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Ape Rights

  
  

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Lurid Archive
23:24 / 17.11.02
I've always had an interest in great apes (Gorillas, Orangutans, Chimps and Bonobos who lots of people haven't heard of) and though I know far less than I'd like to I still feel quite strongly about the issue of ape rights. I suppose it is partly because of the accessibility of ape body language, and the apparent intelligence and awareness that they demonstrate which makes empathy so easy.

Furthermore, one need not anthropomorphise to see that apes have a rich social structure and many behavioural traits that strikingly demonstrate their place as our evolutionary cousins.

Chimps, for instance, engage in war, use tools, get pissed and have prostitutes. They can also learn sign language. Bonobos are matriarchal and embody the "Make Love not War" philosophy. They have sex a lot. Really a lot. They use sex to diffuse aggression, including the same-sex variety and also employ different sexual positions. Lots of this is familiar to many of you, of course, but it is worth remembering how "human" these creatures are.

My point is that I agree with GAP that the Great Apes should be afforded some minimal set of rights. Namely,


I. The Right to Life

The lives of members of the community of equals are to be protected. Members of the community of equals may not be killed except in very strictly defined circumstances, for example, self-defence.

II. The Protection of Individual Liberty

Members of the community of equals are not to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty; if they should be imprisoned without due legal process, they have the right to immediate release. The detention of those who have not been convicted of any crime, or of those who are not criminally liable, should be allowed only where it can be shown to be for their own good, or necessary to protect the public from a member of the community who would clearly be a danger to others if at liberty. In such cases, members of the community of equals must have the right to appeal, either directly or, if they lack the relevant capacity, through an advocate, to a judicial tribunal.

III. The Prohibition of Torture

The deliberate infliction of severe pain on a member of the community of equals, either wantonly or for an alleged benefit to others, is regarded as torture, and is wrong.


I'm guessing that there will be broad agreement with much of this, but then we can further the argument. To what extent should all animals be extended rights? Would such a moral decision demand vegetarianism of humans?

Info on great apes here. More stuff on Bonobos.


Moderator note: the GAP site appears to be dead. An archived version can be found here.
 
 
Linus Dunce
23:52 / 17.11.02
OK, give them rights. But I tell you, if one of those Bonobos tries to fuck me up the ass without my explicit permission, he's gotta go to jail. Similarly, if a bunch of those chimps hunt and eat my child without even killing them, I want those chimps in the electric chair.

See, that's the problem. Rights are a human concept and, more than that, they're a legal concept. And they work both ways. Apes may look and act a bit like us, but they've no sense of the responsibility needed to complete the deal. You may as well give rights to a rock.
 
 
Lurid Archive
23:58 / 17.11.02
This point is addressed in the GAP FAQ. Given that the intellectual capacity of apes is comparable to that of small children, their point is a good one. Namely, that we give children rights - not full rights -and we don't expect full responsibility in return. The same should be granted to apes. After all, what is being proposed is a right to life, liberty and an absence of torture.

Are we really so uncaring that we would deny these almost-humans such basic things?
 
 
Linus Dunce
00:23 / 18.11.02
I had no doubt that this point was covered in the FAQ and now I've checked.

But it's not about intellectual capacity. If that were the case, shouldn't smart humans would have more rights than stupid humans?

Maybe some higher apes appear to have some intellectual faculties that match those of young children. But children have the potential to understand, and agree to, their later responsibilities. Apes don't. And you have to have that understanding in order to be given "rights." What really seals the deal though is that animals do not have any moral sense whatsoever. Bonobos do not "make love not war." They just rut.

If you want to pass some more human laws to make it illegal for humans to give apes a hard time, you have my support. But for GAP to call for human rights for animals shows a lack of understanding on their part of what rights actually are, and shows their view of animals to be romantic rather than scientific. I think they should redress both these problems for their own, and the apes', wellbeing.
 
