Honorary Chair
Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008
President
Daniel A. Bennett
Honorary President
Don Walsh, Ph.D.
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Honorary Chair Sir Edmund Hillary 1919-2008 |
President Daniel A. Bennett |
Honorary President Don Walsh, Ph.D. |
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PUBLICATIONS
From other Publishers
By Club member Tim Friend
Review by Club staff Jeff Stolzer
The fictional character Doctor Doolittle popularized the idea of talking with animals, but USA Today science writer Tim Friend goes way beyond this fanciful notion to discuss the myriad ways that the earth’s ten million species actually communicate with each other. Friend has journeyed around the world, witnessing firsthand the strange and wonderful ways that animals of all shapes and sizes, from Northern European speckled wood butterflies to finback whales in the Sea of Cortez to ground squirrels in his own backyard, "talk" to each other both verbally and non-verbally. They chatter, sing, dance, and release chemicals, and are remarkably adept at learning complex behaviors and means of self-expression. And Friend shows that animals don't just communicate within their own species—there is "talk" between species as well.
The book strikes a wonderful balance between personal narrative and hard science. Friend interviews experts who are on the cutting edge of animal communication research and easily manages what could be a daunting task: translating complex scientific studies into graspable concepts. Animal Talk also offers a fascinating study of the history of our understanding of animals and how they communicate, going back to the theories of Rene Descartes and Charles Darwin. Friend offers considerable insight into a provocative question: Do all animals on earth, including humans, "speak" a common nonverbal language, an animal Esperanto that has developed through hundreds of years of evolution? An idealistic notion, perhaps, until he reminds us that "just about every creature is obsessed with sex, real estate, who's the boss, and what's for dinner". Humans have more in common with animals than we are sometimes willing to admit.
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