Intelligence Squared:

How Has Living With Animals Shaped Our Brains? With Michael Bond
Released: March 22, 2026

Episode Overview

This engaging episode of Intelligence Squared explores the profound ways in which our relationship with animals has shaped the human mind, culture, and society. Host Dr. Ganesh Taylor sits down with acclaimed science writer Michael Bond, author of "Animate," to discuss evidence from archaeology, neuroscience, psychology, and culture, unpicking how the human-animal relationship has evolved and what that can teach us about ourselves today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Motivation Behind the Book and Its Timeliness

• Michael Bond explains his personal trajectory from studying human group dynamics to animals as the "ultimate out group." New research on animal cognition, emotion, and intelligence provided the impetus to re-examine human attitudes toward animals.
• Quote:

  “Animals are… the ultimate out group if you like. And our behavior towards them reflects some of the behavior that you see in the dynamics between human groups.”
  (03:09 - Michael Bond)

2. Ancient Attitudes: Cave Art and Early Cultures

• The hosts discuss vivid animal cave paintings dating to 40,000–45,000 years ago, which vastly outnumber depictions of humans.
• Cave art reveals close observation, reverence, and a lack of strict boundary between humans and animals in Paleolithic and Neolithic societies.
• Quote:

  “The paintings consist almost entirely of animals… among the tens of thousands of animal paintings in the caves, there are perhaps around a hundred of humans… often not straight humans… mixed with animals… animals dominated the worlds of those people.”
  (07:16 - Michael Bond)

3. Burial Rituals and Early Spirituality

• Evidence from ancient burials—humans interred with animal parts (antlers, wings)—points to a spiritual kinship and perhaps a belief in shared destiny or afterlife between humans and animals.
• Quote:

  “Often people were buried with animals in their graves... clearly the animals played some kind of ritualistic role in these people's lives.”
  (10:39 - Michael Bond)

• Dr. Taylor notes the striking early human intuition of anatomical similarities (“homology”) between species.
  (12:59)

4. The Rise of Human-Animal Separation

• The shift begins in the Neolithic, as agriculture and domestication promote a more utilitarian, hierarchical view.
• Notably, Neolithic art at Çatalhöyük (Turkey) shows humans dominating animals—a marked shift from earlier partnership or reverence.
• Western philosophy (Greek, Roman) further cements the notion of animals as subordinate or instrumental, though many non-Western societies preserve animistic or kinship-based views.
• Quote:

  “That is the period when people started… to develop crops and domesticate animals… art presents… domination, with people using animals... the sense of animals as something that humans can use and being inferior..."
  (14:46 - Michael Bond)

• Many Native American and Eastern religions see much less strict species boundaries.
• (18:00 - Michael Bond)

5. Paradoxes and Contradictions: Animal Trials and Legal Agency

• Medieval Europe’s bizarre and earnest trials of animals (e.g., pigs tried and hanged for murder; termites assigned legal counsel) illustrate persistent ambiguity: at times, animals are seen as moral agents within the human community.
• Quote:

  “They didn't recognize this grand difference between humans and non humans, and they considered animals to be responsible for their own actions...”
  (18:48 - Michael Bond)

• These trials reflect an uneasy blend of anthropomorphism and otherness.

6. Social and Moral Boundary-Setting

• Western societies often reinforce human status by linking “civilized behavior” to contrasts with animality, leading to taboos (nudity, eating, bestiality).
• The tendency to “other” groups—both animal and human—has deep historical and psychological roots.
• Quote:

  “…our attitudes towards other species are an attempt to deny that common ground… animals are less intelligent, less rational, less moral than us. And therefore we can claim this sort of higher ground, this higher purpose.”
  (25:20 - Michael Bond)

7. Animals as Metaphor and Reflection

• Language that dehumanizes rival human groups often employs animal metaphors—e.g. “vermin,” “bestial”—making the animal “out group” a linguistic and moral tool of social exclusion.
• Quote:

  “...describe others as animals or vermin or bestial, and that's always an insult. Our attitude towards animals [is used] to denigrate members of our own species.”
  (28:13 - Michael Bond)

8. Wolves, Dogs, and Domestic Companions

• Wolves, as both persecuted “others” and ancestors of beloved dogs, exemplify human complexity. Despite exaggerated fears, wolves share striking social similarities with humans, and their domestication into dogs reveals mutual adaptation.

