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gailr
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Postby gailr » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:38 pm

Did you mean the "lower animals" need to stay in their place (not sure what/where that is, between domestication and dwindling wild areas) since this board is posted by members of Animalia...

Anthropomorphization does serve one useful function: reinforcing "humane" behavior. Those members of H. sap sap who do not perceive their fellow creatures as having emotions or the ability to feel pain have little compunction about meting out cruelty, at any level of the taxonomic chain, regardless of whether the recipients intellectualize about their situations or curse their tormentors. (Any naturally "amoral" members of the animal kingdom which might be cited for intrinsically "cruel" behaviour here would not be considered among its most sentient.)

-gailr

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Postby KatyBr » Sun Jan 29, 2006 11:55 pm

oh, wait, wait, wait, I was making a joke. I'm not for anthropomorphizing, but I know animals have emotions, as I mentioned on earlier posts in this threads, but cursing? I'm not on that bandwagon. I think that was what APO was saying too.

Easy there Hoss, no one was downing the "lower' animals.

Kt
I've never been cruel to a single animal, unless you count mice......they MUST die!
this is not me or APO, sorry the picture didn't come thru' it was a most emailed pic of a dog in china, hung up to sell as meat.
Last edited by KatyBr on Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Apoclima
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Postby Apoclima » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:00 pm

gailr:
Anthropomorphization does serve one useful function: reinforcing "humane" behavior.
I do not see the need to anthropomorphize animals in order to reinforce humane behavior. Animals should be treated humanely just because they are animals, not because we see ourselves in them.

Certainly I am less concerned about insects than I am about reptiles, and less concerned about reptiles than I am about mammals.

I swat mosquitos and flies, but I don't pull their wings or legs off. I usually carry spiders and bees outside, but am less likely to give a wasp a break, if things get complicated.

And certainly one cannot let one's house become over run with ants or termites (or mice or rats, for that matter).

I do agree that an attitude of respect should be given to animals, and we surely should not find pleasure in tormenting them.

Yes, animals should be viewed as beautiful and sacred, but their lives are not on a par with human life.

And, yes, with our pets we tend to humanize them, which is hardly avoidable if we love them.

Anyway, my point really was that I don't think that the anthropomorphization of animals is any way to study them scientifically.
"Animals are clearly not machines, but neither are they slightly diminished human beings. Intellectual understanding is not found in any degree in any animal but man. The human capacity to understand the what and the why of things is unique in the animal kingdom. With respect to this faculty, man is different in kind from animals, not in degree. The difference between apes and other animals is one of degree, since they possess the same kinds of powers to a greater or less extent. But a greater gap separates man from ape than that which separates any two other natural creatures. (Augros, Robert [philosopher] & Stanciu, George [physicist], "The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala: Boston, MA, 1987, p.82. Emphasis in original).
A study of The Lion King is not a scientific study of African animals.

Apo
'Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination.' -Max Planck

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Postby KatyBr » Tue Jan 31, 2006 5:34 pm


Anyway, my point really was that I don't think that the anthropomorphization of animals is any way to study them scientifically.
"Animals are clearly not machines, but neither are they slightly diminished human beings.
A study of The Lion King is not a scientific study of African animals. hahahahahaha

Apo
Thank you APO, well said, and just right. People who go all gooey over someone else's mistreatment of an animal* (not to say there aren't awful examples) yet feel human beings come in second best or not noble compared to any animal trait are inconprehensible to me. Animals have one, maybe two, motivations, to survive and procreate, one hopes we are a bit more complicated. Pets have theluxury of playing even as adults.



*in Seattle people are allowed by law to break into someone else's car if a dog is "in distress" in it. I over heard someone complaining about my dog in my car, whose favorite activty was to jump from seat to seat barking maniacally. I said loudly that my dog was fine, all the windows were open and a truely distressed dog hides under the seat. The law gave permission to anthropomorphize animals with no knowledge of the truth.

Kt

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Postby tcward » Tue Jan 31, 2006 7:18 pm

On a general note, any story that disregards science is hardly memorable.

And on a lighter note, just yesterday my youngest (age 4) told us that our cat was praying when he purred -- apparently he appeared to be in relaxed meditation as he lounged on our sofa.