 
The Monkey
01:48 / 18.11.02
GAP has a nice idea, but it's pretty meaningless by comparison to, let's say, more effective laws that punish humans hurting wild animals and maybe so more infrastructure to protect them. "Rights" function only in the context of a larger social contract where the citizens possessing the rights also agree not to infringe upon their fellow citizens'. Ignatius J has a point. That some apes can test as having the same intellectual capacities doesn't make them intellectually the same as children: children are the way they are because their brain is still developing its ganglia connections...adult apes aren't going to change. It isn't fair to anthropomorphize these creatures, to make them "little humans." Projecting the activities and wants of human beings - such as these rights - onto them is pointless, even cruel, because they do not possess a thought system equivalent to ours...it's not a matter of higher or lower, but different. Statements such as those about bonobo "matriarchy" and sexuality are essentially misleading in that they play on positivist, "humanizing" interpretations of ethological activities. At the same time, the uglier attributes of apes (with or without anthropomorphization) are glossed over: they fight, they rape, they strike their young, and males harass and attack females. Gorillas practice infanticide and chimpanzees hunt and torture baboons. Their societies are not idyllic, nor are their interactions...and part of the danger of anthropomorphization is to judge them with the standards we would set even for children.... If we speak protecting the of the rights of the individual ape, as we would within the realm of human rights, does that include in the case of ape versus ape violence? How about predation?

Ultimately, the only meaningful GAP accord is the third, the Prohibition on Torture. Despite the wording this solely impacts upon the realm of the use of apes as lab animals, and perhaps upon the use of apes in entertainment venues. Both of which are areas regulated out the gazoo to very little avail. Invasive ape research is very rare and requires tons of approval...and lots of prior work to suggest that the research isn't crap. But of course there will always be insitutions who don't give a shit, such as secretive government facilities (the largest "consumer" of chimps for invasive studies), and researchers in nations that haven't signed on to the present ethical protocols over the treatment of lab animals (China, lots of the Middle East, the old USSR and many of its new offspring).
 
 
Lurid Archive
01:51 / 18.11.02
I should probably make clear that I don't think intelligence is the sole justification for rights. However, one can make a good case that intellectual capacity enables emotion and consciousness. In turn, this means suffering and a drive for freedom are not restricted to humans.

But it's not about intellectual capacity. If that were the case, shouldn't smart humans would have more rights than stupid humans? - IJ

As far as I understand rights, you have it backwards. A minimal level of consciousness or somesuch guarantess certain rights. If we turn your argument around, we wouldn't deny basic rights (remember this is about life, liberty and absence of torture) to the mentally impaired. Even if they had no understanding of them, nor if they had no moral sense. Why deny them to apes? Especially as they arguably have the rudiments of both understanding and some morality.

With respect, your next point is equally confused. You say that apes do not have the capacity of children because they do not develop it further. By the same token, Chimps are not as tall as 12 year old human, because they don't grow to be as tall as a 20 year old.

Bonobos do not "make love not war." They just rut.

Again, in the nicest possible way, the above comment displays a lack of understanding of apes. (I might call it speciesist, but then I would have to join the PC brigade.) Bonobos have a rich and complex social structure in which sex is used to avoid and retract from hostilities, as well as strengthening alliances. To call that "rutting" is like calling an opera a series of grunts.

I do appreciate what you are saying by wanting to make a distinction between rights and protection. We can happily agree that the latter is needed. The point is that by calling for a minimal set of rights we might come to regard apes more as thinking beings than as property. Your assurance of the distance between ourselves and the other apes is precisely the attitude that I would challenge. Ape rights might go some way to doing just that.
 
 
Lurid Archive
02:02 / 18.11.02
Monkey: I'm well aware that ape societies are not idyllic. If anything, that makes them seem more like us. But I think the point is to counter the attitude of the human/animal divide, whereby moral considerations are not extended to animals. Of course one wouldn't (or rarely would) interfere in ape interactions. And yes, ape intelligence is different, but it is still comparable.

