Why read Doctor Dolittle's Delusion?

Book cover of Doctor Dolittle's Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language

Book description

Dr. Dolittle-and many students of animal communication-are wrong: animals cannot use language. This fascinating book explains why.

Can animals be taught a human language and use it to communicate? Or is human language unique to human beings, just as many complex behaviors of other species are uniquely theirs? This engrossing…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Doctor Dolittle's Delusion as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Chauncey Maher

Author

Bees, birds, frogs, and primates communicate with other members of their species, but this book helped me appreciate that they don’t use or have a language. I am fond of this book because Anderson works through the details of several different cases, taking pains to show how communication among bees, birds, frogs, and primates is impressive but still does not qualify as genuine language.

In doing so, Anderson offers an elegant and unique introduction to the science of linguistics. He makes it easy to see how this science is not only about the features of noises or gestures that creatures…

From Chauncey's list on get you thinking about nonhuman minds.