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ANTHROPOMORPHISM--the attribution of human feelings to non-human animals, objects, or natural phenomena-is a popular device in literature, and a powerful social tool. Smokey Bear--created by the artist Rudolph Wendelin in 1946 for the U.S. Forest Service as delivered the message about preventing forest fires so effectively that it has overshadowed ecologists' concerns that some fires may be needed for proper management of forests.
But many scientists disdain anthropomorphism. For some reason, it is all right for a hurricane to be depicted as angry, but not a grizzly bear whose den has just been invaded by a hunter. Instead, they say the bear is exhibiting "aggressive territorial behavior." In the realm of "scientific political correctness," implying that similarities exist in the emotions or motivations of animals and people is still one of the most egregious sins that a scientist can commit.
One reason for scientists' almost reflexive disdain for anthropomorphism may be that antivivisectionist organizations rely heavily on anthropomorphic images for fund raising. Such organizations frequently depict animals that are cute, live in social groups, and are perceived to be intelligent--in other words, animals with favorable humanlike attributes.
John S. Kennedy, emeritus professor of animal behavior at the University of London, even implies in The New Anthropomorphism (Cambridge University Press, 1992) that anthropomorphism is bad science, although he would permit "mock anthropomorphism," which means simply noting when an animal behaves the way a human would under the same circumstances. Mr. Kennedy believes that cognitive ethologists--who are interested in comparing thought processes, consciousness, and rationality in animals with those processes in humans--are just trying to sneak anthropomorphism back into science by giving it a new name.
OF COURSE, anthropomorphism can be used in a misleading way. For instance, I believe that in The Hidden Life of Dogs (Houghton Mifflin, 1993), Elizabeth Marshall Thomas inappropriately describes the relationship between a pair of dogs as a "marriage." This ignores the social and legal implications of marriage and is not even a good metaphor for human behavior, because not all...