Additionally, one should consider human poverty as a contributing factor when looking at the endangerment of any species. Still, despite being mostly a symbolic gesture - with real protection being administered at a more familiar legal level - I think ape rights are important. Symbols matter, when all is said and done.
 
 
The Monkey
03:01 / 18.11.02
Lurid - I agree on the conceptual value of a Bill of Rights, but I'm not sure it's a particularly effective method given the current state of humans not getting their rights applied equally. Then again, chimps are consistently cuter than Falun Dafa, which works in their favor.
I'm very fond of apes and feel a strong affective bond towards them...one of the books that essentially taught me english as a child was "Gorillas in the Mist"...but I'm not sure that the GAP concept is a particularly good way of addressing the problems that face apes. A Bill of Rights is, well, ultimately only a document and essentially priveledged to a literate Western audience--who aren't *precisely* causing the immediate problems for apes. Steps towards the elimination of poaching on reserves and financial contributions toward that end would be more efficacious. And, honestly, I dislike Resolution III and it's de facto relationship to research science...which *is* what it's referring to. It sucks to say, but medical reseach, etc. has not reached the point where animal testing is redundant.
 
 
Naked Flame
07:29 / 18.11.02
I'd be very much in favour of rights for apes, but I'd like to see it applied to all animals. I understand and agree with your argument for extending rights to apes, Lurid, but I don't see why we should draw the line there. I can think of lots of other animals that demonstrate intelligence and practice complex social behaviour. I can think of lots more that have behaviours that we haven't even begun to understand except in the most basic terms.

A few words about animal testing.

Invasive ape research is very rare and requires tons of approval...and lots of prior work to suggest that the research isn't crap

Define 'invasive.' Apes, and I'm speaking particularly of chimps here, have been subject to a vast battery of tests for a great many years. There are something like 1700 chimps in labs in the USA. They've been subject to maternal-deprivation tests to model human backgrounds for conditions such as alcoholism, they've been subjected to spinal and cranial injury tests, AIDS research, work on hepatitis, cancer, artificial insemination and birth control. Furthermore, because they're comparitively rare animals, each individual is usually put through more than one testing program. These programs can last for years. For clarity's sake, I should point out that I'm only talking about non-military use of only two species, pan paniscus and pan troglodytes (both endangered) within the USA alone. There is no accurate info available on military use.

Sure, 1700 is a small number compared to, say, the number of lab mice that are bred, injected with cancer-inducing carcinogens and dissected every day in labs around the world. But you know what? 'One' is a very big number if you happen to be that 'one.'

As for 'prior work to suggest the research isn't crap...' I'm sorry, but I just don't buy that. Chimps are social animals: how can an individual deprived of the society of hir fellows be a useful psychological study? Chimps are used in AIDS research because their immune systems will take an HIV infection, but they don't develop AIDS and they don't respond to treatments that we now practice on humans: many researchers assert that the chimp model of experimentation is discredited. The tests continue.

We do not, as a species, have the right or the need to torture animals in this way. The scientific advances that transformed medicine in the 20th century were first tested on humans, not animals: vaccines and antibiotics to name but two. There is no shortage of consenting human volunteers for testing, and we have acquired most of the necessary technology to work on cultures of human tissue.

Finally, regarding vegetarianism: I think it's clear that giving animals rights and then eating them is a fairly contradictory moral position. But I'd rather we gave them rights anyway and then dealt with the contradictions afterwards: it seems that it's going to be better for the animals to take action sooner rather than later. Personally, I'm veg.
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:20 / 18.11.02
Monkey: You seem to be wary of anthropomorphising apes. I think we can agree on that, but we should also acknowledge that it also has a great deal of validity. It is no accident that we can recognise ape body language - accurately, I'd contend. A martian biologist would use similar terms to describe human and chimp societies, including the differences between them.

Also, I have no problem with the realities of a declaration of ape rights being consumed by a western privileged audience. My western decadence doesn't bother me if I think the cause is just and it serves as a useful first step. (We might compare this to the various declarations of human rights.) I agree that there is much of a practical nature that is pressing, but a battle for hearts and minds gives impetus to the practical.

