Doctor Dolittle’s Delusion: Animals and the Uniqueness of Human Language
[With illustrations by Amanda Patrick]
Winner of the 2004 Professional/Scholarly Publishing Division Annual Award Competition in the Psychology category
Dr. Dolittle had it wrong, says the author of this fascinating book: animals cannot use language. Stephen Anderson explains the difference between communication and language and shows that animals do not have the cognitive capacities necessary to acquire language.
“A masterly overview of what is currently known about the communicative abilities of a wide range of creatures. . . . Anderson’s synthesis provides illuminating comparisons with the infinitely more sophisticated resources of the human language. . . . An elegant book.”—Neil Smith, Nature
“Well-written, well-argued, and provocative. . . . I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone interested in animal communication and the evolution of language.”—Marc Bekoff, Quarterly Review of Biology