(IN): Real difference between a man and any animal

[Guest guest]

> THIS RESEMBLES PLAGIARISM SINCE THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT WAS DEALT WITH BY CARL

> SAGAN AND ANN DRUYAN IN THEIR BOOK 'SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS' WELL

> OVER A DECADE AGO.

>

> On 7/9/09, azam24x7 <azam24x7 wrote:

>>

>>

>>

http://www.nagalandpost.com/ShowColumn.aspx?colid=UzEwMDAwMDA1MA%3d%3d-excTZmPng\

L8%3d

>>

>> Real difference between a man and any animalBy: Maneka Gandhi

>> Article published on 7/6/2009 11:52:37 PM IST

>> What is the real difference between a man and any animal or insect? Let

>> this

>> article explain to you; A book called Elephants on Acid, Bizarre

>> Experiments

>> by Alex Boise is a collection of experiments which the writer finds weird.

>> While most of them are very sad – killing hundreds of dogs to see whether

>> any dog can live with two heads, two of the experiments should open your

>> eyes to the nature of the human being.

>> What causes the human to be either good or evil? What causes man to become

>> aggressive, rude, antisocial and cruel? It is not chemical imbalance. Or

>> vitamin deficiency. Scientists show that all it needs is to place the

>> person

>> in the right situation. According to Philip Zimbardo “Any deed that any

>> human being has ever done, however horrible, is possible for any of us to

>> do

>> – under the right or wrong situational pressures”

>> Are you capable of killing someone on the command of a stranger. Of course

>> not, you say. But experiments done at Yale University in the early 1960s

>> show that anyone can and will do terrible things especially if they

>> believe

>> that the order is in the interests of “science” or that someone else is

>> going to take responsibility for their act.

>> The researcher Stanley Milgram, wanted to find out whether Americans would

>> kill thousands of people in the way Germans had killed Jews. So he set up

>> an

>> experiment in which randomly chosen ordinary people, postal workers,

>> teachers, salesman, factory hands, were asked to commit acts of cruelty by

>> an authority figure. No one would force them. They could leave when they

>> wanted. Only verbal commands like “please go on … please continue with the

>> experiment…” would be given. They would not be paid or pushed in any way.

>> The ad asked for volunteers in an experiment to study “memory and

>> learning”.

>> The volunteer was met by an actor playing the role of a white coated

>> “researcher” and another who pretended to be the “learner”.

>> The volunteer was told that the experiment was designed to examine the

>> effect of punishment on learning. As teacher, he would read out words to

>> the

>> learner and then ask him to repeat them. Each time the learner gave a

>> wrong

>> answer, the teacher had to press a button on a machine to give him an

>> electric shock. The shocks would increase in intensity. The researcher

>> pretended to strap the learner into an electric chair and the supposedly

>> nervous learner told the researcher that he had a heart condition. The

>> teacher was taken into another room where he could not see the learner

>> again

>> and given the voltage switch.

>> The first few times the learner got the words right but as he made

>> mistakes,

>> the teacher pressed the switch. When he passed the 75 volt level, the

>> learner started moaning. At 120 the learner shouted and by 150 volts he

>> started screaming. (All this was actually being done from a tape

>> recorder.)

>> The teachers, in most cases, began to sweat and tremble and all of them

>> looked at the researcher for guidance. All he would ask was for them to go

>> on for the sake of the experiment.

>> Milgram had forecast that no one would proceed beyond this point. But none

>> of the volunteers backed off. They kept pressing the switch as the voltage

>> got higher and higher and the agonized screams got louder and louder– all

>> the way upto 450 volts when the screams fell silent as the learner was

>> either unconscious or dead.

>> Milgram conceded “I would say , on the basis of having observed a thousand

>> people in the experiment that if a system of death camps were set up in

>> the

>> United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany one would be able to

>> find sufficient personnel for those camps in any American town.”

>> Milgram tried out hundreds of variations of the experiment and found that

>> as

>> long as the volunteer did not see or hear from the victim, he was totally

>> obedient no matter what the cruelty level was. Even if he saw and heard

>> the

>> pain, it was still 65%. And when he had to physically press the victim’s

>> hand on a metal plate to give him a shock, 30% still did it. Women were

>> just

>> as pliable as men.

