Showing results for "Aesop's Fables" in Science & Engineering

Remember the story of the Ant and the Grasshopper? the Fox and the Sour Grapes? The Boy who Cried Wolf? These wonderful tales and hundreds more have been passed down to us over the centuries. The man credited with writing them, Aesop, was an Ancient Greek slave born about 620 B.C. Aesop is known as a fabulist or story teller credited with a number of fables shining glaringly true light on our human foibles now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Although no writings by him survive, numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling ...

Zoologist Jo Wimpenny turns a critical eye to Aesop's fables to discover whether there is any scientific truth to their portrayal of the animal kingdom. She brings the tales into the twenty-first century, introducing the latest findings on the most fascinating branches of ethological research—the study of why animals do the things they do. In each chapter she interrogates a classic fable and a different topic—future planning, tool use, self-recognition, cooperation and deception—concluding with a verdict on the veracity of each fable's portrayal from a scientific perspective.