As for medical research, I think we strongly disagree. I don't feel properly able to assess the arguments as to the value of research on apes - though I think it probably does advance medical science. But the ethics of the situation outweigh scientific considerations, in my view.

Naked Flame: I think that extending rights to all animals is worth consideration, but I think the arguments are extremely compelling for ape rights. So I'm happy to start there and perhaps use that as a launching board later. However, I am much less clear on the broader picture.
 
 
Linus Dunce
10:45 / 18.11.02
As far as I understand rights, you have it backwards. A minimal level of consciousness or somesuch guarantess certain rights. If we turn your argument around, we wouldn't deny basic rights (remember this is about life, liberty and absence of torture) to the mentally impaired.

Not quite sure how I have it backwards here, I was reducing the opposing argument to absurdity. And you say, "a minimal level of consciousness or somesuch guarantees certain rights." It doesn't. Rights are not something we are born with, they are a product of our political and legal systems. They are artificial.

Maybe I've got apes wrong, but if you want to see the bonobos as fluffy love-makers, go ahead. If they were that clever, why do they have conflicts to start with? What, exactly, are these conflicts about? And what if one of those apes doesn't want to settle it but isn't strong enough to start a fight? What would that make the sex then?

Personally, I think this call for rights preys misunderstandings. It uses specious arguments, pretending that laws forbidding caging and torture are the same thing as rights. It uses anecdotal evidence to show incidents when apes have behaved in apparently human ways when in fact a pig or a lower animal will do the same. It uses the image of a poor little doggie with a broken paw to worm its way around the problem of apes' lack of responsibility. It reduces rights to being defined by intelligence, knowing that on this premise one gets dangerously close to refusing rights to less able humans and so has to concede. Overall, the argument is, "we should stop mistreating these animals so therefore we should give them rights." Wrong. You should stop mistreating them, but you simply can't give rights to animals. It's impossible.

Are they really that dumb? I mean GAP. I don't think so. They're offering an argument that, should you accept it, drops you on a slippery slope leading down to veganism. If that's where you want to be, fine. But never forget, apes eat meat as well. Pass the McMonkey burger, would you?
 
 
Naked Flame
14:08 / 18.11.02
There's more than one declaration of human rights out there, Ig. They are not laws. They are supposed to give rise to laws. In some cases, they have done so, and human suffering has been reduced as a result.

There's a little semantic confusion here. Human rights are something a human is born with, according to the various documents that various individuals and nations have subscribed to. The concept of rights is a human construct, certainly, but human rights are not primarily 'products of our political and legal systems'. They are intended to guide the creation of those 'products.' I think your confusion arises from the fact that rights also give rise to laws: these are not human rights, they are legal rights.

A declaration of animal rights, whether adopted individually, nationally or internationally, is something on which to base laws affecting animals. This should not be a complex concept, nor one that we should split hairs over. As for veganism, I'd be very happy to see the entire human population slide down that 'slippery slope'- provided you grease it with vegetable oil- but I can still envisage a declaration of animal rights that still allowed for the consumption of animals and animal products whilst enshrining the concept of animal welfare. Ok, I'd probably oppose such a declaration, but there it is.
 
 
Lurid Archive
14:37 / 18.11.02
OK, perhaps saying you had it backwards wasn't quite right. Thing is, I said that ape's consciousness is a strong argument for granting rights. Your reply is to say that if consciousness is an issue, then smart humans should have more rights. This attempt at a reductio ad absurdum relies on a non sequitur.

For instance, one might have used women's intellectual capacity as an argument for why they should have been given the vote - this does not mean that Nobel prize winners should get two. Neither do the big brains benefit from the fact that the mentally impaired are denied a vote.

I agree that rights are artificial. However, and I am arguing a moral rather than a logical imperative.

