Thursday, December 18, 2014

Animal Personhood: A Scientific Examination

From Popular Science





SHOULD ANIMALS HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS PEOPLE?

HUMANS HAVE ALWAYS SEEN THEMSELVES AS DISTINCT FROM OTHER CREATURES, BUT SCIENCE IS FORCING US TO RECONSIDER THAT POSITION
  
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In December 2013, four captive chimpanzees in the state of New York became the first nonhuman primates in history to sue their human captors in an attempt to gain their freedom. The chimps’ lawyers, members of a recently formed organization known as the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP), were asking a judge to grant their clients the basic right to not be imprisoned illegally. The NhRP could soon file similar lawsuits on behalf of other great apes (bonobos, orangutans, and gorillas) and elephants—beings that have all been shown to possess highly developed cognitive capabilities.
The NhRP’s campaign is, not surprisingly, controversial. For many, the very idea of nonhuman personhood is an oxymoron. Others argue that human rights come with societal responsibilities, such as paying taxes and obeying laws, that no nonhuman could ever meet. Still others feel that current animal-protection statutes offer sufficient security without all the legal and philosophical headaches inherent in extending human rights to another species. The judges of the New York lawsuits ultimately dismissed them all on the grounds that the plaintiffs aren’t people. The appeals are ongoing.
Still, the simpler and more profound truth about the NhRP’s arguments is that as recently as 10 years ago, they would have been laughed out of any courtroom, derided for being shamelessly anthropomorphic. But now an ever-expanding body of observational, neurological, and genetic evidence about animal intelligence and behavior is forcing us to reconsider the age-old boundary between ourselves and other creatures.
The question of where we stand in relation to animals has preoccupied humans since the dawn of consciousness. The earliest tales told across cultures, among them the creation myths of the Nuer tribesmen of Sudan and the Old Testament’s story of Adam and Eve, all pivot around the sudden severance of a perceived unity between ourselves and other creatures. And the resulting sense of separation has kept us from viewing animals as anything but lesser versions of ourselves.
11: The number of brain regions found to correspond between humans and macaques (out of 12 total).
Early Western thinkers such as Aristotle—composer of one of the first guides to the animal kingdom—wrote of a “chain of being” in which animals, because they lacked reason, were naturally ranked below us. In medieval times, animals became largely abstracted into allegory. The great apes were depicted as “wild men of the woods,” chasers and rapists of women, and thus the very embodiment of our baser, primal selves. In the ecclesiastical courts of the Middle Ages, meanwhile, animals such as pigs, which roamed freely in villages where they often maimed or killed unattended children, were given full trials and even assigned their own lawyers. The guilty party would then be dressed in human clothing and publicly tortured and put to death in the town square: a symbolic ritual meant to reestablish humankind’s dominance over animals and restore some semblance of order to an otherwise disorderly world.
A more objective view of animals began to emerge during the Renaissance, but it wasn’t until the late 19th century that the first truly scientific study of animals appeared, authored by none other than Charles Darwin. Although he is known almost exclusively for his theory of evolution, Darwin devoted the better part of his life after the publication of The Origin of Species to researching and writing The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Published in 1872 (the same year as the first issue of Popular Science), the book paved the way for a series of scientific works on animal sentience and emotion. In the absence of modern research techniques, they were, to say the least, often highly speculative. In one book, the author accords dogs the awareness of “indefinite morality” and asserts that reason begins with crustacea. But these manuscripts also laid the groundwork for the field of comparative psychology, the study of animal behavior. For nearly a century, comparative psychologists developed an intuitive understanding of the shared biological and behavioral bonds between species. Now science is confirming those suspicions in remarkable ways.
Some years ago, I found myself standing inside a large walk-in cooler filled with different animal brains, all of them the property of Patrick Hof, a neuroscientist at the Ichan School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. There, adrift in glass containers of formaldehyde was a constellation of cerebrums: human, chimpanzee, gorilla, orangutan, spider monkey, bison, and bat. On shelves in the back, Hof kept seaborne brains: dolphin, porpoise, orca, and beluga. Beneath them, a sperm-whale brain rested at the base of a Rubbermaid garbage pail. A gooey white disk, it was roughly the size of a café table.
Hof studies all the brains he can get his hands on in order to better understand the organ’s evolution. Along the way he has discovered numerous common features, not just within the human brain and those of our fellow primates, but also in a number of other mammalian species that the NhRP could soon be representing in court.
