I think that's strongly overstating things. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever for things like spirituality and philosophy in animals and making the case that maybe we just can't recognise it is really just appealing to a minute possibility with 0 evidence. It's the equivalent of saying we don't know that cockroaches don't have marriage ceremonies we don't recognise and therefore it's equally valid to conclude that they do. In fact the comments you make about dog's sensitive smelling and an eagle's acute vision giving them different sensory views of the world also are misleading as these are things we DO know and recognise and indeed have made use i.e. tracking dogs/hunting birds. Animals all have intelligence to some degree but it is only a small group of species that show evidence of higher order intelligence. It seems to me that you are essentially making two arguments:

1. Animal intelligence shouldn't be measured against human intelligence because that's humancentric.
2. Animals are extremely intelligent when measured against humancentric notions of intelligence.

Leaving the somewhat contradictory nature of the arguments aside. How may I ask would you propose defining intelligence if not through the traditional 'humancentric' models? Also I would add that while certain animals are very intelligent when measured against humans they are clearly not on a comparable level. Ignoring this seems to me to be more with denialism than what the evidence shows.

As for the link alot of the research described makes no mention of how the 'clever hans' effect was accounted for but ignoring that while it is apparent that intelligence exists in other species (it would have to!). The notion that it is equal to human intelligence just really isn't there- some animals are more intelligent than a lot of people give them credit but they clearly aren't as intelligent as humans. No species outside of the homo genus has ever made fire for instance or developed a wide variety of hunting implements, made pottery, painted abstract images of themselves without prompting and so on.

EDIT: Oh and thank you for answering honestly. I strongly disagree with any perspective that equates humans with turkeys but I think it's respectable that you recognise the implications of your perspective.

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"If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people. It is easier to protect your feet with slippers than to carpet the whole of the earth." Anthony De Mello SJ

I should point out before this post that I didn't read all of the posts in this thread (i need to get some sleep at some point tonight!) so if this is a point thats already been made and answered, sorry in advance.

I was wondering; if you (Julie) believe that all animals/humans are absolutely equal, and that any suffering or needless death caused by humans to animals is immoral and wrong, does this also mean that suffering and death caused by animals to other animals should somehow be prevented. Animals naturally kill one another, they naturally compete to each other's detriment, and they do not naturally try to improve each others lives. If sharks are allowed to kill seals, why am i not allowed to kill sharks?

The point i'm making is that this utopian world where every different animal/plant/human etc magically gets along and never has to cause one another any suffering or death is just impossible. Once you accept that you can't attain this perfect harmonious existence i don't see how you're decision of where the line should go with regards to how much you affect the rest of your environment is any more valid than other peoples'.

As i said, i'm sorry if this is a point that was already addressed but i don't have the patience or the time to go through every one of the (sometimes very long!) posts from this thread to check

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......and that's why the third graders at PS139 are Morbo's 'Vermin Of The Week'

I sold my granny for MAP!

Yeah this thread needed a bit of lightheartedness really. Either that or more kielbassa for people to choke on.

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I know a song about Kielbasa. Shame its too dirty for me to post on MAP

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Whatever, Julie. I originally joined the thread to point out that your methods of putting your point across were not only inappropriate but counterproductive too. I'm not going to get dragged into discussing whether meat eating is right or not with you. In my opinion, any human who wants to has that right by simple virtue of the fact that we're higher in the food chain. As thinking humans, we all have the right to choose whether or not to eat meat, and those of us who choose to also have the right to ignore those few extremists who would try to force their views down our throats. No one is telling you your veganism is wrong, but we are telling you it's useless trying to beat us over the head with it.

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I am so appalled by JulieMTA's hysterical arguments, I have moved from my liberal position for one night only. Tonight, I am going to eat 5 Big Macs, rent "The Passion Of The Christ", watch it, whilst laughing, simultaneously punching a swan repeatedly in the face (i will e-mail the Queen for permission first obviously). I hope you're satisfied.
Perhaps you should watch "Schindlers List" tonight, and get some flippin' perspective.

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An outrage! An outrage! An outrage!

Awesomeness!
Best quality sig material I've seen in a while.

*runs out to punch swans, blaspheme and eat copious amounts of meat

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Having a look at the original post it reads like a short sighted animal rights hippy who hasn't actually taken time to think from an unbiased point of view, but nevertheless I think I will apply a dignified answer.

Animals suffer for our meat? A bullet to the skull, cattleprod or muslim/islamic throat slitting is a heck of a lot more humane than the animal being chased and brought down by one of many wild predators and then clawed to pieces and then choked or neck broken before being dismembered whilst not necessarily fully dead and oblivious.

Humans don't need to eat meat? Look at evoloution, look at our bodies, our gene structure, Everything. Humans are DESIGNED with meat in mind, otherwise why the heck would neanderthols etc. have bothered chasing mammoths and the like? Humans aren't made to eat JUST meat, but they certainly get a load of benefit in terms of protein and iron from eating red meat.