Also, I don't see apes as fluffy. I should have probably made this clearer in the original post and dwelt a little longer on the infanticide, group killing, cannibalism, rape and bullying exhibited by apes. I just think it makes little difference. By way of analogy, I oppose rascism even though people of all races engage in loathsome behaviour. I don't find it an issue.

If I may relate an anecdote - it comes from Mordant Carnival, so may be wrong, but I think it is believable. Some apes have been taught to sign and some have been raised as humans. According to MC, there is an example of such an ape who was then transferred to a zoo with (formerly) wild apes. In the new environment she demonstrated distress and spent most of her time signing, "Go home". At what stage do you take such a plea seriously? Remember: this is not a call for apes to have the rights of adoption, property, wage equality or voting. The rights are much more basic than that.

You seem to take the position that the only criteria for having rights is being human. I would point out that human rights have been won from those that have insisted on particular deserving "natural" categorisations. The "slippery slope" argument is also a conservative favourite.

On the whole, IJ, I'm sure that we would agree on most of the practicalities of animal welfare. I suppose that is the most important thing. I just don't see it as everything.
 
 
Linus Dunce
16:29 / 18.11.02
Still, there's no such thing as an undeclared or innate right. That would be a moral. And once it's declared, it becomes a law, bound by contract.

Slippery-slope arguments are a conservative favourite. I suppose I am a conservative, well, more a libertarian, when it comes to the adoption of vegetarianism. But there are liberal slippery-slope args as well, e.g. invasion of privacy, so we shouldn't dismiss them out-of-hand. And they use the concept of precedent, which is the basis of much of the argument here for ape rights.

I find the GAP incomprehensible and suspect they have an agenda beyond ape rights. That doesn't make them wrong, I just took issue with their (to me) muddied and dishonest argument. For what it's worth, I find the idea of teaching an ape to sign and then caging it with "dumb" apes abhorrent, and an example of human arrogance. As for eating animals though, I'm afraid I can't see why not. My morals here are slightly above my cat's. And you have every right to judge me on that.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
19:28 / 18.11.02
As an aside: the signing chimpanzee mentioned in Lurid's anecdote wasn't merely taght to sign, she was actually treated as a member of a human household for most of her life.

If memory serves, she was raised by humans and at one time or another she was taken into a human family. She had her own room, her own toys; she could stroll into the kitchen and take a drink out of the fridge. She was in all respects a pampered pet-- or perhaps a spoiled child.

Then for one reason or another her "family" abandoned her and she was put in an enclosure some wild chimps. She lapsed into a deep depression. When visited by a familiar human, she scurried over and begged to be taken home.
 
 
The Monkey
20:02 / 18.11.02
Rights for apes don't work because the apes cannot assert the primacy of their rights for themselves: there will always have to been a tertiary representative of the apes interests. Thus there is really no "right" that an individual can exercise, only an agency enforcing a set of laws.

But then again, what has been proposed so far really gives no right to the individual apes...in that the proposition proposes only leaving ape troupes to themselves...meaning that a single ape has no rights relative to his other apes, and no recourse to protest infringements upon his/her personal safety/integrity. What we are talking about, really, are reservations for apes...not merely in terms of lateralization of geography, but the construction of semi-autonomous "nations." And something tells me that apes aren't going to be permitted individual exercise of freedom of choice over, let's say, consumption....

Then again, if an ape is granted equivalent rights to a human in terms of life, liberty, etc. (basic personal integrity rights) is it necessarily fair, then, to simply leave then to their own recourse? Or do they not possess the right to a minimum of medical attention? When the infrastructure and materials are available, do we leave humans at the mercy of disease, parasites, each other?
Oh, but underneath the wording of the GAP accord they're not *really* humans, they're animals imbedded in an ecosystem not of their own making, and thus subject to stochasticity in a fashion styled as "natural." We don't leave human beings at the mercy of nature's rabbit punches; we fight every accident, every disease...precisely because of that moral sense that every human life counts.

