Discover What Animals Think and Feel with Carl Safina, March 19
Does my dog really love me? Consciousness, self-awareness, empathy, non-verbal communication, imitation, teaching, grief — join conservationist Carl Safina as he shows that many non-human minds are rather similar to ours.
As part of the Della Pietra Lecture Series, the Simons Center will host Dr. Safina as he discusses “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel” on Monday, March 19, at 5:30 pm in the Simons Center Della Pietra Family Auditorium. A reception will be held at 5 pm.
Safina spent time working with researchers who have spent decades studying particular families of wild elephants, wolves and killer whales. He got to know these free-living creatures as individuals, along with their children and grandchildren. In this talk he will share amazing strategies and judgment calls that these actual wild creatures have made to ensure their families’ survival in times of crisis. Safina will explore up-to-date brain studies showing astonishing new discoveries about the similarities in our consciousness, self-awareness, empathy, non-verbal communication, and the capacity for grief among non-human beings.
About Carl Safina
Carl Safina, an international leader in ocean conservation, is the inaugural recipient of the Carl Safina Endowed Research Chair for Nature and Humanity in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. Through his work, the Safina Center aims to help people understand how the ocean supports all life on our planet.
Safina is the author of six books and roughly 200 scientific and popular publications, including features in The New York Times, and National Geographic and a new Foreword to Rachel Carson’s The Sea Around Us. Audubon magazine named Carl Safina among its “100 Notable Conservationists of the 20th Century.” In 2011, Utne Reader listed him among “25 Visionaries Changing the World.” Among other laurels, he has won a Pew fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the John Burroughs Medal, the Rabb Medal from Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, the James Beard medal, the Lannan Literary Award, two honorary doctorates, and a MacArthur “genius” Prize.