Not long ago, the different brains in Hof’s cooler were as disparate and inscrutable on a cellular level to scientists as the stars were to early humans. Now there isn’t a brain they can look at without considering the common neuronal matter shared by all mammals. Advanced neuroimaging and tissue analyses of the brains of cetaceans, for example, have revealed a very different cerebral construction than our own (owing to the vastly different environments in which the two brains evolved), and yet they exhibit similarly complex cortices and limbic systems. Those areas in human brains are the very ones involved in emotion processing, thinking and perceiving, and language. Hof has also found in both cetacean and elephant brains the presence of highly specialized neurons known as spindle cells. Once believed to appear only in humans, spindle cells are possibly associated with self-awareness, empathy, and a sense of compassion­­—the kinds of functions long believed to be exclusively our own.
Within the 106-page memorandum filed by the NhRP on behalf of its first nonhuman plaintiffs, nine leading primatologists filed affidavits testifying to the cognitive capacities of chimps, our nearest biological relative. “These include,” the memo states, “their possession of an autobiographical self, episodic memory, self determination, self-consciousness . . . empathy, a working memory . . . their ability to understand cause and effect and the experiences of others, to imagine, to innovate and to make tools. . . . Like humans, chimpanzees have a concept of their personal past and future . . . they suffer the pain of anticipating never-ending confinement.”
The memo also includes an observational study of a chimpanzee in a Swedish zoo who regularly hides an arsenal of stones within his enclosure—ammunition that he uses to throw at zoo visitors whenever the mood strikes him. Other studies show that chimps consistently outperform humans in computer-symbol recognition tests. Comparative genomic analyses, meanwhile, prove chimps share nearly 99 percent of our DNA. Human and chimp blood is interchangeable, allowing for transfusions in either direction as long as blood types match. And a number of brain studies now indicate, among other common characteristics, an abundance of spindle cells, more than in any other species of great ape besides human.
Shared brain structures and complex behaviors may come as little surprise with regard to other primates. But finding them in creatures so seemingly different from ourselves is revelatory. Elephants and whales, for example, the giants of their respective domains, not only have comparably large and complex brains relative to our own; they also evolved them millions of years before humans came along. Both live in multitiered, largely matriarchal societies in which extended groups of mothers, daughters, aunts, and friendly “allomothers” rear and educate their young. They have their own sophisticated languages and songs and, in the case of certain cetacean species like the sperm whale, separate dialects specific to different clans. Both species use tools and foraging techniques and pass that knowledge to other generations, and both grieve their dead—all characteristics of another phenomenon we have long exclusively reserved for ourselves: culture.
It only follows, then, that these creatures also suffer, as we do, from their culture’s collapse. Elephants that have witnessed the slaughter of their parents by poaching or culling and lost the support of their extended family group exhibit the same erratic and often detached behaviors as African war orphans who’ve suffered the loss of their families and the destruction of their villages. Post-traumatic stress disorder, in other words, cuts across species.
Elephants and whales not only have comparably large and complex brains relative to our own; they also evolved them millions of years before humans came along.
Over the entire arc of human thought on animals, the persistent question has been whether they are really like us—whether they are people too. Even as comparative psychology advanced our understanding of animals, we studied them, in no small part, to better understand ourselves. For many decades, our regard for nonhuman creatures went no further than the B.F. Skinner–inspired behaviorist prohibition of anthropomorphism: We can’t conjecture about what’s happening in their minds for the simple reason that we can’t conjecture that about one another.
The most recent science, however, has freed us from that perspective. It no longer matters whether we can truly know what a chimp’s day is like, or an elephant’s, or a whale’s. All the available evidence proves that they have rich days of their own and minds enough to lose. Especially for those creatures currently on the NhRP’s prospective clients list, it isn’t their likeness to us but their remarkably parallel complexity that must give us pause and command a new regard—certainly a philosophical one and perhaps a legal one as well.
Few cases better reveal the power of science than those put forth by the NhRP on behalf of nonhumans. New instruments and techniques are overturning our understanding of the universe and our place in it. In a sense, we’re discovering that the search for complex beings like ourselves has been forever pointed in the wrong direction. Rather than seeking answers in a distant star system, we can find them in billions of years’ worth of evolutionary biology. As for the intelligent aliens we’ve so longed to meet—they have been right here beside us all along.
This article was originally published in the January 2015 issue of Popular Science, under the title "Animals Like Us".