-Tim

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gailr
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Postby gailr » Tue Jan 31, 2006 10:02 pm

Well, I see it's time for this steak lover to post another link to Cows with Guns. Tim, no cats praying but there is a cow guru(!) in the flash video (temporarily available here due to heavy traffic at its own site)...

Apo, I agree there is a difference between humans and other animals. And there is a considerable body of evidence that childhood cruelty towards other living things is an indication of latent psychopathic tendencies. I'm more comfortable around people who shower affection on both kids & animals, and kill vermin (I'll go along with that term) as humanely as possible to prevent disease in human-inhabitated areas. Those who would eradicate entire species for short-term financial gain (without any regard to the resulting impact on the ecosystem cocooning the rest of us), who kick their pets and beat their families, may be genetically human, but there is something seriously lacking in sentience and nobility. I'm glad to read that you "return spiders to the wild" when possible. Where, oh where were you the time I had to capture a fruit bat (bring the capture bag, Jim!) and carry it, carefully--but totally freaked out--to the outside? :)

-gailr

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:07 am

Well, I see it's time for this steak lover to post another link to Cows with Guns. Tim, no cats praying but there is a cow guru(!) in the flash video (temporarily available here due to heavy traffic at its own site)...
Yes, but how did they square this slogan with the chickens in choppers?
'Tiz Nobler to Eat More Chicken
Image

Image

I like my cow rare. How rare? Just send her down the aisle and I'll rip off a chunk as she goes by. :wink:

. . . I'm glad to read that you "return spiders to the wild" when possible. Where, oh where were you the time I had to capture a fruit bat (bring the capture bag, Jim!) and carry it, carefully--but totally freaked out--to the outside? :)

-gailr
I had to get a bat out of the basement years ago. He was up on the wall and I knocked him to the floor with a broom, then covered him with a plastic basin, slid some cardboard under the basin along the carpet, then lifted them both up and carried them outside. Judging from the loud ticking noise coming from the basin, he was not a happy camper. I tossed the whole shebang out the front door and let him fly away. They can fly in my yard and eat all the bugs they want, just don't try to come in the house! The wife gets a bit looney. You should have seen her when we found the four-foot-long snakeskin in the basement after coming back from vacation one year!
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

KatyBr
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Postby KatyBr » Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:24 am

LOL Larry I liked those images,
And gailr I take my spiders and the six trillion ladybugs we get in our home everyyear outside too, they are carefully taken out and dumped from my vacuum recepticle to the trash can outside where they belonged in the first place, I say peaceful co-existance (your side-my side)

Kt
I have mice from next door where they have an old SUV stuffed full of hay bales and goat feed. I think they are farming them by the pound. Anyway my house is teeming with the wrong kind of life and I'm not too thrilled.

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gailr
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Postby gailr » Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:31 pm

Brazilian dude, I had an additional thought on this topic. It occurred to me that any dude about town can suave all over himself asking girls out, but where are these big lunks when vampire bats are threatening the populace? Or chicken-eating spiders start looking into urban areas? I'll tell you where they are. They are cowering with their friends in a bar someplace, bragging about how tough they would be if any spiders or bats showed their faces in here!

Perhaps if you let it slip to one of these girls who have caught your eye that you are only a phone call away when things go--well, not bump--(but perhaps, more distressing, creep soundlessly and multi-leggedly) in the night... Dude, this could work for you!! Best wishes!

-gailr
Last edited by gailr on Sat Feb 04, 2006 12:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Thu Feb 02, 2006 1:03 am

On a general note, any story that disregards science is hardly memorable.

And on a lighter note, just yesterday my youngest (age 4) told us that our cat was praying when he purred -- apparently he appeared to be in relaxed meditation as he lounged on our sofa.

-Tim
Perhaps said cat was thinking of preying:
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Brazilian dude
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Postby Brazilian dude » Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:23 am

Anyway, it occurred to me that any dude about town can suave all over himself asking girls out, but where are these big lunks when vampire bats are threatening the populace? Or chicken-eating spiders start looking into urban areas
Oh bummer. We have no wildlife here, just cats and dogs. Maybe if a pooch gets feisty with one of my girls, they can send me a distress holler?

Brazilian dude
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