Minds of Their Own
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内容概述：
本篇为旧题。科学家透过训练鹦鹉 Alex 说话和交流，证明某些动物比我们想像的更聪明
，它们不仅可以懂得人类的动作指示，还能进行逻辑思维。他们也有自情感和脾气，甚至
可以用简单的语言来表达自己的需求。然而其他科学家觉得动物没有这种思维能力，认为
要教也应该教猩猩，因为鹦鹉的大脑太小。这位科学家说，我教它不是想让它说话，是想
研究鸟类的认知能力。
题型分析：判断题(T/F/NG), 填空题(Summary)
Minds of Their Own
In 1977 Irene Pepperberg, a recent graduate of Harvard University, did
something very bold. At a time when animals still were considered automatons,
she set out to find what was on another creature’s mind by talking to it. She
brought a one-year-old African gray parrot she named Alex into her lab to
teach
him to reproduce the sounds of the English language. “I thought if he learned
to communicate, I could ask him questions about how he sees the world,” she
said
When Pepperberg began her dialogue with Alex, who died last September at the
age of 31, many scientists believed animals were incapable of any thought.
They
were simply machines, robots programmed to react to stimuli but lacking the
ability to think or feel.
Any pet owner would disagree. We see the love in our dogs’ eyes and know
that,
of course, Spot has thoughts and emotions. But such claims remain highly
controversial. Gut instinct is not science, and it is all too easy to project
human thoughts and feelings onto another creature. How, then, does a scientist
prove that an animal is capable of thinking—that it is able to acquire
information about the world and act on it?