From Edward James
Reading
As a science fiction enthusiast, I naturally found your article on the
intelligence of our alien neighbours, the squid and the octopus, absolutely
fascinating
(“What is this octopus thinking?” 7 June, p 30).
But am I the only
reader to find two sentences in it quite repellent? “In other experiments,
blinded octopuses learnt to distinguish between differently shaped objects,” and
“Next, Young and Wells removed parts of the octopuses’ brains and repeated the
tests” (both on p 34).
These experiments were carried out in the 1950s and
1960s.
There was no hint in the article that the climate of opinion in zoological
circles has changed since those days. Has it?
