Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Review: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Review: Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals


Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals

Posted:

Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals (Paperback)
By Temple Grandin

Understanding animals and "Creating the Best Life for Animals" is the focus of Temple Grandin's new book. As it turns out, we have more in common emotionally with our animal friends than we knew. "All animals and people have the same core emotion systems in the brain." The Core Emotions are: 1. Seeking, 2. Rage, 3.Fear, and 4. Panic; plus three sophisticated, special-purpose ones: 5. Lust (sex drive) 6. Care, and 7. Play.

Temple Grandin, as a person with autism, brings her unique perspective about animal emotions and behavior to her readers. Her tendency to "think in pictures", rather than in words--among other things--aids her ability to "see things from animals point of view". Despite the fact that she is autistic, she has achieved an almost unheard of success in the "real world", academically and within the industry of animal husbandry, as also the lay public. Dr. Grandin has authored or co-authored numerous books, and is also a popular speaker.

"Animals Make Us Human" is not only quite readable to the "lay" audience, but the book is also firmly rooted in scientific research. Her co-author, Catherine Johnson, PhD; is a writer in the field of neuropsychiatry and the brain. The book is well-indexed and extensively footnoted. This is a huge improvement over her earlier book,"Animals in Translation". She sites over one hundred scientific papers (which I find amazing)that help back up the information she bases on her personal intuition and experiences with the animals she works with. Also, she loves them.

I found her previous book, "Animals in Translation", intriguing and readable. Although I found much of her reasoning to be rather speculative, it did give me a lot of food for thought.
...


Pin It Now!

0 comments:

Post a Comment

 
//PART 2