Credit: Public Domain A pair of Queen Mary University of London psychologists are reminding modern scholars of the work conducted by an accomplished pioneer of comparative animal intelligence study: Charles Henry Turner , a Black biologist who conducted animal cognition studies in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Hiruni Samadi Galpayage Dona and Lars Chittka have published a Perspective piece in the journal Science outlining the work done by Turner and the obstacles that stood in the way of his research. As Samadi Galpayage Dona and Chittka note, Turner was born in 1867 in Cincinnati, Ohio just two years after the end of the Civil War. He was the first Black man to receive a graduate degree at the University of Cincinnati. Unlike his college peers, however, he was not able to find employment at a research facility due to his race. Instead, he was hired to teach Black high school children. Undaunted by his prospects, Turner chose to conduct research on animal cognition independently. At the time, the prevailing wisdom was that animals were not capable of decision-making or conscious thought. Turner thought these beliefs were unfounded. He began his work by extending research he had done in […]

Click here to view original web page at phys.org