Farmed animals suffer? No chance. What does a cow want from life? Grass and babies. They want nothing more. Whereas humans want to better themselves, improve expand, build, become prosperous etc. all a cow wants is some grass and some babies. All a pig wants is something to munch on and something to sticks it's jock in.. it's even less fussy.
So to be honest, putting a cow in a field with a huge bunch of potential friends with lots of grass to be had and a bull on occasion to give it babies, that's it's idea of an ideal life. And when it gets old and tired it dies a swift and painless death.

To be honest if you don't eat meat, the same amount of animals are going to die, just they won't be eaten, so have died needlessly.

For me the morale question involves raising an animal with the sole purpose of it's death in mind.

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I am suggesting that animal intelligence shouldn't be measured against human intelligence, because that is an innately humancentric qualitative measure. It is rather like CosmicFish's comment that humans were more evolved. I would say that we have evolved a uniquely human kind of intelligence and that other animals have evolved their own unique intelligences and that such things should not really be measured in any kind of qualitative sense.

The process of measuring is geared only to recognising similarities to ourselves and assumes that we are the benchmark other intelligence has to live up to. We are not so much posing the question "how intelligent are other creatures?" as "how similar to ourselves are these creatures?" We do not actually know whether or not our technology, industrialisation, philosophy, debate, weaponry, war etc. actually makes us more intelligent in any kind of absolute sense. Our human intelligence may yet result in the destruction of everything and that would not be very clever. You pointed out that with my line of reasoning, the meat industry could legitimately be comparable to the Nazi holocaust. Both the Nazi holocaust and the holocaust on animals are human inventions. Animals do not have holocausts, so how can we be so sure that our unique human intelligence is necessarily so great?

The second point is that animals may be a lot more intelligent than we recognise. As the article points out, when animals do better than we expect in tests, we move the goalposts, which shows that we have a very transparent agenda to keep ourselves at the top of the ladder, whatever our findings and suppositions.

So I am suggesting that we may not be as smart as we think we are AND that animals may be more intelligent than we give them credit for (in ways we may or may not recognise) and while we keep judging the world by our own standards, we are unlikely to get a clear picture.

You've asked how we should define intelligence if not by traditional humancentric models and I would say that maybe we do not need to be measuring intelligence at all. Maybe our insistence on performing such tasks is not so much an intelligent thing to do as a defensive one. What is the agenda of trying to measure the intelligence of other creatures, if not to try to establish or maintain our humancentric hierarchy? To try to prove that we are the top and that that should in some way give us rights over the lives of other creatures? (Really, even if sheep were stupid, which they're not, it wouldn't give me the right to eat them. I've met some very stupid people...)

These are quite interesting pages (the first links to the second but I've posted both urls anyway).

http://digg.com/general_sciences/Evo...The_Food_Chain
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4729050.stm

I think we are overstepping the mark by even having such tests. It isn't like the animals involved can give their informed consent because we can't understand their languages.

Finally on this matter, I don't think that everything should come down to evidence. Scientific studies are built on assumptions. They start by proposing an idea or by posing a question based on an accepted idea (which may or may not be accurate) and then look for evidence to support that idea. As such, many studies have a very humancentric initial bias and we often find that we tend to see what we're looking for and we also tend to reject evidence that does not fit the plan. Also, in order to recognise "evidence" we have to be able to relate to it, and again that loads the dice in a humancentric direction. As we know that there are phenomena that we do not yet understand, I think that science frequently jumps the gun in its statements of "fact."

Regarding the turkey question, only a person would ask me to pick in the first place and it may illustrate an overly abstract or artificially detached way of seeing things. Really, the right or wrong of such a situation may not be down to simple numbers.

The thing is that we do not know that such inventions make us more intelligent, we only know that they make us human.

For me, the issue hinges around the word "needless". People needlessly kill animals for food, for fun, for money, for luxury items like fur and cosmetics, for medicine, because they get in their way, because they are "inconvenient", because they "don't like them", because they can... Animals kill for food and territory. My other point is that we should not be imposing our morality on animals. We shouldn't be judging their behaviour in terms of human moral concepts. Whether or not humans should kill and who, what, where or when are human concerns.

TheCount - you've just bought the myth about how animals live and die on farms. I grew up on a farm so I know.

You do know don't you that the majority of calves are taken away from their mothers before they are a week old? And artificial insemination is the norm, rather than a bull. And lots of cows never even get to see grass as they're raised for their whole lives in sheds. Farm animals never get to be old. Beef cows are slaughtered under 2 years old, dairy cattle are slaughtered at around 5 years old, when they cease to be economically viable. Their natural lifespan can be as much as 25 years.

Warning - this film shows scenes of animal slaughter. It is very upsetting: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=XAFoWXROyAc Farming is a commercial industry driven by consumer demand. If there is no demand then no animals will be bred to fulfill it.

[Here TheCount commented that he didn't need to worry because he didn't think animals were slaughtered the same way here in the UK]

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Here are two UK-specific films:

http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/f/CAMPAIGNS/blog//4//?be_id=50

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OumJ7fp0bQY