Sorry, Monkeys Are Not Counting Numbers Like Humans
I love how science likes to glorify the ability of animals and intentionally misleads people into thinking that certain animals such as monkeys can do things like count and do math exactly the way humans do it. This is yet another one of science’s fantasies that wishes it were true and even goes as far as saying it in the titles of some articles related to that specific topic. I’m about to put this false claim to rest for good though as I believe this needs to be addressed. Of course, humans created arithmetic and numbers to keep track of things and to measure things like space and time but these things come from our own human brains and perception of the natural world. Monkeys, obviously, did not create numbers nor any other animals for that matter. When scientists conduct these experimental tests for the mathematical capabilities of these certain animals they are teaching them based on our already perceived understanding of numbers and arithmetic. And a lot of the time, the scien...
