Dozens of scientists say it’s ‘irresponsible’ to ignore widespread consciousness in the animal world

There’s good reason to believe fish, amphibians, molluscs and insects are sentient, according to a new statement signed by three dozen scientists.

The New York Declaration on Animal Awareness believes that current scientific research shows that such widespread animal awareness is a realistic possibility and that scientists and policymakers must take this into account when considering the risks to these animals.

The statement came at an event at New York University on Friday, amid a lively and sometimes heated debate among scientists about the current state of the science of animal consciousness and the wisdom of issuing such a statement.

The problem with thinking about animal consciousness, London School of Economics philosopher Jonathan Birch told attendees, is that it immediately exposes us to severe limitations of our imagination.

This question, included in the titles of many classic papers and books, comes from philosopher Thomas Nagel’s seminal 1974 essay “What Would It Like to Be a Bat?” To primatologist Franz de Waals’ 2017 book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Many scientists and philosophers believe that humans’ limitations as a species with a rich internal monologue, a reliance on vision, and a culture based on spoken language may lead us to overlook how perception works in other species.

Burch said sometimes these limitations of imagination lead people to doubt whether scientific evidence can answer these questions.

But I think that’s wrong, he added. I personally don’t think other animals have verbal inner monologues like I do. But equally, other animals may have forms of consciousness that we lack, such as the subjective experience of bats using echolocation to navigate dark forests.

The statement was brief, only three paragraphs, and very restrained in its wording. It does not argue that animal consciousness is certain or proven. Instead, it contends that decades of literature now show strong scientific support for consciousness in mammals and birds, as well as the realistic possibility of consciousness in creatures such as reptiles, octopuses, crabs and insects.

The signatories agreed that as long as this possibility exists, we should consider welfare risks and use evidence to guide our response to these risks.

Event attendees were not universally supportive of the idea. One scientist in the front row told Birch he was worried the statement would be seen as an irresponsible exaggeration of the evidence.

“I’m not sure this statement is a good idea,” he said. He said all scientists are familiar with articles summarizing studies that people don’t trust because they feel they are cherry-picking data and that they are relying on studies that are not objective.

But Burch thought the statement was actually quite conservative. This is not a propaganda effort. It describes the state of science as fairly as possible.

He added that while the signatories themselves disagreed on the dimensions of animal consciousness and its ethical implications, they agreed that significant steps had been taken over the past decade and that these needs became part of the conversation.

More than a decade ago, the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness discovered that mammals, birds, and other animals are capable of exhibiting intentional behavior, and that humans are not the only ones with the neural basis for consciousness.

During this time, scientists have made advances in our understanding of animal consciousness. We now know, for example, that octopuses feel pain, cuttlefish remember details of specific past events, and zebrafish show signs of curiosity, according to a summary of recent research in the journal Quanta.

Quanta pointed out that in the insect world, bees show obvious play behavior, while fruit flies have unique sleep patterns that are influenced by the social environment. At the same time, crayfish exhibit anxiety-like states that can be modified by anti-anxiety drugs.

A series of studies followed mounting evidence that fish and reptiles are self-aware. Reptiles, in particular, are the ancestors of mammals and birds, the two orders that have the strongest evidence for sentience.

Anna Wilkinson, who studies amphibians, says that if we accept that mammals and birds are conscious, then consciousness either evolved at least twice in each lineage or is the ancestor of all animals, in In this case, reptiles might also be conscious.

Commenting on whether reptiles or fish experience pain as a big question for their welfare, Wilkinson acknowledged that recent research suggests fish have different neural structures than mammals.

But she believes that just because birds can’t fly without feathers, that doesn’t mean bats can’t fly. They don’t have feathers, they just do it through a different mechanism.

She added that it seemed unlikely that the type of consciousness in reptiles would be similar to that in mammals. I think this is a challenge we need to address.

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