The GAP accord and the argumentation that have emanated from it about the "rights" of apes don't really have any significance as long as it relies upon the great apes (1) having no true autonomy or voice, except for through the filtration of a representative (2) ultimately relegates apes first to natural law. So really the Bill of Rights comes down to Resolution III...and Naked Flame, I think you're seeing exactly as much of the picture on animal research as corresponds to your ideological position, and I have neither the time nor the interest to disabuse you, even if such was possible. I have no desire to discuss any of the points beyond the GAP's Bill of Rights: it's too charged a subject, and my basal philosophy is sufficiently different from everyone else's that I can't be bothered to try and meet in the middle.
 
 
Lurid Archive
01:02 / 19.11.02
I should probably say that I don't necessarily agree with the tone at GAP. Apes are not humans but I think there is validity in using "equality" to denote a moral perspective rather than an equality of attributes.

What is interesting, Monkey, is that your point

And something tells me that apes aren't going to be permitted individual exercise of freedom of choice over, let's say, consumption....

provides an interesting argument for ape rights. Once apes have rights, one's thinking about apes changes. One could use this to demonstrate the absurdity of rights in the first place - or it can provide a stable mental backdrop to an area of animal rights.

Similarly your point about ape illness and interference is a good one. I think that one can have rights and preserve a policy of "naturality". Despite the dubious pedigree of this term, I believe it has some meaning when applied to other species.

I disagree with your points 1) and 2), Monkey. Partly because I don't believe that rights require articulation - I think we needn't argue that the rights are in the ape's interest - and partly because I think that competing rights do not invalidate the concept.

As for animal experimentation, I must confess that I am ignorant of the nature of the research that is currently conducted on apes. I'd be happy to concede that some of it advances science and have no problem with research that is benign. I'm sorry that you don't wish to challenge Naked Flame's depiction of ape research, Monkey.

But perhaps, especially given the agreement on legal protection, there is little more to add. My conception of rights is such that I see the moral case of an extension to Apes, despite some problems, as self evident. I am reasoning by analogy and by reference to the extension of rights for humans. But perhaps all we can do is agree to disagree.
 
 
Naked Flame
06:41 / 19.11.02
Monkey: I'm seeing as much of the picture on animal experimentation as I've been able to research. Reading about the subject has informed the ideological position that I now hold- that humans don't have an intrinsic right to abuse other animals in the name of progress- rather than the other way around.

I'm sorry that you feel I'm so clearly blinkered and entrenched and incapbable of having a reasoned discussion about it. Because I'm usually pretty good at the whole reasoned discussion bit.
 
 
grant
16:03 / 10.05.04
Reviving this old thread on the occasion of reading this article on bonobos under fire in the New York Times.

It definitely seems to be written using the same style as a similar article about a distant ethnic minority would have been written in the National Geographic circa 1920.

Quote:Peace-loving they may be, but during Congo's latest war, the bonobos' jungle habitat fell smack on the front line between fighting factions.

Fishing and farming all but ground to a halt during the war, which officially ended last year. Civilians and soldiers alike turned to the forest to fill their bellies.

More and more, the bonobos turned up as supper. Their smoked remains showed up at riverine markets. Babies were orphaned, which is to say they were more or less destined to die: the bonobo infant, accustomed to staying on its mother's back for the first several years of life, has great trouble making it on its own.

So it was that the bonobo orphans of the central African rain forest found themselves hurtling hundreds of miles down the Congo River to this gritty metropolis and into the arms of a redheaded Frenchwoman called Claudine André.



It's a good story, but also a good marker of current "apes rights" attitudes.
 
 
Nobody's girl
13:28 / 11.05.04
I love Koko.
If all great apes could communicate like Koko I suspect people would back ape rights with more vigor than the usual wanky philosophical equivocation.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
07:51 / 12.05.04
That link doesn't lead anywhere. Koko?
 
