Comments on: Chimps Higher In Evolutionary Good Books http://www.adam-eason.com/2007/12/06/chimps-higher-in-evolutionary-good-books/ Adam Eason UK Hypnotherapist - Hypnosis & Personal Development Website and Resource Centre. Author, Consultant, Hypnotherapist, Trainer and much more. Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:59:28 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.2 By: Eric http://www.adam-eason.com/2007/12/06/chimps-higher-in-evolutionary-good-books/#comment-7 Eric Thu, 06 Dec 2007 20:21:19 +0000 http://www.adam-eason.com/2007/12/06/chimps-higher-in-evolutionary-good-books/#comment-7 As a sixteen-year vegetarian and former animal-rights activist, I've done a lot of study on ethics and animal behavior, and am continually astonished at how intelligent, emotive, and talented some animals really are. I sometimes wonder if our current attitudes toward animals are really just another offshoot of our oversimplistic reductionist thinking from Colonialist views of "us" versus "them." In this case, animals are the out-group while humans are the in-group, and so we identify ourselves based on perceived differences (and then reify those through projection and a kind of backward-anthropomorphism). There's a parrot here in Tucson at the University of Arizona who has the IQ of a five year old child. He can communicate, knows the difference between right and wrong, and even knows how to lie. Of course, it's easier for humans to think of animals as dumb beasts, because if we start seeing them as sentient beings it brings a whole new set of complex issues to the table. Kind of like when European colonists had to face the fact that people of other "races" were not base creatures. As a sixteen-year vegetarian and former animal-rights activist, I’ve done a lot of study on ethics and animal behavior, and am continually astonished at how intelligent, emotive, and talented some animals really are. I sometimes wonder if our current attitudes toward animals are really just another offshoot of our oversimplistic reductionist thinking from Colonialist views of “us” versus “them.” In this case, animals are the out-group while humans are the in-group, and so we identify ourselves based on perceived differences (and then reify those through projection and a kind of backward-anthropomorphism).

There’s a parrot here in Tucson at the University of Arizona who has the IQ of a five year old child. He can communicate, knows the difference between right and wrong, and even knows how to lie. Of course, it’s easier for humans to think of animals as dumb beasts, because if we start seeing them as sentient beings it brings a whole new set of complex issues to the table. Kind of like when European colonists had to face the fact that people of other “races” were not base creatures.

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