Examining the relations and the interactions between animals and humans

For centuries, the animal world and the human world have been carefully kept separate. Humans once considered themselves to be at the summit of intelligence and sensitivity, denying "beasts" all possibility of intelligence and emotions. Yet, as researchers and scientists make one discovery after another, they gradually prove that the border between the two worlds is not quite as impenetrable as once thought. Animals can learn, memorize, imitate, dream, they have language, intuition, can adapt their behavior to a given situation, sometimes use tools, develop codes and systems of social organization. All these abilities require the solicitation of elaborate mental functions and the mobilization of intelligence. It is therefore no longer absurd to speak of the "animal mind". However, animal intelligence is also that which humans attribute to them, that humans study, measure and attempt to understand better. It is therefore impossible to treat this subject without examining the relations and the interactions between animals and humans. In examining the anatomical and physiological properties of animals' brains, behavioural observations, research protocols and experiments undertaken by certain scientists, this series will raise the foremost questions about animal intelligence and attempt to answer them within the confines of current knowledge. How can this intelligence be measured, what is the reference for comparison, on which criteria, how can intelligence demonstrate itself, what does animal intelligence teach us about ourselves, human beings, and our world, how do humans use this animal intelligence? Such are the implicit questions that will arise throughout the series. In fact, cannot animal intelligence, in its widest sense, be quite simply interpreted as the ability to live in the best possible way in one's environment, and the ability to adapt?