Reilune wrote:This is one of those subjects that make my hackles raise real quick. I've decided to pick apart your precious article there. You...just had to use a very biased Christian reference, didn't you? This may sting a little.
The ability to think and plan in time. It's an amazing aspect of the human mind to think in terms of past, present and future.
Contrary to what some might believe animals do have a sense of time. A dog knows whether it's owner has been gone for a long time or a short one. They may not have watches but time isn't something an animal doesn't know about.
From the funeral pyres of ancient civilizations to modern funerals, we are ever searching for meaning in death. We are ever searching for a hope in an afterlife. Such concepts are foreign to animals.
The writer of that article thing has obviously never been around elephants. They mourn their dead.
The ability to create. Human beings are unlike other creatures in their concepts and development of art, music and literature.
Hmph. Again, the writer here has never been around elephants. Or chimps, gorillas, otters, or any other such creature. Zookeepers will sometimes give the elephants a paintbrush and a canvas to keep them from growing bored. They may not be Pablo Picasso but they still create. And yes it is art.
The capacity for scientific thought. This includes experimentation and development of theories.
Theories aside, ravens are known to experiment with ways to get food. There was one test done where the food was in a little basket down in a clear plastic tube that was too long for the raven to stick it's beak into and get the food. It took a bit of wire which was in it's cage and bent the end, creating a hook which it used to catch the basket and pull it out of the tube. That would also count as tool creation.
The ability to perform mathematics
It's been proven that animals can count. Parrots especially are quite capable of solving mathmatical problems.
The desire to find meaning in sex beyond procreation.
Certain species of animals mate for pleasure just like humans do. The dolphin and some type of primate are the most noteable.
The ability to experience emotions such as happiness, joy, peace and, conversely, depression and despair.
Anyone who thinks animals don't have emotions is either an idiot or has never been around an animal in their life. Just look to people's pets, cats and dogs, and you'll see they have emotion just like humans.
The ability to conceive of morality. Because human beings can conceive of a choice between inherently right and inherently wrong behavior, we have a capacity for a relationship with God.
Animals do have morals despite what this radical lunatic thinks. Monkeys for example know better than to mate with their relatives. Some humans, however, seem to be lacking in that area. Animals almost never hunt for sport. Humans do. You won't find any serial killers in the animal world.
Excelsia wrote:You were never a creature that isn't human. You may very well be some sort of therian, or have some kinda disease that makes you think you're an animal, but you have never been completely NOT human. (and if you still maintain that you were, prove it.)
You're a Christian aren't you? That explains your lack of knowledge on a thing called reincarnation. I haven't attacked you for your beliefs, but if you continue to do so to me I will not be afriad to knock you down a few pegs. As for proof...I can't, plain and simple. At least not for an animal life. However if they ever dig up a mummy of a young Pharaoh who killed himself by slitting his wrists and was the last of his family, then we'll talk.
(instinct is information you're born with, extinct is information you learn)
You're joking right? Extinct is what the dinosaurs are now. I have never heard the word used in the way you've presented it. Ever.
And my final words in this post are: "You may not share our intellect. That's why you show us no respect." -The singing dolphins,
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
I am not attacking you. Nor am I attacking your beliefs. I am merely contesting them. If I am correct, it was you who first questioned my belief that animals are inferior, by suggesting that your dogs were more intelligent than most humans.
And yes, I am a christian. But I am aware of reincarnation, and in fact have studied it somewhat in one of my college classes. I'm not a 'bible thumper', and I'm not ignorant about important matters or other religious beliefs, unlike many christians. You may not believe in christianity, or that the afterlife will be the one that we believe it will, but that doesn't necessarily make you correct. That is the difference between beliefs and knowledge. We will never know who is right until we die. You are entitled to believe what you choose to, and so am I.
The mind can, and often does, invent things very easily. I, in fact, have often created in my mind an entire alternate life for myself (I get really bored sometimes, and have an active imagination) that is very detailed, down to the slightest thing. If I was willing to believe it, I could interpret it as a past life. I am not saying that I believe that the past lives that you say that you have had aren't real. But I am saying that it is possible that some people may imagine new lives and believe that they once happened. The mind is very inventive, and sometimes people may confuse what is real and what is imagined.
