In a message dated 98-09-16 12:52:24 EDT, you write:
<< Komodo dragon and rare turtles.
>>
Hi!
Does anyone know what they use these animals for?
I have been reading about the tigers - how their parts of used for medicine -
good grief!
Do people eat dragons?
Thanks!
Angela
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Wed Sep 16 11:21:47 1998
From: "Farris, Sara" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "'[EMAIL PROTECTED]'" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: RE: Can animals reason?
Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1998 12:21:41 -0500
charset="ISO-8859-1"
Oh, please. I think just your question reveals your bias against
reasoning animals, and your examples reveal even more. Look at the bird
example. Who says that bird in your cage honors you (certainly a
gesture requiring some level of abstraction)? Perhaps that bird loathes
you as slaves resented their "owners" but showed them a sweet face. The
cat who sharpens her claws on my furniture knows it feels good and is
necessary and knows to wait until I've left the room to do it. It's
like the line that freud mistook women's lack of civilization for their
lack of loyalty to civilization. Animals reason the way humans
do-according to their own needs and realities. How sensible is it to
hold out for better food when this is the food that's available. How
long would humans have lasted if the cavedwellers had eschewed mammoth
burgers and waited for take-out pizza?
----------
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 1998 11:51 AM
To: STUDIES IN WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT
Subject: Can animals reason?
Hi!
Regarding animals ability to reason:
Reasoning - Food for thought - Meanings are as follows:
Logical - Is swimming right into a fishing net logical thought?
Dolphins
have great personalities but they can not avoid swimming into
nets - Perfect
example of instinct and inability to reason! They always swim
there
instinctively and will continue to swim there with or without
net presence.
Rational - Is obeying a human who impedes on your freedom
rational thought?
Birds are beautiful creatures - I wish I could fly with my own
wings -for now
I fly on the wings of love. However, a bird would allow a human
to cage it
and keep it caged without fleeing to freedom and still honor
that person? Is
that rational thought? Just behaving instinctively to its
surrounding - no
reasoning there. The bird does not ask itself rationally WHY is
the person
impeding on my freedom - why am I not in the forest among my
other bird
friends and family - that would be rational thought!
Sensible - is eating dog food sensible thought? Dogs make great
pets - great
personalities - the wolfs among us - however, if you were
sensible would you
eat dog food? Or is the dog eating out of behaviorial instinct
to survive -
not sensible thinking there - the dog does not hold out for
better food which
would be the sensible thing to do!
AWARE - is swimming upstream when you know Grizzly bears will
eat you
awareness? Salmon are amazing fish - really - how they
instinctively swim
upstream to breed - for continuance of their species - survival
instincts kick
in. However, if they were AWARE in thought that the grizzly
bear was always
there - would they continue that path or find a new path that
would increase
their odds of survival? They can not reason with awareness!
Knowing - Is scratching furniture and ripping your owners home
knowing
thought?
A cat can be such a loving curious kind of pet - I love cats - I
especially
love the big cats! However, a house cat who is not declawed and
not given
proper toys to play with will scatch the daylights our of chair
legs - now is
that knowing - if they knew what they were doing - destroying
their owners
furniture - they would KNOW that they were behaving improperly
but they can
not reason - they are just sharpening their claws - instinctive
behavior.
Are you following this? These are just a few examples
HOWEVER - Because we can reason/knowingling with our brains as
humans does
that make other animals inferior? No,
But this ability to reason with our brains should make us more
responsible/rational to the animals who can not - and only
behave - We should
respect that they deserve to live, freely without our impediment
of that and
you take away their need to reason -which they don't have anyway
-
then they become as free-spirited as we are. They
are feeling, loving, creatures who have rights - but we are
(well, we should
be) rational
humans who care about those rights and treat them as
co-inhabitants and we
care about
our home and theirs rationally! But, please do not say that
they
reason/think/rationalize/know the way humans do because they do
not!
They can not!
Peace!
Angela
