Are animals conscious? How new research is changing minds

Charles Darwin enjoys a near god-like status among scientists for his theory of evolution. But his ideas that animals are conscious in the same way humans are have long been shunned. Until now.

"There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery," Darwin wrote.

But his idea that animals think and feel was seen by many as scientific heresy among many, if not most animal behaviour experts.

Attributing consciousness to animals based on their responses was seen as a cardinal sin. The argument went that projecting human traits, feelings, and behaviours onto animals had no scientific basis and there was no way of testing what goes on in animals’ minds.

But if new evidence emerges of animals’ abilities to feel and process what is going on around them, could that mean they are, in fact, conscious?

"If bees are that intelligent, maybe they can think and feel something, which are the building blocks of consciousness," he says.

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