While I appreciate the deviation from the polar opposite arguments often heard that animals are/not as smart as us and instead discussing the problems with valuing human cognitive abilities,I was overall unimpressed by this book for a few reasons. 1. It's very evolution focused and for a reason I will never understand, science minded people focusing on evolution think there needs to be an evolutionary "fitness" cause for each attribute of an organism despite evolution being known to be a collection of often random mutations that may or may not proliferate over millions of years. The idea that entire organisms are 100% fit for their environments is ridiculous so why are we looking at everything through that lens? 2. I've read a lot on animal behavior and intelligence from a variety of sources and his estimations are conservative and even dated at best. 3. He seems very proud of his knowledge of animals he clearly doesn't understand including his own backyard chickens (who he believes have no individual differences and all need a 1:10 rooster hen ratio and neglects to attend to the other 9 roosters that go into the grinder for backyard farmers to pat themselves on the back as ethical.) He then has a bunch of stuff about his own hypocrisy as if it's quirky and how the only reason greta thunberg cares enough to take action now is aspergers syndrome. 4. I assumed there'd be ableism from the title and in some ways there's less than other books about these topics which is good. I really do like the usurping of human intelligence as the greatest thing on Earth. But ableism and speciesism are so intertwined that it's all throughout this book. 5. His characterization of the lives of others with less privilege than him ends up being more insulting than i think he realizes.

So, if you're an average white middle class Western person ethically and in regards to animals, you love your dog but just can't bring yourself to stop eating pigs, have a book of the Darwin awards you laugh at, and think that not doing the absolute worst means you're the best you can be, then this book will probably make you feel good about yourself and other animals. If you respect animals even less, maybe this will be a stepping stone. But if you read about these things a lot and have kept up with the research, I'd pass on this one.