>> This experiment has been duplicated hundreds of times in different

>> countries. The result is always the same.

>> Another experiment done by Charles Sheridan and Richard King used a puppy

>> in

>> a box. The researcher was told to shock the puppy if it stood in the wrong

>> place – as it was being trained. In fact there was no right place. The

>> volunteers kept shocking the puppy till it howled and jumped up and down

>> and

>> then collapsed. The volunteers cried, they hyperventilated, they screamed

>> -

>> but all of them kept shocking the puppy till it died. Another researcher

>> did

>> an experiment in “obedience” involving “normal” people who were told that

>> they were part of blood pressure experiments. Live white rats were put on

>> their hands and they were told to decapitate them. The men swore, the

>> women

>> cried. But since they had been “ordered “75% of the volunteers decapitated

>> the rats while they were squirming in their palms by stabbing and sawing

>> away at them.

>> Contrast this with a study done in Chicago. Researchers locked rhesus

>> monkeys into cages. To get food they had to pull a chain. But if the

>> monkey

>> pulled the chain, his neighbour got an electric shock. After seeing the

>> agony of their neighbours, all the monkeys refused to pull the chain. Some

>> went hungry for as long as 12 days before they died, instead of inflicting

>> pain on one of their own kind. Whenever this experiment has been repeated

>> –

>> from apes to rats and cockroaches, all of them have reacted like this.

>> They

>> would rather die than cause wanton pain.

>> Do we deserve the Earth? Are we superior in any way?

>>

>> --

>> http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

>> http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui

>>

>>

>>

[Guest guest]

Plagiarism? Nothing is original .. everything you and I say is based on what

we have learnt from experience or reading. Plagiarism is when things are

written for a purpose where the author claims to have written something

unique and unexplored.. like a book, a novel a research paper etc.

 

Maneka has only written a simple article here. A lot of which may be from

what she read and experienced.

 

Maneka's voice is heard because it has weight. She writes things in a manner

found interesting by mainstream readers. At times she creates controversies

that give more exposure to people working for animals.

 

So, let's let things be.

 

Manoj

 

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 1:04 PM, azam24x7 <azam24x7 wrote:

 

>

>

http://www.nagalandpost.com/ShowColumn.aspx?colid=UzEwMDAwMDA1MA%3d%3d-excTZmPng\

L8%3d

>

> Real difference between a man and any animalBy: Maneka Gandhi

> Article published on 7/6/2009 11:52:37 PM IST

> What is the real difference between a man and any animal or insect? Let

> this

> article explain to you; A book called Elephants on Acid, Bizarre

> Experiments

> by Alex Boise is a collection of experiments which the writer finds weird.

> While most of them are very sad – killing hundreds of dogs to see whether

> any dog can live with two heads, two of the experiments should open your

> eyes to the nature of the human being.

> What causes the human to be either good or evil? What causes man to become

> aggressive, rude, antisocial and cruel? It is not chemical imbalance. Or

> vitamin deficiency. Scientists show that all it needs is to place the

> person

> in the right situation. According to Philip Zimbardo “Any deed that any

> human being has ever done, however horrible, is possible for any of us to

> do

> – under the right or wrong situational pressures”

> Are you capable of killing someone on the command of a stranger. Of course

> not, you say. But experiments done at Yale University in the early 1960s

> show that anyone can and will do terrible things especially if they believe

> that the order is in the interests of “science” or that someone else is

> going to take responsibility for their act.

> The researcher Stanley Milgram, wanted to find out whether Americans would

> kill thousands of people in the way Germans had killed Jews. So he set up

> an

> experiment in which randomly chosen ordinary people, postal workers,

> teachers, salesman, factory hands, were asked to commit acts of cruelty by

> an authority figure. No one would force them. They could leave when they

> wanted. Only verbal commands like “please go on … please continue with the

> experiment…” would be given. They would not be paid or pushed in any way.

> The ad asked for volunteers in an experiment to study “memory and

> learning”.

> The volunteer was met by an actor playing the role of a white coated

> “researcher” and another who pretended to be the “learner”.

