Anthropomorphism is strongly associated with stupidity.

The Royal Society published “Experimental peripheral administration of oxytocin elevates a suite of cooperative behaviours in a wild social mammal” in 2011. But the oxytocin was given in a carrier inclusive of chlorobutanol, which was not included in the control injections: chlorobutanol has sedative, hypnotic, and anaesthetic actions.

In the early 20th century, during exhibitions in Germany, the horse Clever Hans appeared to be able to perform arithmetic. Hans was, in fact, watching, and listening to, the reactions of his trainer. Animals can condition humans.

In 2018, chimpanzees’ silent gestures were videotaped in response to controlled variations in the gaze on an experimenter, who sat opposite each chimpanzee across a meal table. However, there was no audiotape of the respiratory sounds of the experimenter, who was aware of the design of the study. The pictures of the experimental format did not show that the experimenter was, in fact, wearing a surgical mask, which would have increased respiratory sounds.

In 2012, the Royal Society represented horses as able to match a voice and a person, with left hemisphere bias in this ability: however, at any moment, an informed handler could have given a little tug on a rein: neither the author for correspondence, Leanne Proops, nor the editor, Michael Hassell, responded to questions about this possibility.

The innocent cell has become embroiled in human family dynamics, so that cytoplasmic elements can be spiteful, while occupants of the nucleus can be abstemious, greedy, and selfish, and can have disagreements, perhaps about the housekeeping. Anthropomorphism of genes is escapist, populist, and, above all, misleading, because it blurs the differences between the genotype (genes) and the phenotype (character), and it gives undue emphasis to the genotype: for example, at any moment, one’s quality of life will be improved by the exclusion from it of any individual who does not acknowledge who one is, or who makes one into a person one is not, or both, irrespective of the degree of genetic relatedness of that individual.

“Monkeys were trained to freely view an array of images and report the presence of one of many possible target images previously associated with a hand response”.