@Blondesjon ”I do believe in animal intelligence. I just don’t believe that we can ever truly understand what is going on in an animal’s mind.”
Can you know what’s going on in another person’s mind?
Mmathematical theorem? Please. You want to throw out all of social science? I hate to break it to you, but some functions are probabilistic, not based on mathematical relationships. Hell, this is as much true in physics as it is in any social science.
Look, if human behavior is a science, and it is, animal behavior is also a science. An animal “psychologist” is an animal behavioralist with a fancy name. Humans “speak” with body language. So do animals. Humans “speak” with sounds. So do animals. It is not trivial science, but with work, science can tell us a lot about what animals “mean” when they behave in various ways. Can you do that with humans? Not with as much accuracy.
If one understands the scientific method, one can “believe” in animal psychology. If one does not “believe” in science… well, I don’t know how to communicate with someone like that.