> The volunteer was told that the experiment was designed to examine the

> effect of punishment on learning. As teacher, he would read out words to

> the

> learner and then ask him to repeat them. Each time the learner gave a wrong

> answer, the teacher had to press a button on a machine to give him an

> electric shock. The shocks would increase in intensity. The researcher

> pretended to strap the learner into an electric chair and the supposedly

> nervous learner told the researcher that he had a heart condition. The

> teacher was taken into another room where he could not see the learner

> again

> and given the voltage switch.

> The first few times the learner got the words right but as he made

> mistakes,

> the teacher pressed the switch. When he passed the 75 volt level, the

> learner started moaning. At 120 the learner shouted and by 150 volts he

> started screaming. (All this was actually being done from a tape recorder.)

> The teachers, in most cases, began to sweat and tremble and all of them

> looked at the researcher for guidance. All he would ask was for them to go

> on for the sake of the experiment.

> Milgram had forecast that no one would proceed beyond this point. But none

> of the volunteers backed off. They kept pressing the switch as the voltage

> got higher and higher and the agonized screams got louder and louder– all

> the way upto 450 volts when the screams fell silent as the learner was

> either unconscious or dead.

> Milgram conceded “I would say , on the basis of having observed a thousand

> people in the experiment that if a system of death camps were set up in the

> United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany one would be able to

> find sufficient personnel for those camps in any American town.”

> Milgram tried out hundreds of variations of the experiment and found that

> as

> long as the volunteer did not see or hear from the victim, he was totally

> obedient no matter what the cruelty level was. Even if he saw and heard the

> pain, it was still 65%. And when he had to physically press the victim’s

> hand on a metal plate to give him a shock, 30% still did it. Women were

> just

> as pliable as men.

> This experiment has been duplicated hundreds of times in different

> countries. The result is always the same.

> Another experiment done by Charles Sheridan and Richard King used a puppy

> in

> a box. The researcher was told to shock the puppy if it stood in the wrong

> place – as it was being trained. In fact there was no right place. The

> volunteers kept shocking the puppy till it howled and jumped up and down

> and

> then collapsed. The volunteers cried, they hyperventilated, they screamed -

> but all of them kept shocking the puppy till it died. Another researcher

> did

> an experiment in “obedience” involving “normal” people who were told that

> they were part of blood pressure experiments. Live white rats were put on

> their hands and they were told to decapitate them. The men swore, the women

> cried. But since they had been “ordered “75% of the volunteers decapitated

> the rats while they were squirming in their palms by stabbing and sawing

> away at them.

> Contrast this with a study done in Chicago. Researchers locked rhesus

> monkeys into cages. To get food they had to pull a chain. But if the monkey

> pulled the chain, his neighbour got an electric shock. After seeing the

> agony of their neighbours, all the monkeys refused to pull the chain. Some

> went hungry for as long as 12 days before they died, instead of inflicting

> pain on one of their own kind. Whenever this experiment has been repeated –

> from apes to rats and cockroaches, all of them have reacted like this. They

> would rather die than cause wanton pain.

> Do we deserve the Earth? Are we superior in any way?

>

> --

> http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

> http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui

 

Manoj Oswal | Director | 01 Synergy

 

Regd Office and Dev Center :

149 Bhawani Peth,

Pune 411 042. India

Tel : Direct : +91 2066017797

Tel : +91-20-26383461, 26383036

Fax :+912026456055

M : +919890044455

[Guest guest]

Dear Manoj,

I am sorry I have to disagree with you here. Going by your

definition, Maneka's book 'Heads and Tails' has paragraphs completely lifted

from John Robbins's 'Diet for a New America' and the zoo section is a

complete lift from Gerald Durrell's book 'The Stationary Ark'.

Neither is this a simple article for Maneka makes a claim that experiments

have been made on cockroaches that show altruism. I can assure you that

there has been no such experiment.

A lot of what Maneka writes is indeed from what she has read and

experienced which is very considerable and which I do respect but when you

write something claiming it under your authorship, it is accepted academic

practice to attribute sources properly. It does not require an Einstein to

infer that what Maneka is claiming in this article is original because she

is making her own assertions based on something which has already been dealt

with extensively by someone else on pretty much the same grounds.

Internationally, there are regulations that strictly ascertain the limits of

what you describe as 'original' when you put pen to paper.

