[Vision2020] Response to Larry Kirkland's ignorant letter on animal "robots" in the Daily News

[lfalen]

Nick
Thanks for your statements here. You are correct in all your documentation. Kirkland is wrong, However so is PETA.
Roger


-----Original Message-----
From: "Nicholas Gier" <ngier006 at gmail.com>
To: vision2020 <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Date: 02/13/14 11:09
Subject: [Vision2020] Response to Larry Kirkland's ignorant letter on animal "robots" in the Daily News

 
To the Editor:


Long version below
 
Larry Kirkland (Letters, Feb. 12) needs to read his favorite holy book more carefully, and then read up on the new literature on the emotional and cognitive life of animals. 
 
Just like all the ancients, Jewish and early Christian thinkers believed that animals do indeed have souls. According to Ecclesiastes, animals are created with the same divine breath (3:19) and therefore have the same souls (Hebrew nephesh; Greek psychē [Rev. 8:9]).
 
Kirkland's claim that animals are robots has long been discredited. Dolphins have 40 percent more cortical area in their brains than we do, and they have rich emotional and mental lives. Their means of communication is highly sophisticated.
 
African elephants transmit complex signals over long distances by means of seismic waves.  Recently, dozens of elephants walked miles to pay their respects at the funeral of a famous South African wildlife conservationist.  Many animals exhibit grief at the loss of beings across species.
 
In addition to learning sign language and teaching it to their young, chimps have been observed making tools and using herbal medicines.  In a fairly simple computer memory game, a chimp, seemingly without much concentration, can remember all nine numbers in a random sequence while the sharpest human subjects remember only one or two.  Recent experiments with chimps and organutangs proved that these intelligent animals can remember past events.
 
At the University of Vienna scientists placed two dogs side by side and commanded them to offer a paw.  Initially, one received a piece of sausage for the correct response, and the other got a piece of bread. When the reward was withdrawn from one dog, she not only stopped offering her paw, but turned away from the scientist in disgust.
 
I'm certain that all animals would respond similarly to Kirkland's ignorant letter.


Nick Gier, Moscow


Hi Larry,
 
You need to read your favorite holy book more carefully, and then read up on the new literature on the emotional and cognitive life of animals.  You will find that your views are not at all supported.
 
Just like all the ancients, Jewish and early Christian thinkers believed that animals do indeed have souls. According to Ecclesiastes, animals are created with the same divine breath (3:19) and therefore have the same souls (Hebrew nephesh; Greek psychē [Rev. 8:9]). The kosher rules in the Old Testament indicate clearly that animal life was sacred and it could be taken only by following very strict rules.  Native hunters who perform rites before and after killing animals are following the same millennia-old ethical treatment of animals.
 
You might want to use "the image of God" for your arguments, but you would be wrong to do so. Ancient inscriptions in a language similar to Hebrew indicate clearly that being created in the "image of God" did not have any metaphysical meaning.  Rather, it meant that Adam and Eve were designated by God to rule over creation, just as ancient middle eastern rulers did.  This is why the "image of God" is not used to indicate anything unique about human nature.  In the Bible only Adam and Eve, Christ, and the husband have it, and in the way of ruling over other humans and animals.
 
Your claim that animals are robots is Cartesian not biblical.  The French philosopher Descartes held that animals are soul-less machines, but that idea has been long discredited. I just returned from a vacation in Mexico where I got the great opportunity to swim and play with a 450-pound bottle-nosed dolphin.  As I attempted to ride her holding on to her dorsal fin, I slipped off.  She immediately stopped dead in the water until I was able to grab on again.
 
Dolphins have 40 percent more cortical area in their brains than we do, and they have rich emotional and mental lives.  At the Dolphin Institute in Hawaii, Louis Herman has taught his four dolphins to understand sign language.  One day Herman asked two of them to make up a new trick on their own.  The two dolphins dove and within seconds exploded out of the water, circling on their tails, and spouting water like synchronized fountains.
 
Although the idea was rejected for many years, a persistent woman scientist finally convinced her colleagues that African elephants do in fact transmit complex signals over long distances by means of seismic waves.  Recently, dozens of elephants walked miles to pay their respects at the funeral of a famous South African wildlife specialist.  Many animals exhibit grief at the loss of beings across species.
 
Dozens of unemployed Asian logging elephants now have second career as painters.  Most of the paintings are abstract, but trainers have taught them to depict natural scenes as well.  Most amazingly, some have actually done self-portraits.  Selling for $350-$750 each these pachyderm painters have raised $100,000 for elephant rehabilitation. Painting self-portraits requires not only awareness, but self-awareness. Many experiments with apes have now proved that this is not unique to humans.
 
The mental and emotional achievements of our primate cousins are well known and so impressive that the Chimpanzee Collaboratory has formed to promote chimp personhood.  As Harvard lecturer Steven Wise argues: "If a human four-year-old has what it takes for legal personhood, then a chimpanzee should be able to be a legal person [too]."
 
In addition to learning sign language (including making up new words) and teaching it to their young, chimps have been observed making tools and using herbal medicines.  In a fairly simple computer memory game, a chimp, seemingly without much concentration, can remember all nine numbers in a random sequence while the sharpest human subjects remember only one or two.  Recent experiments with chimps and organutangs proved that these intelligent animals can remember past events.
 
Brain size does not appear to matter. Irene Pepperberg's African Grey parrot Alex had the proverbial bird brain--the size of a peeled walnut--but over 31 years she carefully documented an amazingly rich mental and emotional life.  Under strict laboratory conditions Alex, when asked to combine seven colors, five shapes, and four materials, could identify 80 different objects. 
 
Just like Washoe the Chimp, who called ducks "water birds," Alex made up "yummy bread" for cake. Because one needs lips to say a "p," Alex improvised for an apple calling it "banerry," a combination of banana and cherry. While in the laboratory with other parrots, he was constantly criticizing the others for their poor pronunciation, repeatedly saying "speak more clearly!" Emotionally, Alex would respond to Pepperberg, not repetitively or arbitrarily as a robot would, but specifically and appropriately, such as "What's your problem?" and "I'm going to go away now."  His last words to the love of his life were "You be good, I love you."
 
A recent experiment with dogs did not require language for scientists to conclude that they had a sense of fairness.  At the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Vienna, scientists placed two dogs side by side and commanded them to offer a paw.  Initially, one received a piece of sausage for the correct response, and the other got a piece of bread. When the reward was withdrawn from one dog, she not only stopped offering her paw, but turned away from the scientist in disgust. As opposed chimps placed in the same circumstances, the Austrian dogs did not perceive the vegetarian option as a slight.  Primatologist Frans de Waal has also found that a capuchin monkey refused to trade pebbles for pieces of cucumber when his companion was given a grape instead for the same task.
 

The more we learn about insect intelligence, the more amazing it becomes.  Research about the swarming of bees, traditionally used as an example of mindless behavior, has demonstrated that new hive sites are chosen by what the researchers called "robust consensus."  This decision making was based not only on information sharing but also independent verification.  (Studies of how ants, operating as E. O. Wilson's superorganism, choose new nests by similar methods.) The same issue of the journal that published article on bee decision making also contained an article about how party line thinking in the British Parliament (transferred to many other countries) was embarrassingly mindless. (See The Economist, Feb. 14, 2009, pp. 89-90.) 
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