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

I Too Am an Animal - Modern Warrior: Damien Mander

This is one of the best and most succinct explanations of speciesism, sexism and the need to go vegan; ending with one simple, but the most important, question.



Sunday, March 30, 2014

Get Animals OFF the Menu - Phillip Wollen

One of the most succinct and informative speeches I've come across yet.

Click here for the full debate.


Phillip Wollen on hunting.



Phillip Wollen - What can one individual do?



Interview with Phillip Wollen. This man gives me hope. Not all corporate moguls are sociopaths.
He is truly and inspiration



Same speech as the first, but with additional comments and a more relaxed forum.


Monday, March 10, 2014

Rise of the Animal Welfare Industrial Complex

Rise of the Animal Welfare Industrial Complex

2005 17 Animal Organizations endorse Whole Foods' Animal Compassionate Standards

2005 Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Baur and PETA Director of Vegan Campaigns Bruce Friedrich participate in development of Whole Foods' "Animal Compassionate Standards" for the use and killing of animals


2005 Whole Foods receives PETA "Proggy" award as "best animal-friendly retailer"

2005 Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) CEO Wayne Pacelle and HSUS Farm Animal Program Director Paul Shapiro (also co-founder of Compassion Over Killing) privately meet with egg industry operators to collaborate on launch of "cage-free" egg initiative

2005 Whole Foods CEO John Mackey featured as keynote speaker at animal conference and introduced as a vegan by Farm Sanctuary co-founder Gene Baur

2005 VegNews magazine names John Mackey Corporate Executive of the Year

2006 Major media coverage, including article in New York Times, cements Whole Foods' reputation as an "animal compassionate" meat retailer with a "vegan" CEO, and the role of animal advocacy organizations in promoting "humane" labeling schemes.

2006 HSUS's affiliate, Humane Society International, announces "Humane Choice"program, offering products from animals who "basically live their lives as they would have done on Old MacDonald's farm"

2007 Taking Action for Animals Conference features three animal farmers as speakers, including rancher Nicolette Hahn Niman. Major sponsors of conference include HSUS, Farm Sanctuary and Whole Foods.

2007 HSUS and Farm Sanctuary lead formation of advocacy-industry Prop. 2 legislative coalition "Californians for Humane Farms" with Niman Ranch amongst industry partners

2007 HSUS and Farm Sanctuary partner with restaurateur Wolfgang Puck to promote new standards for the use and killing of animals

2007 Farm Forward is founded, with board members including Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and PETA Vice President Bruce Friedrich

2008 Eggology announces HSUS endorsement of their egg products, HSUS denies endorsement despite numerous confirming documents
2008 Restaurateur Wolfgang Puck named guest of honor at HSUS Genesis Awards

2009 Whole Foods CEO John Mackey appointed to HSUS  Board of Directors

2009 Wayne Pacelle joins the board of Whole Foods' Global Animal Partnership

2009 Former HSUS Vice President (and co-founder of Compassion Over Killing) Miyun Park assumes leadership of Whole Foods' Global Animal Partnership

2010 HSUS and Farm Sanctuary lead legislative coalition Ohioans for Humane Farms, which includes animal-exploiting corporations such as the Great American Lamb company

2010 HSUS promotes fundraising event at which meat is served from the very animals the organization claims to be advocating for

2011 Bruce Friedrich leaves PETA to join the staff of Farm Sanctuary as Senior Director for Strategic Initiatives

2011 Whole Foods' Global Animal Partnership announces 5-Step Animal Welfare Rating Standards for the use and killing of animals, and releases promotional video featuring Miyun Park as a spokesperson. At the time of the announcement, HSUS, PETA, Compassion in World Farming and the World Society for the Protection of Animals are represented on the GAP board.