 
Nobody's girl
11:40 / 12.05.04
I'm having some very bad luck with this sort of thing of late. It should take you to www.koko.org Koko's webpage. There's wee video's of her talking to her keeper on the Koko TV page. It really is amazing how well she can communicate with people, she even understands spoken English.
The accounts of how Koko coped with the sudden death of her other talking gorilla friend Michael are heartrending-

"Koko has been extremely upset by Michael's death. She spent 24 years with Mike, and he was her companion since she was five years old. In the weeks following Mike's death, both Koko and Ndume uttered frequent, mournful cries, particularly at night. Gorillas often vocalize this type of cry when they are unwillingly separated from each other. During this time period, Koko indicated with sign language that she wanted a light left on at night when she went to bed. Both Koko and Ndume often stared into the distance without focusing, apparently seeing nothing."
 
 
pepper
12:52 / 15.05.04
Hi there , I'm kinda new to the board and found this thread interesting. I had a look at koko's website and it reminds me of that movie where the gorilla can communicate through the computer back pack thing( forget the name though). Anyway I would like to see more animals given rights, especially the primates who we are related to. It was only a couple of million years ago that we where ape like and sensless killings of these animals and degradation of there their forests and lands should be stopped. My thoughts on the thread anyway.
 
 
astrojax69
23:47 / 24.05.04
"But it's not about intellectual capacity. If that were the case, shouldn't smart humans would have more rights than stupid humans?"


isn't that just what plato argued in the republic, re philosopher kings? [power and glory was the only thing made me read philosophy for my degree. dammit!]

to answer the thread's questions: no [they are not humans. if they have rights, they will be ape rights], probably not [but human ethics should preclude wanton destruction, be it plant animal or britney spears - i don't think the rights inhabit the animals] and no [we are biologically evolved animals ourselves (and humans, to clarify that point) that can digest animal proteins and are equipped with tools (now predominantly mental) to hunt (or, more easily, farm...) animals for food. you can choose as an individual to be nice to all animals, but i don't think it can be made into a universal]

and the point remains as to the 'rights' of the 'lesser humans' - ie foetuses, infants and deficient humans who are not fully conscious of their existence. i am tempted to swing with singer (peter) on this, only because i have yet to hear a solid irrefutablke argument as to why they have a right to life. in fact, without god, for whom i don't hold a belief, i find it difficult to establish an argument that makes killing anything wrong (in a good/evil kind of sense) - my faith in pleasure, and a certain utilitarian hedonism, means killing things might make me or someone else sad, not happy, and so preclude this as a choice of action.

but it is a fine line...
 
 
grant
20:11 / 01.06.04
If it matters, they're not as close cousins as we thought.

From that Nature article:
The sequences of chimp chromosome 22 and human chromosome 21 are roughly equivalent. Out of the bits that line up, 1.44% of the individual base pairs were different, settling a debate based on previous, less accurate studies.

However, the researchers were in for a surprise. Because chimps and humans appear broadly similar, some have assumed that most of the differences would occur in the large regions of DNA that do not appear to have any obvious function. But that was not the case. The researchers report in Nature1 that many of the differences were within genes, the regions of DNA that code for proteins. 83% of the 231 genes compared had differences that affected the amino acid sequence of the protein they encoded. And 20% showed "significant structural changes".

In addition, there were nearly 68,000 regions that were either extra or missing between the two sequences, accounting for around 5% of the chromosome. "We already knew that at the DNA level we are similar to chimpanzees," says Taylor. "But we have seen a much higher percentage of change than people speculated."
 
 
Lurid Archive
09:55 / 02.06.04
Here is a article by Frans de Waal, reviewing a couple of books on animal and Ape intelligence. It is interesting, even though it is only a review.

There will always be tension between those who view animals as only slightly more flexible than machines and those who see them as only slightly less rational than human beings. The views discussed in these two books are by no means as far apart as they could be; both, after all, come out of the same tradition of experimental psychology. Throw in a few naturalists and neuroscientists, and the debate gets even more complex. That said, however, the two books range widely enough across the spectrum of views to make a powerful case that there is still plenty to be discovered, and that human uniqueness is largely in the eye of the beholder.
 
 
grant
15:30 / 14.12.04
Soon, discussions of bonobono intelligence may well be a moot point, if Nature's latest reports are accurate.