That article alone hardly encompasses all the reasons that humans are superior to animals. If you have some free time on your hands and wish to read an a**-load of stuff that you don't agree with (though I doubt that you will) you could do a search of 'how animals are different than humans' in google or something and get maybe 13,000 hits. There will be a few who will say that animals and humans are the same, but the majority will point out differences.
As to your responses to that article, there are many things that I could contest. True, animals are aware of the existence of time. Of course they are, how else would bears know when to start eating for winter? But human awareness of time is different. Humans will sit and wonder about what their lives will be like in 25 years. An animal will prepare for the future, but will not imagine it happening. They will also not sit and stew in thoughts of the past, as we humans do. A dog won't sit there and ask himself, 'why didn't I eat more protein as a puppy?', but older humans with osteoporosis frequently ask themselves 'why didn't I drink more milk as a child?'. We frequently associate past decisions with our current situation, or guess how it will affect our future. That goes back to the milk example, in that an older person will often lament their past decision based on their current situation, and a 30something person may often wonder, 'hmmm I wonder if I will have osteoporosis when I am older because I didn't drink much milk when I was a kid'. An animal may make such associations, but they are much simpler and do not nearly encompass the level that humans do. An animal's would be more like 'I pooped in the shoes, and I got punished and I am now sleeping outside. Why oh why did I poop in the shoes?' (That is how animals learn. They do something, and something bad happens, so they don't do it again. Humans learn that way too, but they also learn in other ways, such as by sitting down and memorizing a bunch of information that has nothing to do with anything that will ever affect them.) Animals just don't get nearly as complicated as we do, in terms of their perception of time. Also, the decisions that animals make in terms of time aren't often based on extinct (and yes, it is in fact a word and it does in fact refer to intelligence that isn't already 'programmed' in) but more so on instinct. Does a duck sit in the water and weigh the pros and cons of going south or staying north? Or does he go south because it is time to? However, would a human sit on his couch and weigh the pros and cons of accepting a job that would force him to move? Of course instinct still plays a factor in our lives, such as run and scream when you see something scary, but most of our decisions are those that we make based on logic and reasoning. As far as the part about elephants mourning their dead, I concede that they do and so do many other animals. But that particular statement by that author, I believe, was aimed more at the afterlife part. I won't go into my big spiel about heaven, b/c you aren't a christian so it wouldn't matter anyway. Suffice it to say that animal behavior doesn't reflect an awareness of an afterlife such as heaven. A predator may frequently kill a member of his own species (or steal his territory or food), if the benefit to him is great, such as extending his territory and allowing him to access more prey. This is not moral behavior that can be associated with an awareness of an afterlife. True, if I killed my neighbor and moved into his house, that would make my life a lot better, but something in me tells me not to. That 'something' is not present in animals, and if it is, it is not to the same extent as it is in humans. Animals do what is best for themselves and their group (if they are social) and everyone else is screwed. This behavior is occasionally seen in humans, but not often. Usually it's some leach to society who kills someone for their wallet. Or sometimes it's between large groups of people, such as countries, trying to take over someone else's land or resources, or fighting over some other petty matter (because, after all, humans do get stupider and meaner in large groups.). But although this happens in humans, it doesn't happen as frequently (percentage-wise) in humans, and there is usually guilt. I've never seen a dog feel remorseful for killing another dog in a fight. As far as animals creating art, well I guess that depends on your view of art. Though I for one, don't think the animals are making art, because I believe (and so do many artists) that art does not exist without the intention to create art. If I am playing paintball with my friends and somehow we inadvertently create a beautiful picture on a nearby wall, is that art? I don't believe it is. If a child scribbles on paper with crayons b/c he is bored, does that constitute art? IMO, it doesn't. An elephant doesn't look at the canvas and decide to make a beautiful picture. He looks at a canvas and picks up his brushes and enjoys making lines and shapes on the paper. He is playing. He is not intending to make a work of art. But then again, art in and of itself has not yet been defined, so it is impossible to decide whether it is or isn't. And no, animals don't write books. As far as theories and experimentation, true animals do 'experiment' to a very rudimentary level. But they certainly don't make theories (as you stated), and the experiments that they do are not as far-reaching in scope as those that humans do. I did an experiment last semester that could potentially affect all future research involving behaviors that are determined by genes. That could potentially have a massive affect, and so does many other human research. The experimentation that animals do is to benefit