Comparison of Communication Among Human and Animals

The excerpt “Chatty As A Magpie”, by Hannah Holmes, discusses the similarities between human communication and the communication of our animal brethren. Holmes very strongly believes that animals are much more intelligent than we give them credit for and that their communication bares a remarkable resemblance to our own. She uses many different types of evidence to prove this including, personal experiences, examples from nature, expert opinion, and statistics based on a scientific study. Her evidence is displayed in an unusual form, but depending on your point of view this could be good or bad.

Controversial Personal Experiences

Holmes' use of personal experience is one of the most controversial of her uses of evidence. The first personal experience she used is a story about how she was able to 'speak' to her mother and send signals of what she wanted in the womb. “The only medium available to me at the time was chemistry. So with an ink of protein, I scrawled missives to my mother: More nourishment, please” (Holmes, 2). While Holmes obviously does not remember what she was doing in the womb, I don't doubt that her information is based on real science. While putting her information in the form of a personal anecdote does make the information more interesting and makes it more easily understood by a younger audience, however when it comes to a person who cares about the actual data and information it makes the story seem trivial and less believable. Holmes later has another tale from her childhood, however this one was set when she was one year old and using visual communication, such as body language and facial features to get her message across. “There I was at a year old, throwing around protolanguage like nobody's business. Throwing around my facial features and my hands” (Holmes, 7). While this has a similar problem to her previous personal evidence, this one seems more believable because rather than just taking a fact of the development of a child and pretending it was hers this could be witnessed by someone such as a parent or older sibling and could have been told to her, thus having more credibility as an actual personal experience.

Reliable Examples from Nature

Along with her personal evidence she offers an example from nature that correlates with her story from the womb. “This kind of 'chem-munication' was pioneered by single-celled organisms […] The eyeless, earless Amoeba proteus, for example, emits a peptide that prevent the fellow proteuses from cannibalizing it” (Holmes, 2). This evidence seems much more reliable than the personal evidence for two major reasons. The first is that it presents a more honest sounding statement since she is not trying to deceive us into thinking it is her own story, and two many of the things that she says seem too obscure to be randomly making up statements about the single-celled creature in nature. While this does help her case, there is still not any clear citing to a paper saying these facts, so you must believe it on her merit alone.

The Strength of Expert Opinions

An expert opinion is one of the most reliable forms of evidence, and this is where Holmes makes up some of the credibility she lost due to her personal anecdotes. During this section she is talking about how prairie dogs have very complex vocal communication that is similar to how humans speak. “the prairie dog shouts specific words for specific predators […] prairie dogs are even thought to encode information on the direction an animal approaches […] when biologist Con Slobodchikoff recently delved deep into the printouts of their chatter, he found the dogs make tiny alterations to their calls in response to such minutia as the color of a shirt” (Holmes, 5). Since this research was done by a real biologist, and that was clearly stated it makes the argument much more valid and believable to the reader. This makes Holmes' statement appeal to a much more scholarly and intelligent crowd.

Impactful Statistics from Scientific Studies

The last type of evidence Holmes uses well is statistics based on a scientific study. Statistics are a very well respected form of evidence. Holmes uses the statistic when discussing the differences in how women and men interpret facial communication. “One of the clearest studies shows that 90 percent of mature females can identify an expression of sadness on an actor's face, while only 40 percent of males can. Scientists also know that females analyze facial expressions faster than males” (Holmes, 7). This is a very convincing piece of evidence due to the fact that it is based on a scientific study, however it is also simple to understand for anyone regardless of if they have a scientific background. This makes an extremely good medium of displaying information due to the wide array of people who will understand it and accept it.

Conclusion: Balancing Engagement with Credibility

Overall Holmes made the excerpt very interesting to read and allowed anybody to understand it. However in order to do this she sacrificed some of her credibility on the topic. While this may not be an issue to everyone, if you are trying to look at this through a scientific viewpoint you cannot help but have doubt about some of the facts and examples used throughout it. This would be a very good way to explain the similarities of communication to a young audience.