, obviously; they save for a quote, "rainy day." And, I think historically, again, in the scientific literature, when you ask, well, why does a bird cache food? Why does a squirrel cache food? The answer has always been: instinct. Which I have always believed is a way of saying we don't know. In other words, I don't think there's a genetic infallibility, a genetic determinism that teaches--not teaches--that coerces animals of that kind to cache, to hide food for the winter. I don't think we really understand that very well. I think we have a better understanding, perhaps, of some of the more extraordinary animal feats, but still not very good. The ability of an animal, of a bird to return from a multi-thousand-mile journey to the place it came from, or a salmon to return to its spawning bed, I think we, quote, "understand it." We would say it's instinct, and then we would say, 'Yeah, it has something to do with appreciation for magnetic fields.' But, it's a really terrible explanation. It's not a good explanation. But, we know they don't have manuals, and we know they aren't taught in school, so we fall back and say it's instinct. But, that to me is just a technical way of saying we don't understand it. Maybe we will. But I don't think it's proof that they foresee things. But, maybe I'm wrong. Christine Webb: I think it's interesting that when you hear an explanation that is based on instinct, that that sort of leads you, or you interpret that, as more like a humble posture in a way. It's like, 'Well, we just don't know.' I find that really interesting. I haven't heard that before. When I hear the word 'instinct,' I think of automata. I think of: they have no choice in the matter, how they're doing this. So, I don't take it as, we don't know. I take it as, we know, and it's not more complicated than pre-programmed genetics. And, I think that's a shame. I would much prefer the idea of looking at: Okay, well, we call it instinct just because we don't actually have a better explanation yet. But, I also think what's interesting is, like, that any behavior can be explained at different levels of analysis, and we're so quick sometimes to focus on the genetic or the molecular one. Right? Like, when I'm typing on my computer, that can be reduced to a very physical, anatomical, neurons-firing-causing-this-muscle-to-do-that explanation. But, that is one explanation for a phenomenon that is far more layered and complex. Right? Just because you can explain it there doesn't mean that I'm not conscious of doing it, or that I'm not having will, or intention, or planning, or a desire. So, I think that's really important, too, in our ways of studying other animals, that, like, just because something can be explained at one level of analysis doesn't preclude these other possibilities that maybe we just don't know yet, or don't fully understand yet, from being important explanations that don't negate the other more, let's say, physical or biological explanations. But they are additional layers explaining the same behavior or phenomenon. |
| 57:08 | Russ Roberts: I say this thing about instinct that means we don't understand it because I don't think we've established the mechanisms by which those instincts get fulfilled. I mean, have--I'd say it a different way, maybe. 'Instinct' maybe is not the right word. I think human beings are hardwired to acquire language. They might not. I mean, a child isolated for its childhood and then at 18 plopped into society, I don't think could speak. But, built into the software of our humanity is that when people talk to us, we imitate them and we learn how to speak. Which is extraordinary, by the way. It never ceases to amaze me, because it doesn't matter where you grow up, you're going to learn a different language in at least a few hundred different places depending on where you're born, without your choice. And, yet the software is really flexible. I mean, that's an astounding thing that amazes me. But, the idea that a bird could fly thousands of miles, and by the way, endure all kinds of very unpleasant situations. There was that remarkable experiment where they took a bunch of birds--I forget what species it was. I think it was in Japan. They took them a few thousand miles away. Half of them they didn't do it, that was the control group. They all came back. They all came back to the same apartment building or the same lab in wherever it was in Japan. The other six, or whatever number it was, they did a little surgery and they took out a little piece of iron that is in the brain of the bird. And, of those six--I don't know if this is exactly right, I don't know if I have the numbers right--but five of them were never seen again. And the sixth somehow--in my tragicomic version of it--comes home with tattered clothes, missing an ear: birds don't have ears--like Van Gogh. And, after an unimaginable amount of time. It's, like, whatever the journey was, it was like three years later, this bird shows up, like, 'Yeah, I made it.' But, they don't have any idea how, except because the other five didn't make it, they understood--whatever that means, 'understood'--the scientists understood that the bird somehow, we don't know how, used the electromagnetic field of the earth, and the magnetic--excuse me, the magnetic field of the earth. And, that little piece of metal helps them somehow navigate. I mean, again, it's so magical. It's absurd to say, 'Oh, well, it turns out we know: they just use the magnetic field of the earth.' That's not that helpful. Christine Webb: Right. That's all it is. Yeah, right. No, I mean, it's a magical explanation in its own. And then, I would add onto that, that just because they do that doesn't mean that they're not conscious, or making plans, or are cognitive--like, instinct [?]people mindless. It doesn't mean that it's necessarily mindless. Aspects of it can be instinctive, aspects of it can be minded. They're not always so either/or. Russ Roberts: Yeah, I agree. |
