全新版大学英语第一册 6.docVIP

Unit 6 Animal Intelligence Part I Pre-reading Task Listen to the recording two or three times and then think over the following questions: 1. What do you know about Michael Jackson? 2. How does he feel about Ben? Why? 3. Do you think the song Ben reveals something about the relationship between man and animals? If so, what is it? 4. Is the song related to the theme of the unit — animal intelligence? How? Part II Text A Food, warmth, sleep? Their thoughts may be much deeper than that. WHAT ANIMALS REALLY THINK Euqene Linden Over the years, I have written extensively about animal-intelligence experiments and the controversy that surrounds them. Do animals really have thoughts, what we call consciousness? Wondering whether there might be better ways to explore animal intelligence than experiments designed to teach human signs, I realized what now seems obvious: if animals can think, they will probably do their best thinking when it serves their own purposes, not when scientists ask them to. And so I started talking to vets, animal researchers, zoo keepers. Most do not study animal intelligence, but they encounter it, and the lack of it, every day. The stories they tell us reveal what Im convinced is a new window on animal intelligence: the kind of mental feats animals perform when dealing with captivity and the dominant species on the planet — humans. Lets Make a Deal Consider the time Charlene Jendry, a conservationist at the Columbus Zoo, learned that a female gorilla named Colo was handling a suspicious object. Arriving on the scene, Jendry offered Colo some peanuts, only to be met with a blank stare. Realizing they were negotiating, Jendry raised the stakes and offered a piece of pineapple. At this point, while maintaining eye contact, Colo opened her hand and revealed a key chain. Relieved it was not anything dangerous or valuable, Jendry gave Colo the pineapple. Careful bargainer that she was, Colo then broke the key chain and gave Jendr