Citation

Author Website

faculty.franklin.uga.edu/rkthomas/

Commentary Type

Invited Commentary

Thread

David M. Peña-Guzmán, Can nonhuman animals commit suicide?

Abstract

Beginning mainly with the “cognitive revolution” in psychology in the latter half of the 20^th century, psychological science has been committing “suicide” slowly via linguistic muddling. Peña-Guzmán’s target article is but one of thousands of cuts contributing to this death by “suicide.” Having said that, given the current state of affairs in animal cognition research, there is much to commend in Peña-Guzmán’s article. I leave that to others, however. This commentary explains how the suicide by muddling of psychological science is happening in general, with the understanding that it applies also to Peña-Guzmán’s target article.

Author Biography

Roger K. Thomas, Professor Emeritus, earned B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Georgia and held a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in neurobiological sciences at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is aware that when he is not present, some of his young colleagues refer to him as “old school.” If trying one’s best to reason and use language carefully is “old school,” then he wears that label proudly. faculty.franklin.uga.edu/rkthomas/

DOI

10.51291/2377-7478.1295