Sweet Spots

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

By Frans de Waal

–Review by Paula Jones

When I was a young teacher, my third grade class began a science unit on animals. For homework I assigned a simple worksheet aimed at helping students understand the difference between plants and animals. Fifty items were listed. The children were asked to mark each item as either a plant or animal. The word human was included on the list. The next day, a group of parents showed up at school and adamantly informed me that humans were neither plants nor animals and should never have been included on the list. No amount of reasoning could convince them otherwise.

We humans possess a sense of specialness that has consistently led us to deny our membership in the animal kingdom. No one does a better job of helping us come to terms with our own creatureliness than Frans de Waal, Emory University Professor of Psychology and director of the Yerkes National Primate Research Center in Atlanta. In his latest book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?, de Waal examines just how special other animals are, allowing us to take a look at how orangutans, chimpanzees, elephants, crows, orcas, octopuses, and many other animals ‘think.’ His findings and research offer new and exciting understandings of animal behavior and intelligence. read more…

The Fragrance of God

by Vigen Guroian

–Review by Teri Hyrkas

It is summer here in the US and to a gardener the quintessential image of summer is a flower garden gloriously in bloom, or a vegetable plot fully leafed out and setting fruit. For Vigen Guroian, author of The Fragrance of God (2006, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.), Professor of Religious Studies and horticulture enthusiast, the garden is also a sacramental image — one that is filled with the presence, beauty and perfume of God. read more…