themselves and doesn't have a long-reaching effect, unless of course other animals of the same species become aware of some new technique that a certain animal has discovered to gather quarry more easily, and if this information spreads, it could conceivably trigger a change in the direction that an animal is going in terms of evolution. As far as morals go, these are my thoughts. True, a monkey will not mate with its relatives. But does it do that because it is wrong? Most likely not. It does that because monkeys, who have in the past mated with their relatives have created less effective offspring who are less likely to survive, and thus the behavioral gene that governs mating was passed on most often in monkeys who were less inclined to mate with their relatives, thus fazing out the monkeys who are inclined to engage in incest (evolution). Mating with relatives would be bad for the monkey population (because as we all know, inbred people are weird, and also less physical able than normal people, frequently), so over time they have stopped doing it because no more monkeys exist that want to inbreed, because their genetic material has not been passed on. For the most part, animals do what they must do to ensure their own survival and the survival of their offspring and group. They do whatever is necessary to ensure this, and it just so happens that some of their actions can be compared to moral behavior. Examples of animals not having morals run rampant in nature. Adult males killing male juveniles, for example. They do not concern themselves with the life of the juvenile, but rather look out for their own lifestyle, b/c having some young, strong male grow up could put their own health and happiness in danger. If an older human man is working in a business, and some enterprising, ambitious young man gets hired, who is most certainly putting the older man's career goals in danger (the old guy might get fired and replaced by the new guy, thus preventing the old guy's ability to care for himself and his family) does the old guy kill the young guy? Generally, no. Why? Morals. As I've mentioned before, animals do frequently behave in ways that can be misconstrued as morality, but it is usually only b/c they are trying to achieve some end that will help them and their own group survive. Yes, some animals have a concept of numbers. And yes, a parrot can memorize answers to simple math problems and regurgitate them. But most animals don't do actual mathematical problems. True, a chimp or a parrot can add two and two, but can they solve for X? When the problem involves square roots and fractions and completely different values than the last problem they did? Most likely no. And if somehow they do, it will take them forever (it'd take a human a few minutes) and they will make many mistakes along the way (more than a human would). Yes, I will concede that a handful of species do take joy in sex, but the majority see it only as a means of creating new offspring. And as far as the emotions statement...I will have to say that I agree with you on that. As a hardcore dog owner, I am aware of animals having emotions. Most higher vertebrates can have some level of emotional response.
There are many ways in which animals do show, on some very primitive level, traits that are often considered distinctly human. But despite examples of similarities, that doesn't mean that animals are as intelligent as humans. Saying that a parrot that can add two and two is just as intelligent or smarter than a human is like saying that some idiot who can't figure out how to operate a toaster is just as intelligent as Bill Gates. Intelligence is something that everyone and every creature possesses in varying amounts. It would be a wonderful world if everyone and everything possessed the same amount of intelligence, but we don't. Stephen Hawkins is smarter than me and I am smarter than many of my friends, and they are smarter than retarded people, and they are smarter than other primates, and they are smarter than dogs...it goes on and on.
Also, I find myself wondering that if you believe animals are not inferior to humans, how can you eat them? You certainly seem to believe that an animal's life is just as valuable as a humans, so what gives you the right to eat it something that is your equal?
That article really wasn't all that great, and I admit that. The author makes many statements in a generalized fashion, as if it is true in all cases and to all extents. I didn't choose it b/c of my beliefs, however, I picked it b/c it was one of the first things that I clicked that was concise. Though he makes many generalizations, most of the things he says are true in most cases. And even in situations where he is wrong, the animals still display less intelligence and self-consciousness than humans to a substantial degree.
I'd like to conclude by saying that I am NOT attacking you or your beliefs. I am exercising my right to defend my own. You seem to be very touchy about this subject, judging by your statement that you will 'knock me down a few pegs'. That isn't what this, or any forum, is about. It is about expressing opinions, and allowing others to have their own opinions without being threatening towards them.
(My statement that you never were an animal was made before I was aware you believed in reincarnation. I, personally, don't. But I respect your belief and did not intend that statement as an attack, if you construed it that way.)
Feh. At least we both agree on the consumption of meat products.
Sorry for such a long post by the way.
(Any future posts that I make may not be so long and detailed. I will not have the time to devote to it, because college starts tomorrow.)
and I mean it.
*stares at Slim Jim* *tosses it over the shoulder*