Apparently, they're being poached to extinction.

If the survey results represent a more general trend, there may be as few as 10,000 bonobos, also called pygmy chimpanzees, left in the wild, the researchers estimate. Experts had previously thought that there might be around 50,000 remaining.


...

If the picture looks bleak for Salonga's bonobos, things may be even worse for those living elsewhere in the Congo Basin, which contains the world's entire population of the apes. "Salonga is a national park, we can only assume that poaching outside the park is even worse," Stephenson says.

If the bonobo does die out completely, we will have to say goodbye to perhaps our closest animal relative. The news from Salonga comes 75 years after P. paniscus was officially recognized as a distinct species from the more widespread common chimpanzee (P. troglodytes).
 
 
Lurid Archive
16:35 / 14.12.04
This is a fucking tragedy. I hope and pray that something can be done to save them.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
22:19 / 15.12.04
Oh, dear God, how unspeakably sad. Having a hard time not loathing everyone who isn't a bonobo.
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
08:19 / 16.12.04
Oh? And what has the kakapo ever done to you?
 
 
rabideyemovement
01:11 / 24.12.04
Odd that I don't believe in the sanctity of human life, but I'll weep over a fuckin chimp... As far as vegetarianism as a moral duty-- don't know about duty, but humans only need protein through their youth and growing periods. Adults better serve their body eating plants. But me knowing that didn't save the turkey who was ground into the burger I had for dinner.
 
 
HCE
23:47 / 27.12.04
My problem would be with drawing a line at animal life, given that the distinction between animal and vegetable is by no means sharp and clear -- even living/nonliving can be argued. Sounds like that should be another thread though.
 
 
grant
19:23 / 02.04.07
An Austrian court is deciding a case that could award Hiasl the chimpanzee human rights.

customs officers seized the crate and Hiasl was sent to an animal sanctuary. Now the sanctuary faces bankruptcy and Hiasl could be sent to the Baxter vivisection laboratory after all. Seeking to save Hiasl, who likes painting, kissing visitors and watching wildlife programmes, an Austrian businessman has donated £3,400 towards his upkeep.
However, unless Hiasl has a legal guardian who can manage the money it will go to the receivers. As only humans have a right to legal guardians, his campaigners say it is necessary for Hiasl's survival to prove that he is one of us. Primatologists and experts - from the world's most famous primate campaigner, Jane Goodall, to Professor Volker Sommer, a renowned wild chimp expert at University College London - will give evidence in the case, which is due to come to court in Vienna within the next few months.

One of their central arguments will be that a chimpanzee's DNA is 96-98.4 per cent similar to that of humans - closer than the relationship between donkeys and horses. They will cite recent findings that wild apes hunt with home-made spears and can fight battles and make peace. In New Zealand, apes - gorillas, orang utans, chimpanzees and bonobos - were granted special rights as 'non-human hominids' in 1999 to grant protection from maltreatment, slavery, torture, death and extinction.



More at the links.

I wouldn't have expected this, but it's certainly an interesting development.

I thought it might be an April Fool's story, actually, but the New Scientist entry (first link) is dated in March.
 
 
Red Concrete
20:40 / 02.04.07
Interesting, alright! I imagine they'll have a hard time making the claim that the chimp is human. I mean by definition, he isn't. And the repercussions if he is ruled human? All the chimps in zoos let onto the streets? Michael Jackson prosecuted for cruel and unusual treatment of a... oh no, wait.


Old posts, but..
humans only need protein through their youth and growing periods.
!?

the distinction between animal and vegetable is by no means sharp and clear
!!?!??!

There really aren't many scientists on Barbelith are there?
 
 
gravitybitch
01:50 / 03.04.07
Nor many old-school science fiction fans - I think Jerry Was a Man pretty well covered it in 1947.

Wonder if this is drumming up publicity for the made-for-TV-movie that's coming up?
 
  

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