Descartes famously wrote, “Cogito, ergo sum”—“I think, therefore I am.” Can we legitimately rewrite his statement to declare, “Animals think, therefore they are”? With the growth of the animal rights movement, particularly in reference to the treatment of animals in factory farms, this question is of more than academic interest. We now have many examples of animal thinking from a range of species, including, not surprisingly, chimpanzees and gorillas.

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Perhaps more remarkable are the examples that come from animal species that are not closely related to us. In experiments carried out by Alex Kacelnik in Oxford, England, a pair of New Caledonian Crows was presented with two pieces of wire, one straight and the other hooked, and offered a food reward that could be obtained only by using the hooked wire. One member of the pair, the male, disregarded the experiment and flew off with the hooked wire. The female, however, having discovered that she could not get the food reward with the straight wire, went to some considerable trouble to bend a hook into the straight wire. She succeeded in getting the food. It is difficult to deny that the crow thought about the problem and was able to solve it, perhaps in the same way as we would. Definitions of consciousness are contested, but, as with language and culture, it seems clear that other species are capable of some form of conscious thought.

The evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky once said, “All species are unique, but humans are uniquest.” Our “uniquest” status is not derived from having attributes absent in other species, but from the extent to which those attributes are developed in us. Human language, culture, and consciousness are extraordinary products of our extraordinary brains. Nevertheless, as Darwin taught us and as we should never forget, we are fully a part of the natural world.