This post is in response to When Animals Wear Pants: Anthropomorphism and Learning By Boby Ho-Hong Ching Ph.D. I have learned that anthropomorphism is a deeply suspect word, used to defend cruelty to ...

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At the start of Elizabeth Hobson’s career as an ecologist, she knew to stick to one rule: Never anthropomorphize the animals you study. For plenty of people, assigning human characteristics to another ...

If you think your dog loves you, you’re a fool. If you feel a kinship with a tree, you’re a hippie. And if you over-empathize with a wild animal, you must be wearing cheetah prints and a flower crown, ...

I recently gave a talk to an audience of scientists and university professors during which I referred to the "personality" of dogs and the fact that dogs can experience emotions such as love and ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. Sahar Hashmi, M.D., Ph.D., is a Boston-based, award-winning AI expert. Feb 28, 2026, 11:53pm EST ...

Cute internet videos and animals in children’s entertainment with human-like intentions can be useful, harmful or both – depending on whom you ask Humans have long attempted to portray the natural ...

The complexity of animal behaviour naturally prompts us to use terms that are familiar from everyday descriptions of our own actions. Charles Darwin used mentalistic terms freely when describing, for ...

Autumn begins tomorrow. Suffused already with a seasonal nostalgia, I'm replaying scenes of summer in my head. Among them is sitting in a dark theatre, watching apes clamber across San Francisco's ...