Secret Life of Beasts

In another case, a farmer noticed that many of his roosters had unaccountably formed a gang of rapists. When Grandin looked closely at their surroundings, she saw that the problem was that there was not nearly enough room for the chickens to practise their instinctive mating ritual, leading the male to take the short-cut to have his way. When the farmer gave his chickens more space, the rapes ceased.

To call that the fascinating fact of the week doesn't even come close. But then I'm a closet Darwin geek, so maybe you don't think so. Who is this "Grandin" and how did she figure this out? She's autistic, and she finds that gives her an insight into the animal mind. A review of her book explains it.

About one in every 500 people has autism, a condition characterised by severely impaired social and communication skills and by repetitive interests and activities. The author of this eye-opening book, Temple Grandin, believes that such people have an especially close affinity with animals and are better placed than others to empathise with animals and to understand their behaviour. Many experts ridicule such generalisations, but Grandin is utterly confident that she is right, and she speaks with authority: not only is she a professor of Animal Science but she is autistic.

Grandin deserves to be taken seriously since she has unequivocally demonstrated her special understanding of animals. Hard-nosed accountants in the fast-food industry pay her considerable sums to advise them on how best to treat the cattle in their slaughterhouses. By dramatically improving the conditions in abattoirs, often through insightful but inexpensive changes to conventional practices, she may well have done more for animal welfare than anyone else in recent history.

So if the consciousness of animals is something like that of autistic people, what human state most resembles the awareness of plants? I remember reading someone who compared the awareness of plants to that of people who are asleep.