You are right that Maneka's voice has weight. You are also right in saying

she writes in a manner that makes things interesting to readers. I, however

part company with you when you say " At times she creates controversies that

give more exposure to people working for animals. " This has harmed the

movement irrevocably in many cases because Maneka gives you the impression

that she cares more for animals than for humans, an approach that will never

succeed in a country like India. Having weight and having the power of the

pen does not entitle oneself to offend others randomly and at will. That is

a misuse of power.

What Maneka has written about abortion and homsexuality being ridiculous

issues in the human context is plain and simply wrong and misguided. Are you

aware how much research has been done to ascertain at what point an embryo

feels pain? According to Maneka it is 'ridiculous.' Top scientists in the

world are still grappling with this so called 'ridiculous' issue. Just to

let you know, the abortion issue was taken as a reference point in Carl

Sagan espousing animal rights in his book 'The Dragons of Eden' whilst

trying to establish the fact that if a human foetus has human rights, why

should a chimpanzee not have the same rights. Carl Sagan knew more science

than Maneka ever will and was and is more influential internationally than

Maneka. He however had a working style which was very different from

Maneka's.

There are many other examples which I would gladly share with you. Nobody

knows at what point sentience starts and endowment of rights begin, that is

the central issue of abortion and animal rights, there is nothing ridiculous

about it. Besides there is a huge amount of difference in being a human as

compared to an insect since a human is a vertebrate primate whereas an

insect is an invertebrate so Maneka's argument that there is no difference

between a human and an insect is totally wrong and absurd.

Maneka, judging by the way she writes and treats people in general, very

often forgets the basic tenet that human beings should treat human beings

like human beings. This was very evident in the way she was launching public

unilateral attacks on General Kharab in Madras in 2007. What is more

unfortunate is that she insists on repeating it.

I will state categorically that we should not let things be when facts are

misrepresented and basic human moral codes violated and offended. However, I

do appreciate you writing about this and we could continue this debate with

John's permission. We however have to agree to disagree on Maneka's status

and literary prowess. I am not among those who have a doey eyed admiration

for her modus operandi.

Best wishes and kind regards,

 

 

 

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 6:17 PM, Manoj Oswal <manoj wrote:

 

> Plagiarism? Nothing is original .. everything you and I say is based on

> what

> we have learnt from experience or reading. Plagiarism is when things are

> written for a purpose where the author claims to have written something

> unique and unexplored.. like a book, a novel a research paper etc.

>

> Maneka has only written a simple article here. A lot of which may be from

> what she read and experienced.

>

> Maneka's voice is heard because it has weight. She writes things in a

> manner

> found interesting by mainstream readers. At times she creates controversies

> that give more exposure to people working for animals.

>

> So, let's let things be.

>

> Manoj

>

> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 1:04 PM, azam24x7 <azam24x7 wrote:

>

> >

> >

>

http://www.nagalandpost.com/ShowColumn.aspx?colid=UzEwMDAwMDA1MA%3d%3d-excTZmPng\

L8%3d

> >

> > Real difference between a man and any animalBy: Maneka Gandhi

> > Article published on 7/6/2009 11:52:37 PM IST

> > What is the real difference between a man and any animal or insect? Let

> > this

> > article explain to you; A book called Elephants on Acid, Bizarre

> > Experiments

> > by Alex Boise is a collection of experiments which the writer finds

> weird.

> > While most of them are very sad – killing hundreds of dogs to see whether

> > any dog can live with two heads, two of the experiments should open your

> > eyes to the nature of the human being.

> > What causes the human to be either good or evil? What causes man to

> become

> > aggressive, rude, antisocial and cruel? It is not chemical imbalance. Or

> > vitamin deficiency. Scientists show that all it needs is to place the

> > person

> > in the right situation. According to Philip Zimbardo “Any deed that any

> > human being has ever done, however horrible, is possible for any of us to

> > do

> > – under the right or wrong situational pressures”

> > Are you capable of killing someone on the command of a stranger. Of

> course

> > not, you say. But experiments done at Yale University in the early 1960s

> > show that anyone can and will do terrible things especially if they

> believe

> > that the order is in the interests of “science” or that someone else is

> > going to take responsibility for their act.

