There is a rather interesting article in today's Telegraph; goto
and click on 'Forget Descartes: I count therefore I'm a monkey'
Extract:
TWO monkeys have shaken
scientific ideas about counting
and language by revealing that A monkey at work on one
they can grasp the concept of of the tests
numbers ranging from one to nine.
Studies published today suggest that the ability to
count and numerical reasoning is older than language.
Arithmetic and language evolved separately, and that
number skills preceded human speech.
[....]
They publish their findings today in the journal
Science, challenging the prevailing view, which dates to
the 17th-century philosopher and mathematician, RenŽ
Descartes, that non-human primates are not able to think
because they cannot use language. It also challenges the
views of B F Skinner, the noted behaviorist and Prof
Terrace's mentor at Harvard, who held that all examples
of animal intelligence were simply conditioned
behaviour, a reflex response that needed no thought.
[....]
Prof Terrace and Ms Brannon believe that thought
processes are needed to explain the kind of complex
behaviour they are studying and hope to show that human
intelligence, like other human attributes, can be traced
to animal origins. Although the monkeys do not think of
numbers, there must be some pattern of nerve activity in
their brains that corresponds to 'one', 'two' and so on.
/Gary