2011 HSUS appoints pig farmer Joe Maxwell to staff position of "Director of Rural Development and Outreach", with goal of expanding market for "humane" meat

2011 Whole Foods CEO John Mackey featured as speaker at Farm Sanctuary conference on eliminating "factory farming"

Let's Not Give Up Before We Get Started: James LaVeck

Please listen to these incredibly important lectures connecting the lessons learned from other social justice movements based on this Mother Jones Article: Against All Odds The first great human-rights campaign -- the movement to end slavery in the British Empire -- had no business succeeding. But the legacy of its extraordinary achievement lives on today.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4


Saturday, February 8, 2014

Honoring Rocco

Pittsburgh PA is grieving the loss of Rocco, a K-9 police dog who was recently stabbed to death during an arrest. A funeral was held in the city for Rocco, complete with a bagpipe procession and full dress blues. Over 1200 people attended to pay respect to him.

Prima facie this outpouring of grief seems like a victory for nonhuman rights. After all, it is extremely rare that nonhumans are paid tribute to in such a manner. My remarks that follow are in no way intended to convey disrespect toward Rocco or anyone grieving for him. 

When I heard about Rocco, I found myself asking a lot of questions. What is it that makes Rocco different from the billions of nonhumans who suffer violent deaths at the hands of humans? Was Rocco different because he was trained by humans to perform tasks for humans that helped save humans? Is it the bond Rocco shared with his partner? Why do we pay such homage to one nonhuman while, at the same time, overlooking the suffering and death of billions of others? What is it that makes Rocco's murderer any more guilty than anyone else who kills a nonhuman?

The short answer is species bias, or speciesism. In all of our dealings with nonhumans there is a presumption that we matter more. Since Rocco served us in a way that seemed to honor this prejudice, he was given a hero's burial. But all nonhumans who die at the hands of humans are serving humans in one way or another. How they are honored, or more commonly forgotten, is calculated within the parameters of speciesism. 

I don't believe Rocco's funeral is a victory for nonhumans. In fact, I think that in the long run it only exemplifies anthropocentric norms. Was Rocco a hero? Perhaps. But honoring him shouldn't be about his service to humans. Honoring Rocco should be about his inherent value as a being whose life (like countless others) matters.

The most common response I've been hearing in discussions about Rocco is that this sort of fanfare is held for all police officers. Well, that's not entirely true, but even if it is true on occasion, those formal funerals certainly aren't as well publicized. The fact that Rocco is a dog is what makes it "newsworthy." In any case, the whole thing reminds me of the fanfare that is staged for soldiers killed in the middle east. No fanfares are being held for the civilians that are being killed. It's a hurrah for the military, not the actual soldiers. It's all about who matters more according to the powers that be. Iraqi civilians matter less than U.S. soldiers and "beef" cattle matter less than a K-9 police dog.

Just like Rocco, billions of nonhumans are violently slaughtered by humans. They are murdered by criminally backed packing house workers. Their funerals consist of unceremonial "processing" and "packaging."


Their headstones are plates and forks. Their graves are our stomachs. I am glad Rocco was honored! What a beautiful example of human - nonhuman kinship. It is the lesson of this kinship we need to take away from his tragic death and begin to honor all of our nonhuman brothers and sisters. Thank you Rocco!

You Didn't Call Him, "It': Star Trek TNG - The Measure of a Man

This episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, The Measure of a Man succinctly captures the basic positions of the ongoing struggle to defend non-human beings.  

And here is a link to an academic paper I wrote on this topic. I Believe in Data.

Prosecutor Riker's Arguments

The Defense: Picard's Arguments

Monday, January 27, 2014

Veganism, Boycotts and Broad Based Political Acton

There are a wide range of views about how to best advance the cause of non-human animals. One of the most widely accepted views is that of veganism as a boycott. As Corey Wrenn points out in the video below, veganism is by definition a boycott. The idea is that if we reduce or end the demand for non-human animal products, we will end the exploitation and slaughter of non-human animals. 