| 1:00:49 | Russ Roberts: You write, quote: We talk about our oceans, our planet, but could we reframe this possessive language to instead reflect that shared sense of belonging to a place that co-constitutes our very being? Perhaps then we'd no longer be quite so afraid of death. End of quote. That's a--I think of it a little bit differently, but certainly our connection to the earth is some solace, potentially, in the face of mortality. Talk about that and about the role of awe in your work. Christine Webb: So, I think there's a lot to say here, but one way of approaching it is just through my own experience of unlearning human exceptionalism and how that actually did make me less afraid of death. And, it's not that I don't fear it, but that there is something about seeing humans as part of a bigger picture and a bigger story. And also, I think in the particular chapter you're quoting from, I talk a lot about the myth of individualism. Right? This idea that we are somehow these biological individuals, when most of our body actually is composed of viruses and bacteria, members of other species. That there's just so much that sort of challenges this idea that, okay, we are individual humans, and we are not these multi-species collectives in and of ourselves. And so, when we die, part of that multi-species collective lives on, or feeds other forms of life. And so, it's like seeing yourself as a part of a bigger, grander earthly narrative, I think helps you to see that the end of--it might be the end of you, but you were never just you in the first place. If that makes sense? And, I do think this is related to experiences of awe. So, there's been more and more research on awe in recent years. And in some ways, I don't think that that is a total coincidence. I think we need more awe now than ever. And, awe is described as this emotional experience of vastness that requires accommodation to understand this vastness. So, a lot of people experience awe when they're in nature. I've experienced it. I was charged by a male silverback gorilla, and it was one of the most terrifying moments of my life. I thought I was going to die. And, here's this gorilla who is five times my size, angry because we had disturbed his peaceful resting time. And, I felt very small, and very not-in-control of the situation, and very terrified. But, afterwards, and still today, reflect on that moment as a moment of awe and wonder at just how this being held so much power over me and could completely control the situation. It was really incredible. And I think awe, and humility, as kind of the antidote to the arrogance that the arrogant ape maybe doesn't see he has. But, awe and humility are very much related. So, there's been a lot of research on how awe leads to a greater sense of humility and also pro-social behaviors. So, when people experience awe, they experience this sort of diminishment of the self and the self-concept that then allows them to be more interested in others and in helping others. And I think that those others need not be human. Others, they could be other forms of life, too. So I do--yeah--I think this notion of belonging and awe, and again, I think the benefits of awe in terms of how it leads us to treat others has been mostly focused on human-to-human relationships. But, I do think those experiences absolutely influence how we treat and perceive the rest of nature as well. Russ Roberts: Religion used to play that role in Western society--the diminishment, the sense of belonging, or both, part of that. And of course, for people who are religious today, it still does play that role. But, I think for people who are not, or who that doesn't speak to--and nature has always been an alternative to religion in some dimension. But, the ability--I don't have any problem, I would just say it this way and I'll let you close this out: I'm in awe of it all. The fact that human beings can say anything at all about the origin of the universe is awe-some. That we have language, that we have abstract thought, that we have calculus--even cell phones, which I have mixed feelings about, are kind of remarkable. And, your book, or many books, that somehow give me the ability to get inside your head, at least as best as you can communicate it, as best as you think you know yourself, with all the struggles we talked about earlier of self-awareness. And, everything else: the octopus, and the bird that comes home, and the salmon that comes home, and the social gatherings of creatures, and beehives, and ants. They're all awesome to me. Christine Webb: Yeah; no; I can relate to that. One of the things that is awe-inspiring to me is just New York City. It's such a human-dominated space; and environmentally we--but it is awesome, right? It is overpowering and sort of requires a lot of accommodation to just appreciate that sense of vastness. But, I think that there's also something really powerful about what we don't know. Right? And so, yes, we can sort of understand the origins of the universe, but, like, what about before that? That is what gives me awe: those question marks and the concept of infinity. That is where--for me, awe is also, it can be this uncomfortable feeling. It's also origin of the word 'awful.' It's not just awesome. It's also awful and terrifying. And, yeah, maybe a good way of closing out that sort of relates to that is the importance of not knowing in terms of how we navigate ecological crisis. Because in my classroom, a lot of the conversations would end on this kind of despairing note: What are we going to do? It seems like we're moving in a worse direction every day. And, I'd like to share this important distinction between hope and optimism, because I think of optimism as more probabilistic Like pessimism: It sort of seems to know the odds. It predicts a better future is likely. Or, a worse future is likely in the case of pessimism. And, I would say that if I had to choose between these two options, I would be more pessimistic about the path forward, given where we are and where it seems things are headed. But, instead of that, I tend towards hope because hope is actually about not knowing. And, I think hope is more aligned with awe and with humility because it actually is not a probabilistic estimate. It's just saying there's a chance, right? It's coming back to this idea of mortality and the billions of humans that we assume are going to die. There's always a chance that we won't, right? And so, but, and it's not that dire in my mind, the odds. But it's not about making odds. It's just about recognizing that we don't know everything and that anything is possible in some ways. So, yeah, that is hopefully a hopeful message to close out on: that, even if you're not optimistic, you can still be hopeful. And, that I think is aligned with a humble outlook. Russ Roberts: My guest today has been Christine Webb. Her book is The Arrogant Ape. Christine, thanks for being part of EconTalk. Christine Webb: Thank you so much. |
Are humans the most intelligent species, or just the most arrogant? NYU primatologist Christine Webb, author of The Arrogant Ape, believes that human exceptionalism is a myth that does more harm than good. Listen as she speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about how research has skewed our understanding of animals' capabilities, the surprising inner lives of animals, and how a shift from dominance toward connection with the larger living world can help humanity.