• Quote:

  “Wolves have a similar social dynamic… adaptable… We sort of treat them as if they have moral responsibility… and they remind us that we are animals ourselves.”
  (30:30 - Michael Bond)

• Domestication stories—dogs (from wolves), cats (“they domesticated us as much as we did them”)—highlight emotional bonds amid broader ambivalence.

• Quote:

  “We adore our pets, but we are very anxious about the parts of ourselves that we share with other species.”
  (33:57 - Michael Bond)

9. Deep Imprints: Animals in Our Minds

• Children often rate relationships with animals as equal to those with humans, indicating early psychological parity.
• Animals feature prominently in dreams, hallucinations, phobias, and psychiatric pathologies (lycanthropy, zoophobias), demonstrating a deep evolutionary imprint.
• Quote:

  “There's an interesting contrast between our conscious experience of animals and our unconscious experience. Animals appear in our dreams disproportionately… and in hallucinations, and... serious mental illnesses… This ancestral closeness... is still part of our unconscious.”
  (37:20 - Michael Bond)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Paleolithic cave art:

  “The paintings consist almost entirely of animals on the walls of these caves… It’s impossible to know really what’s going on. But clearly animals dominated the worlds of those people.”
  (07:16 - Michael Bond)

• On animal trials:

  “In the case of the termites who had been accused of eating the furniture and the food in this monastery in Brazil, the lawyer tried to argue... they needed to eat, and that they were clearly industrious—more industrious than the monks.”
  (18:48 - Michael Bond)

• On discomfort with animality:

  “Bestiality… these practices… induce discomfort because they emphasize the aspects of ourselves that we share with animals… it reminds us that we also share a fate with them.”
  (25:20 - Michael Bond)

• On wolves/dogs:

  “It's not clear how cats became domesticated. They kind of probably domesticated us as much as we did them, but this is an example of just how conflicted our attitudes towards animals are.”
  (33:57 - Michael Bond)

• On unconscious influence:

  “Animals appear in our dreams… given how little interaction we have with them now… people with hallucinations… distorted animals and human-animal hybrids… That ancestral closeness... is still part of our unconscious.”
  (37:20 - Michael Bond)

Important Timestamps

• 03:09 – Why Michael Bond wrote "Animate" and the impact of recent research
• 05:22 – 09:15 – Reaction to ancient cave art and what it reveals about early human minds
• 10:39 – 14:46 – Burial practices and the emergence of boundaries through religion and society
• 14:46 – 18:00 – Neolithic revolution and changing attitudes toward animals: domination and utility
• 18:48 – 21:25 – Animal trials: legal and moral ambiguity in pre-modern societies
• 25:20 – 29:20 – Discomfort with animality and its cultural implications; animals as out-group vocabulary
• 30:30 – 33:57 – Wolves, dogs, domestication, and the psychology of pets
• 37:20 – 39:39 – Animals in childhood, phobia, dreams, and psychiatric conditions
• 40:07 – 42:33 – Michael Bond’s call to action: rethink our attitudes towards animals in light of modern science

Call to Action & Closing Reflections

• Michael Bond hopes readers and listeners will question inherited assumptions about animal inferiority and human exceptionalism, recognizing instead the shared sentience and evolutionary journey of life on Earth.
• Quote:

  “I would hope people will just think at another level about why they treat animals that way. Remember… they are generally mostly sentient. They are trying to survive in the world just like we are. And that's the level… we should determine our behavior towards them.” (40:07 - Michael Bond)

Summary prepared for those seeking a comprehensive overview without the need to listen. Episode rich in historical, psychological, and philosophical insight—recommended for anyone interested in what it means to be human, and how animals have shaped that definition.