Primatologist Frans de Waal has studied animal intelligence for decades. He says that we know surprisingly little about animal intelligence due to centuries of study that valued exhibitions of human-like behavior.

“We assumed for most of the last century that animals either had simple instincts or very simple learning,” de Waal tells Steve Fast. “This was all based on rats and pigeons. It only started to change 20-25 years ago.”

De Waal suggests that human bias of researchers kept animal intelligence undiscovered.

“Humans get nervous if animals get too close to us,” de Waal says. “We want to be on top of everything.”

In his book “Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?” de Waal highlights the research that puts animal intelligence in context.

“We want to now what kind of special cognition they have and how they need it in their environment,” de Waal says.”It turns out lots of animals have an enormous amount of skills that we were not aware of before.”

Listen to the interview: Frans de Waal on The Steve Fast Show

Follow Steve Fast on Twitter @SteveFastShow