Can Animals Think?

A talk with this title would have been very different fifty years ago. Since then a vast amount of data and a profound shift in thinking have made answering ‘yes’ to “Can Animals Think?” seem the reasonable response. That would not have been the case 50 years ago. We know now that crows can think their way through puzzling situations, that many animals mourn their dead, that bees can count. Can they understand what others have on their minds or even reflect on their own thoughts? Probably both, you’re tempted to say. Me too! But still, with all this change, we are different, we humans. Or are we? And what role could consciousness play in all this?