Phew, I'm surprised to see such an emotionally-charged article on the subject. Everyone who is uncomfortable with anthropomorphism is biased and misguided in some way, but extremist proponents are merely overly enthusiastic.

I do wonder about the theoretical bird scientist trying to figure out the "fixed action patterns" of other animals. If anthropomorphism is the way to go, surely it goes in the other direction in some way.

A review I just read (https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.0220...) suggests both of our viewpoints and seems to allow for a continuum of approaches without resorting to name-calling. I think that there's definitely stupidity in the history of "anti-anthropomorphism" if it's really true that people dismissed an article that started by saying bees appear to dance. After all, the fact that they have a behavior like that suggests something interesting is going on. It's also really easy to go overboard in simplifying animal behaviors to our own poorly-understood human behaviors.