Guest guest Posted July 5, 2000 Report Share Posted July 5, 2000 Hey people! Thank you much for answering my questions. I'm still reading all the answers...and the best part is I'll see the guy on Friday at my party (vegan food anyone)...heh heh heh...so I will have plenty of opportunity to answer him then...tactfully and unconfrontationaly (is that a word?) as possible. I'm sure the subject will come up...it always does...sigh. But anyway...I have a couple more questions...just looking to cover all potential questions... *what do you say to people who tell you that cows couldn't survive if we let them free and wouldn't cows (in their genetically altered state) have trouble suriving in the wild? *what do you tell people who say that we are intellectually superior to animals? People tell me that because of our Scientific and Technological " achievents " we have a superior brain capacity. *does anyone have proof animals communicate? studies? anything? Okay well, thanks very much. It's very hard to argue with this guy...he's a bit of a very...large...meat fanatic...he gave up red meat because of a rancid meatloaf, so I don't know if he's stuck with it...I hope so. -Maia- ______________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 5, 2000 Report Share Posted July 5, 2000 >*what do you say to people who tell you that cows couldn't survive if we >let >them free and wouldn't cows (in their genetically altered state) have >trouble suriving in the wild? letting genetically alterted animals into " the wild " is NEVER a good idea (I don't know what has been done to cattle, if anything, but I'm thinking specifically of those new super salmon). We've been breeding cows artificially in a controlled envirnoment for so long, that there is really nothing that natural about our cow population in the US. I'm sure the cow population would drop and many cows would die of disease and starvation if we just turned them all loose - cattle is treated like a crop now, so you could expect results similiar to leaving a field a crops alone. some would die some would reseed. . . .o.k., maybe that is a bit harsh and insensitive of a comparison, but there are no wild cows in the US, as far as I know, so I don't know if just turning them all loose at once would be such a great idea. Getting beef wranglers to just stop and turn their cattle loose is not likely to happen (a nice thought, but not too realistic). The best we can hope for is a gradual dwindling of demand, which would lead to a dwindling of forced cattle breeding - making the number of emancipated cows smaller and easier to deal with in terms of acclimation to non-farm life. >*what do you tell people who say that we are intellectually superior to >animals? People tell me that because of our Scientific and Technological > " achievents " we have a superior brain capacity. So what if we do have higher over " brain capaicty " , whatever that really means? Does anything less intelligent than a human deserve to be treated cruely and then killed for food? >*does anyone have proof animals communicate? studies? anything? I'm sure someone here does, but isn't the fact that animals communicate common knowledge? Who would be dense enough to think that animals don't communicate with each other? >Okay well, thanks very much. It's very hard to argue with this guy...he's >a >bit of a very...large...meat fanatic...he gave up red meat because of a >rancid meatloaf, so I don't know if he's stuck with it...I hope so. >-Maia- >______________________ >Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com > ______________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted July 7, 2000 Report Share Posted July 7, 2000 hey there, thanks for all the questions! it helps me to think these things through, i'm enjoying the opportunity to compare my answers to others, and clarify my own thoughts... On 6 Jul 00, at 8:14, maia wrote: > *what do you say to people who tell you that cows couldn't survive if we > let them free and wouldn't cows (in their genetically altered state) have > trouble suriving in the wild? 1) i'm not sure that's true. (i'm not sure it's not, either, but...) 2) cows have been selectively bred, using traditional animal husbandry, for centuries. that's not the same as " genetic modification " , which refers to specific, invasive lab techniques like cross-species gene-splicing and gene-blasting (for example, putting fish genes in tomatoes) 3) if today's cows couldn't survive in the wild, what are we doing messing with the ecosystem that way, creating a creature that can't live without us and then forcing them to reproduce for our nefarious purposes? let's let them die out, or live out their lives on sanctuaries, or whatever, and stop creating more of them. >*what do you tell people who say that we are > intellectually superior to animals? i say, 1) i disagree. what we call " intellect " is all about how much other animals are like *us*. no wonder, when we measure all animals against who is most human-like, that the humans win. animals can do lots of things humans simply cannot do. that doesn't make anyone superior to anyone else. 2) even if you accept the definition of " intellect " and all that, so what if we are superior? how does being better at science and technology make it ok to kill someone? should infants be fair game because they can't be engineers? hell, lots of people are better than me at science and technology. does that make it ok for them to torture me then roast me for dinner? >*does anyone have proof animals communicate? studies? > anything? there is absolutely proof of this. why else would birds sing? how else would bees run a hive? hell, it now seems that whales use grammar and syntax. chimps who learn english sign-language have even taught it to their young. unfortunately i can't give you any refs... maybe someone here can help me out? check peter singer's book " animal liberation " , or the books of john robbins, i suspect you'll find what you're looking for. or, if you have access to a university library, try the philosophy stacks for environmental- ethics type course books. take care, and good luck! mylène ++++++++ " [We] are only beginning to uncover our own truths; many of us ... would be glad just to lie down with the sherds we have painfully uncovered... The politics worth having, the relationships worth having, demand that we delve still deeper. " Adrienne Rich -------------- Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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