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News Briefs 13-08-2012

Just what I’ve always wanted — a pet velociraptor.

Quote of the Day:

I don’t know about you but I can no longer read reports, books or news stories about the devastation being wrought by global warming. How can it help me to learn even more about the apparent apocalypse that has begun to blight my granddaughter’s future when those with the power to tackle the crisis refuse to do so? It’s an Alice-in-Wonderland world where mighty multi-national corporations and the politicians who represent them neither see nor hear the evidence that civilization as we know it is under siege – from us.

Gerald Caplan, here.

  1. animal consciousness
    YAY! Animals have a consciousness, oh…..wait…………we are still killing baby seals 😛

    It seems like the “growth” of scientific thought is the proverbial “kid on the short bus” these days. Although we don’t need Cambridge telling us “it’s official, your dog gives a shit if you kick him” it amazes me that we do need them telling us this at all. Will this change everyone’s views on animals? NO. Will it quiet my silent hatred for PETA and other groups that do more harm then good? HELL NO.

    All I hope for in the future is that one day we won’t need scientists to argue over such things as this and have some common sense(s) 😉

    1. I am like a lot of people – I
      I am like a lot of people – I have emotional interactions with animals and my pets, and it is reciprocated. There was never any doubt in my mind that animals were conscious. I know some people who have what I would call a stunted emotional intelligence and unfortunately a lot of them are materialist science geeks. When they harp on the mechanicalness of animals I just feel like walking away. These people need help.

      1. amen
        to think a dog, to give the obvious example, would not love goes against its own biology. I once saw a show about a dog trainer who believed that a dog does not love, but instead every time it wags it’s tail and licks your face it is showing fear not love. This is a grave misconception, when a dog licks your face it’s repeating what its wolf-side would do and is trying to find a place in your pack. the best thing to do is vomit to show you except him, but I don’t recommend you do that 😛

        i’d like to think that all animals feel pain and can show affection, whether it is instinctive or learned is the question, not whether or not they have consciousness.

        1. I have owned or rather
          I have owned or rather “accompanied” border collies as pets for the last 30 years. I dare anyone to interact with these amazing creatures and call them non-conscious.

          1. awwww
            I love those dogs they are so intelligent and driven. I’m a working dog breed lover I’ve had corgis in the past and let me tell you they are tough little loves who think they are 10 feet tall and don’t take crap from no one. Now I have a mutt named Ozy (rescue terrier mixed with god only knows what else), he loves everything, smart as a whip, and can hold an argument you……and win………..don’t ask 😉

            actually I think they were using borders to see if dogs had a consciousness:
            http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2011/01/10/border-collie-comprehends-over-1000-object-names-as-verbal-referents
            and i remember seeing something were they gave them that screen test they give to chimps to identify the object and they got it right more times than the chimp!

          2. Hyper intelligent breeds are
            Hyper intelligent breeds are fascinating and shed light on what eugenics can be good and bad. Border Collies have phenomenal intelligence – especially verbal – but the downside is that they are workaholics who have trouble chilling. Many of them are as one my son’s friends once observed “chronic.”

          3. I raised monkeys back in the
            I raised monkeys back in the 1960’s when I was lad and such things could be done. It was that experience that turned me on to animal soul. My wooly monkey “Daphne” was a lovely and kind creature who had many ways of communicating subtle emotions. That boy in the red shirt with the wooly hanging on his shoulder reminds me a lot me in those days.

            https://www.google.com/search?q=wooly+monkey&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=Pll&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=13cuULWrIsbLyQGKoIHYAw&ved=0CFYQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=908

          4. interesting
            I had a philosophy professor in college who used to raise gibbons. The last one he took care of he had to sell to a laboratory (at the time he didn’t really understand the grave error). He lives with the shame of that each day of his life. That gibbon taught him so much about his own character, that if you make him bring up the story he bursts into tears. You really would have enjoyed his classes, he had a large part of the curriculum dedicated to sentience in animals and their soul.

            The gibbon apparently survived though, he believes he saw it at a rescue center much later in life and something about the eyes just clicked, like he knew it was him. Sadly he said the ape gave him a look of betrayal, this is why he cries….

          5. I had a gibbon ape too –
            I had a gibbon ape too – blond phase – we named him Gandhi.” He had an intense fear of a large wooden Hindu statue in or living room. We figure that his capture in Thailand must have been associated with iconographical stolen treasures too. I feel ashamed of having one of these now, but in the 1960’s people just didn’t think that ecologically. Gandhi was amazing to watch acrobating in his “tree” I built for him ,and he had that splendid singing voice too. He liked to be carried, but he could bite the dookie out of you too. As slight of frame as these lovely creatures are a full grown one could easily kill a man. Gandhi had a muted, reflective nature, and one often felt he had been traumatized by his capture and separation from his mother. We knew a childless couple in town who had a very charming and better adjusted gibbon who was their surrogate child. When we first met him he was dressed up in a child’s cowboy outfit and sat on the sofa between them hamming it up as cowboy. It was pretty hard not to think he was a human child. He had all the attributes and a mischievous sense of humor, and he liked to look at himself in their full length mirror too and admire whatever outfit they had put on him.

            When I went off to college I gave Gandhi to the Houston Zoo for their large gibbon exhibit. I fancy he was happier among his kind. It is dismaying to remember how crude we used to be in those old days – yanking these sensitive and intelligent and supremely graceful creatures from their native environment and sticking them in cages for our amusement. We are doing some equivalent of that now yet we do not have the eyes to see it yet. We are doing things now that in 40 years will be recalled as being barbaric and cruel.

          6. we are sadly still doing it
            [quote=emlong] It is dismaying to remember how crude we used to be in those old days – yanking these sensitive and intelligent and supremely graceful creatures from their native environment and sticking them in cages for our amusement. We are doing some equivalent of that now yet we do not have the eyes to see it yet. We are doing things now that in 40 years will be recalled as being barbaric and cruel.[/quote]

            I just saw a show on wild animals being sold legally (and of course illegally) in the US. It is perfectly legal to buy and own a full grown 600 lb. tiger in Wisconsin with little to no paperwork. That is just fucked up…

            Today the animal trade is the third most lucrative way to make money on the black market under weapons and drugs.

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