From: Merritt Clifton,  editor,  ANIMAL PEOPLE. <anmlpepl@whidbey.com>
To: <gsa@optonline.net>
Date: Saturday, August 11, 2001 3:07 PM
Subject: The Human Nature of Birds

 From ANIMAL PEOPLE,  December 1993:

The Human Nature of Birds, by Theodore Xenophon Barber.
St. Martins Press (175 Fifth Ave,  New York,  NY 10010),  1993,  226 
pages,  hardcover $19.95 US,  $26.95 in Canada.

	What if we all woke up one day to discover the world around 
us filled with alien intelligences?  Theodore X. Barber has,  and he 
wants this revelation to become commonplace.
	Young children and so-called primitive cultures take for 
granted that all creatures on earth share the same fears and desires, 
that we are all intelligent in our own way--at least they do until 
convinced otherwise by self-styled authorities.  In The Human Nature 
of Birds,  Barber attempts to reverse our beliefs by examining our 
"closest wild neighbors, the birds." From a lifetime's experience in 
psychological research and six years' study of birds in nature and in 
the scientific literature,  he concludes that, "not only are birds 
able to think simple thoughts but they are fundamentally as aware, 
intelligent,  mindful,  emotional and individualistic as ordinary 
people."
	While the readers of ANIMAL PEOPLE probably already suspected 
as much, Barber provides enough experimental and anecdotal evidence 
to convince the most hardened skeptic.  He also cites studies of 
intelligence in other species:  primates,  marine mammals and social 
insects.
	Barber builds upon recent revisions in the way we perceive 
behavior and intelligence,  including Howard Gardner's 1983 theory of 
multiple intelligences and Donald Griffin's theories of nonhuman 
cognition.  As humans are born with specific instincts (for 
communicating through language and walking upright),  so are birds 
born with instincts to communicate in song and to fly.  Yet what we 
say and where we go is based on intelligent thought,  each decision 
reached after weighing known consequences.  This cognitive process, 
contends Barber,  is no different for birds than for humans.
	This is not to say that all species are alike in all 
respects.  Humans in general may be better at using tools than birds 
in general (Barber includes some exceptions to this rule,  too),  but 
birds are in general better navigators than most humans.  On the 
other hand,  musical ability seems to be a talent common to birds, 
humans and some cetaceans.  Birds are probably better musicians than 
most humans,  but they,  too,  learn song by imitation and 
experimentation.
	Ultimately,  The Human Nature of Birds leaves us with a plea 
and a challenge:  a plea to befriend wild birds and protect their 
environment,  a challenge to understand them at least as well as they 
seem to understand us.  The implications are daunting,  for a few 
birds have already learned to communicate in human language.  The 
rewards are as yet unimaginable, but at the very least it might lead 
to the future Barber wistfully envisions when he writes,  "Befriended 
birds can not only be friends to our children but also share their 
concerns and show affection and love for them."
	--Cathy Young Czapla