100 books like Doctor Dolittle's Delusion

This book made me think even fruitflies might have minds. Before reading this, I didn’t have a good grip on how we could even start to connect whole-body behaviors with specific genes. I was drawn in by the elegance of the early experiments with fruit flies. I remained mesmerized by the fact that when these investigations began in the early twentieth century, scientists were not sure what a gene was or even whether they were really real.

To understand how genes relate to traits of whole fruit flies, such as eye color and wing shape, scientists had to figure out what genes were simultaneously. This is the kind of book I want to memorize in a way that makes the book somehow part of me, stitched into the fibers of my body, shaping how I think and perceive.

I admire this book’s ingenuity. Bennett wants to understand how human minds differ from other animal minds. To figure this out, he starts from the assumption that language marks the difference. He takes for granted that honeybees communicate with each other, but they don’t use a language.

From there, Bennett asks: what would have to be added to the dances to make them a language of the sort that humans have and use? Adding one ability at a time—such as the ability to “deny” a dance—Bennett asks whether the honeybees yet have language. This strategy is so powerful to me because it allows me to respect how sophisticated honeybees actually are while discovering specific and significant ways in which their dances are limited. 

I think computers don’t think, and this book taught me how to think about that. I admire it in part because it showed me, a professor of philosophy, how to do scientifically informed philosophy. Unlike so many books on the history of thinking about thinking, just the first chapter of this book is clear, accurate, insightful, and exciting. Equally so is Haugeland’s explanation of what a computer is, making an intellectual adventure of theoretical computer science.

Haugeland uses this to make a compelling case for thinking that computers could genuinely reason. And then he does something that we philosophers tend to love; he launches a provocative critique of that claim, contending that computers can’t think because they don’t “give a damn.” Although it’s now three decades old, this is the book to read if you’re curious about artificial intelligence. 

Psychology wasn’t always an empirical science; it became one; this book showed me how. What is an instinct? What is a reflex? What is an idea? How do we know what an animal is thinking? What is learning? What would be good evidence one way or another? Starting in the nineteenth century, Boakes tells the stories of several people who offered compelling answers to those questions, which continue to shape current discussions.

Although the book might appear to be a textbook, I experienced it more like a Netflix series with cliffhangers. Boakes portrays most of the people in the book—such as C. L. Morgan, Ivan Pavlov, and J.B. Watson—as explorers intrigued and perplexed by these questions, following up observations and experiments made by predecessors, raising further questions and challenges that made me want to turn to the next chapter. 

Ever wondered what your cat is saying? I have. And this is the book to explain what Jasmine is trying to tell you.

I loved the charming way that Schötz detailed her elegant studies of feline phonetics and linguistics based partly on recordings of her own five cats. No wonder she received an Ig Nobel Prize, given to "honor achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think."

Octopuses are amazing creatures: eight legs, 3 hearts, and thousands of chromatophores in their skin that enable them to change color and patterns in a fraction of a second. But intelligence?

Years ago, when on a film assignment at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, I met a renowned scientist of animal behavior, the late Dr. Martin Moynihan, who said that cephalopods, the group of ocean animals that includes octopuses and squid, have a complex communication system.

He compared their repertoire of signals to a language with grammar and syntax. I filed that information away in my brain until I discovered Sy Montgomery’s book. During her research, Montgomery actually interacted with several octopuses. They got to know each other, with the animal showing as much curiosity as the author. This is a new view of octopuses for me.

I underestimated fish for a long time. I’ve been amazed by recent evidence that some of them will seemingly recognize themselves in mirrors, make logical inferences, or hunt in teams with octopuses.

I found Balcombe’s book an absorbing tour through this new picture of fish: creatures equipped with minds that help them solve the challenges of their underwater worlds.

All kinds of God’s creatures sense the coming of fall as poetic language teaches young readers multiple animal and people truths. Kids will discover the joy of sensing the clues of nature and the signs that forecast changing seasons. It’s fun to guess which animal will be first to figure out the “mystery.”

The author uses ordinal numbers in a natural way, teaching first, second, third, etc., and teaching counting skills as well. I love the simple illustrations of animals acting the way each animal really acts. It’s a power-packed little book, weaving together a fall joy. And the more a parent reads the book, the more the child learns.

There is something so charming about these two best friends. I remember pouring over their quirky tales as a small child. I loved it so much! Arnold Lobel’s masterpiece is perfectly woven with immersive watercolor pictures and hilarious, yet simple text, that even our littlest readers can grasp. It introduces the concept of personality vividly in the differences between Frog and Toad, and all in all, is one of the best ever for capturing a young imagination.

I was no longer a child when I read this book but I was still enchanted by children’s literature. This book, the first in a series, is a beautiful, touching look at a simple and true friendship, told with a minimal amount of words but packing a maximum of heart.

No rodents here, but there is a frog. I don’t think there’s a person on earth who wouldn’t be touched by this book reflecting the essence of friendship – at least not anyone I would care to know. This is a book for children of all ages.