Theoretically this seems correct, but in reality it is a much more complicated issue. In addition to all of the very good points that Ms. Wrenn makes; e.g. that supply side economics thwarts boycotts. Brian Luke succinctly points to this reality in his book, Brutal: Manhood and the Exploitation of Animals:
[T]he idea that animal defense requires controlling individual behavior, as if animal exploitation arises from an innate willingness to take advantage of other species, ignores the taming of compassion and outrage that proceeds every day as an integral part of the business of exploiting animals. In this society people are domesticated, trained through external rewards and punishments, through myths and lies, through instilled fear and ignorance, to disconnect from animals, especially those animals designated as "game," "livestock," or "guinea pigs." So animal liberation is not so much a taming of ourselves as it is a refusal to be tamed in support of anthropocentrism.   
David Nibert describes how carnism expanded exponentially with supply side economics, in Animal Oppression and Human Violence: Domesecration, Capitalism, and Global Conflict (Critical Perspectives on Animals):
The profit-minded push for increased consumption of domesecrated animal products by producers of feed grains was compounded by the growth of the retail “meat,”“dairy,” and “egg” industries and the rise of fast-food companies. Achieving large increases in the sale of their products required considerable ideological manipulation of the populace by armies of social-engineering experts who generated, with state support, ubiquitous advertisements and educational programs designed to increase human consumption of domesecrated animals—campaigns disproportionately directed at children. 

That said, it's important to emphasize the point that Ms. Wrenn makes that veganism is a powerful political statement in and of itself, and that going vegan (if at all possible) is a necessary foundation of building a strong political movement. 


A successful boycott demands a broad political movement and building a broad political movement demands veganism as its foundation. It is an historical fact that successful boycotts necessarily include broad political backing. Veganism does not have that backing... yet. Veganism is essential and necessary, but alone isn't sufficient. We must not become complacent, believing that going vegan, and convincing others to do so, will solve the problem. The profit motive and corporations that profit from animal products have a very powerful voice. Strategies to reduce corporate power and their campaigns to increase demand are critical in advancing the cause of non-human and human animals.



Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Objectification: Attempts to Deanimalize Sentient Beings: Campaign by the Kansas City Pork Association

To sell more pig corpses for profit, the Kansas City Pork Association has launched a campaign that pokes "fun" at those of us who are trying to build a more sustainable world, and squelches empathy by likening piglets to plant seeds. This horrific campaign is just one of the many campaigns of its kind. There is nothing humorous about these ads or the ideas they promote. The same kinds of tactics were used to promote racism, sexism and Nazism. Pigs are not food and they are not plants or things. They are sentient beings who value their lives. Degrading them is simply a way to objectify and deanimalize them much the same way that some humans are dehumanized. The end goal is the same; the exploitation and oppression of living beings in the name of profit, domination and power.



And this image was on their Facebook page.


Plants don't enjoy belly rubs!!!




Monday, January 6, 2014

OMG!! There's Horse Meat in My Cow Meat!!!!

....and this is worse than cow, pig, sheep, turkey, chicken, dog, deer, cat, rabbit, squirrel or fish meat etc, HOW???!!??? This meme is misleading, but the fact that people are disturbed enough by the idea for it to become one reveals how insane eating one species and "loving" another is....



“You end up at the back of the grocery store, near the meat counter. Displayed before you are all the wares of the butcher’s trade, all the prime cuts of meat. On the left are the T-bone steaks; to the right is all the ground beef. In front of you are some ribs; next to them are some chicken breasts. On the corner of the display is the lobster tank, where, out of the dozens in it, you can pick out your own lobster to take home. You look at this sight, with people picking their way through all these products, figuring out which will make the best dinner. And suddenly, the scene in front of you shifts. No longer are you seeing normal products of everyday existence. In front of you is the violent reality of animal flesh on display: the bones, fat, muscles, and tissue of beings who were once alive but who have been slaughtered for the parts of their body. This scene overtakes you, and suddenly you tear up. Grief, sadness, and shock overwhelm you, perhaps only for a second. And for a moment you mourn, you mourn for all the nameless animals in front of you."

 See more at: http://freefromharm.org/featured-articles/will-hold-you-in-my-arms-must-see-tribute-animal-victims/#sthash.0z2ixdFw.dpuf

An Extremely Powerful Vigil for the Victims of Speciesism.



Sunday, January 5, 2014

And You Thought Oil Spills Caused a Mess!


 Be sure and talk to your doctor about meat: Environmental devistation, health problems, suffering for animals and people. That's a meal that will stick to your ribs.