We are not alone in our ability to invent or plan or to contemplate ourselves—or even to plot and lie. Deceptive acts require a complicated form of thinking, since you must be able to attribute intentions to the other person and predict that person’s behavior. One school of thought argues that human intelligence evolved partly because of the pressure of living in a complex society of calculating beings. Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, and bonobos share this capacity with us. In the wild, primatologists have seen apes hide food from the alpha male or have sex behind his back. Birds, too, can cheat. Laboratory studies show that western scrub jays can know … Continue reading Virginia Morell