On Apr 16, 2009, at 9:24 PM, Chris Doss wrote:
> Describing gorillas with a vocabulary of 200+ words as an "endearing
> trick" is ridiculous beyond belief. I expected more of you, Michael!
On this I am with Michael P... knowing a few hundred words is not the same as the language facility (even if you don't believe in the "faculty"). Nim Chimpsky is about as good as they get, after decades of work. There are a lot of qualities where many animals have us beat, but language, in all its creative usage, IMHO, seems fairly unique to us.
But this seems besides the point. I read your post as raising the question of what it is that is unique to all humans that *qualifies* them for certain ethical considerations but excludes other creatures. There are, I believe, humans incapable of language (a large number of them are called babies. I have one myself!). We don't equate them to animals (at least I don't). So its something else. Perhaps it’s the potential for language? That might work for babies... but even then what about a baby that is destined to die before the age of 1? And what is it about advanced language that makes a creature more qualified for preferential treatment?
On Apr 17, 2009, at 6:20 AM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
> I did ask you not to bother with philosophical clap-trap.
But that is another defining characteristic of humans! Its turning out, after all, that humans are not that endearing and thus fail Doug's cute and cuddly test and should immediately be added to the menu ;-).
BTW, I have to say before this thread I was only an Ian fanboy. But now I am also a Chris Doss fanboy. And to have this very thread morph into a flamewar between them... that's like Wimbledon 2007 and 2008 with the cool and wise Federer battling the talented and instinctively on target Nadal. Who cares about the animals. This is more fun!
--ravi
-- Support something better than yourself ;-) PeTA => http://peta.org/ Greenpeace => http://greenpeace.org/ If you have nothing better to read: http://platosbeard.org/