> > The researcher Stanley Milgram, wanted to find out whether Americans

> would

> > kill thousands of people in the way Germans had killed Jews. So he set up

> > an

> > experiment in which randomly chosen ordinary people, postal workers,

> > teachers, salesman, factory hands, were asked to commit acts of cruelty

> by

> > an authority figure. No one would force them. They could leave when they

> > wanted. Only verbal commands like “please go on … please continue with

> the

> > experiment…” would be given. They would not be paid or pushed in any way.

> > The ad asked for volunteers in an experiment to study “memory and

> > learning”.

> > The volunteer was met by an actor playing the role of a white coated

> > “researcher” and another who pretended to be the “learner”.

> > The volunteer was told that the experiment was designed to examine the

> > effect of punishment on learning. As teacher, he would read out words to

> > the

> > learner and then ask him to repeat them. Each time the learner gave a

> wrong

> > answer, the teacher had to press a button on a machine to give him an

> > electric shock. The shocks would increase in intensity. The researcher

> > pretended to strap the learner into an electric chair and the supposedly

> > nervous learner told the researcher that he had a heart condition. The

> > teacher was taken into another room where he could not see the learner

> > again

> > and given the voltage switch.

> > The first few times the learner got the words right but as he made

> > mistakes,

> > the teacher pressed the switch. When he passed the 75 volt level, the

> > learner started moaning. At 120 the learner shouted and by 150 volts he

> > started screaming. (All this was actually being done from a tape

> recorder.)

> > The teachers, in most cases, began to sweat and tremble and all of them

> > looked at the researcher for guidance. All he would ask was for them to

> go

> > on for the sake of the experiment.

> > Milgram had forecast that no one would proceed beyond this point. But

> none

> > of the volunteers backed off. They kept pressing the switch as the

> voltage

> > got higher and higher and the agonized screams got louder and louder– all

> > the way upto 450 volts when the screams fell silent as the learner was

> > either unconscious or dead.

> > Milgram conceded “I would say , on the basis of having observed a

> thousand

> > people in the experiment that if a system of death camps were set up in

> the

> > United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany one would be able

> to

> > find sufficient personnel for those camps in any American town.”

> > Milgram tried out hundreds of variations of the experiment and found that

> > as

> > long as the volunteer did not see or hear from the victim, he was totally

> > obedient no matter what the cruelty level was. Even if he saw and heard

> the

> > pain, it was still 65%. And when he had to physically press the victim’s

> > hand on a metal plate to give him a shock, 30% still did it. Women were

> > just

> > as pliable as men.

> > This experiment has been duplicated hundreds of times in different

> > countries. The result is always the same.

> > Another experiment done by Charles Sheridan and Richard King used a puppy

> > in

> > a box. The researcher was told to shock the puppy if it stood in the

> wrong

> > place – as it was being trained. In fact there was no right place. The

> > volunteers kept shocking the puppy till it howled and jumped up and down

> > and

> > then collapsed. The volunteers cried, they hyperventilated, they screamed

> -

> > but all of them kept shocking the puppy till it died. Another researcher

> > did

> > an experiment in “obedience” involving “normal” people who were told that

> > they were part of blood pressure experiments. Live white rats were put on

> > their hands and they were told to decapitate them. The men swore, the

> women

> > cried. But since they had been “ordered “75% of the volunteers

> decapitated

> > the rats while they were squirming in their palms by stabbing and sawing

> > away at them.

> > Contrast this with a study done in Chicago. Researchers locked rhesus

> > monkeys into cages. To get food they had to pull a chain. But if the

> monkey

> > pulled the chain, his neighbour got an electric shock. After seeing the

> > agony of their neighbours, all the monkeys refused to pull the chain.

> Some

> > went hungry for as long as 12 days before they died, instead of

> inflicting

> > pain on one of their own kind. Whenever this experiment has been repeated

> –

> > from apes to rats and cockroaches, all of them have reacted like this.

> They

> > would rather die than cause wanton pain.

> > Do we deserve the Earth? Are we superior in any way?

> >

> > --

> > http://www.stopelephantpolo.com

> > http://www.freewebs.com/azamsiddiqui

>

> Manoj Oswal | Director | 01 Synergy

>

> Regd Office and Dev Center :

> 149 Bhawani Peth,

> Pune 411 042. India

> Tel : Direct : +91 2066017797

> Tel : +91-20-26383461, 26383036

> Fax :+912026456055

> M : +919890044455

>

>

>

>

> ---

>

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