What if … We learn to talk to animals?
That’s one of the big ideas that could, they say, transform what it means to be human:
Actually, we can talk to animals. We do. They don’t say anything back though. Probably never will.
One needs to sign in/buy something to read the subsequent classic New Scientist piffle.
But do note this (free):
Steven Wise, a lawyer at the Florida-based Nonhuman Rights Project, which brought the lawsuit, argues that if chimps are declared legal persons, they should be granted rights to protect their fundamental interests. “That would certainly include bodily liberty and likely bodily integrity as well,” he says. We could no longer keep chimps in captivity, never mind subject them to intrusive experimental procedures.
Reality check: In the United States at least, government-funded chimp medical experiments were ended in 2011 due to their uselessness with respect to human health. So that is probably a fading ethical issue anyway. (If there is nothing in it, who will fund it?)
In reality, that US government decision should have been much more of an issue for fatheaded evolution claims about 99% identity. Not that anything like that will ever come up in deadtree media.
A bigger problem is: Law firms, currently hurting for work because of the ease of finding information on the Internet, have been developing “animal rights.”
Likely end stage result: In the future, one will need to think carefully about adopting a pet, as one may not be able to afford the legal costs, never mind the vet costs, which are enough already.
And forget about the low-cost spay/neuter/vax clinics some of us have worked to implement. An animal’s “lawyer” might have a right to refuse the procedure, in case the animal is “traumatized.”
One senses we ain’t seen nuthin’ yet.
See also: Matching Darwin’s “Tree of Life,” the “Tree of Intelligence”
comes crashing down”
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