Can a horse frown?
Step away from the news agenda and dive into this fascinating post from Brian Klaas:
In the early 1800s, the Scottish anatomist Charles Bell argued that facial expressions were uniquely human. The smile, the frown, the grimace were each forged by God, bestowed on us through a complex array of tiny invisible muscles giving us unrivalled capabilities at emotional, moral, and spiritual expression. Through our faces, Bell argued, humans bared their souls for all to see—something a lesser animal without our divine spark could never hope to achieve.
His logical proof was simple: if God had wanted non-human animals to reveal their inner souls, he would have given them facial muscles like ours.
Bell’s argument had a small flaw: he was completely wrong.
What follows is a dense, but immensely readable, exploration of the wealth of data that our faces give up.