Actually, those pesky scientists are finding more traits in animals that were traditionally considered human. Following, are some findings:
'The Bristol researchers have documented how cows within a herd form friendship groups of between two and four animals with whom they spend most of their time, often grooming and licking each other. They will also dislike other cows, and can bear grudges for months or years.
Donald Broom, professor of animal welfare at Cambridge University, will tell the conference how cows can become excited by solving intellectual challenges.
In one study, researchers challenged the animals with a task where they had to find how to open a door to get some food. An electroencephalograph was used to measure their brainwaves.
"The brainwaves showed their excitement; their heartbeat went up and some even jumped into the air. We called it their Eureka moment," Professor Broom said.
The assumption that farm animals cannot suffer from conditions that would be intolerable for humans is partly based on the idea they have no sense of self. Latest research suggests this is untrue.
"Sentient animals have the capacity to experience pleasure and are motivated to seek it," Professor Webster said.
"You only have to watch how cows and lambs both seek and enjoy pleasure when they lie with their heads raised to the sun on a perfect English summer's day. Just like humans."
Copyright 2005 News Limited.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,12390397-13762,00.html
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Self-awareness is another. Philosophers and animal behaviourists have long argued that other animals are not capable of self-awareness because they lack a sense of individualism. Not so, according to a spate of new studies. At the Washington National Zoo, orangutans given mirrors explore parts of their bodies they can't see otherwise, showing a sense of self. An orangutan named Chantek at the Atlanta Zoo used a mirror to groom his teeth and adjust his sunglasses, says his trainer.
When it comes to the ultimate test of what distinguishes humans from the other creatures, scientists have long believed that mourning for the dead represents the real divide. Other animals have no sense of their mortality and are unable to comprehend the concept of their own death. But animals, it appears, experience grief. Elephants will often stand next to their dead kin for days, in silence, occasionally touching their bodies with their trunks. Kenyan biologist Joyce Poole, who has studied African elephants for 25 years, says that elephant behaviour towards their dead "leaves me with little doubt that they experience deep emotion and have some understanding of death."
The new findings of researchers are a far cry from the conceptions espoused by orthodox science. Until very recently, scientists were still advancing the idea that most creatures behaved by sheer instinct, and that what appeared to be learned behaviour was merely genetically wired activity. Now we know that geese have to teach their goslings their migration routes. In fact, we are finding out that learning is passed on from parent to offspring far more often than not and that most animals engage in learned experience brought on by continued experimentation and trial-and-error problem-solving.
Saturday August 16, 2003
The Guardian
The Secret Life Of Cows
By Jonathan Leake
news.com.au
3-5-5
Once they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a complex mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited by intellectual challenges, researchers have found.
Cows are capable of strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.
The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats and chickens. They suggest such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be reconsidered.
The research will be presented to a conference in London next month sponsored by animal welfare group Compassion in World Farming.
Christine Nicol, professor of animal welfare at Britain's Bristol University, said even chickens might have to be treated as individuals with needs and problems.
"Remarkable cognitive abilities and cultural innovations have been revealed," she said. "Our challenge is to teach others that every animal we intend to eat or use is a complex individual, and to adjust our farming culture accordingly."
Her colleague John Webster added: "People have assumed intelligence is linked to the ability to suffer, and that because animals have smaller brains they suffer less than humans. That is a pathetic piece of logic."
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Animals 'Can Think
About Thought'
By Tim Radford
Science Editor
The Guardian - UK
12-3-3
Monkeys can manage mathematics. Dolphins can be decisive. But US psychologists have broken new ground in the animal intelligence challenge. They have proved that animals are also smart enough to join the "don't-knows".
It means that animals, like humans, may be capable not just of thinking, but of thinking about thinking, of knowing that they don't know. Psychologists call this "metacognition", evidence of sophisticated cognitive self-awareness. Ordinary mortals know it as "dithering".
A team from the University of Buffalo, New York, the University of Montana and Georgia State University report in the December issue of Behavioural and Brain Sciences that they gave humans, bottlenose dolphins and rhesus monkeys nonverbal memory tasks. Some were hard, some easy.
"The key innovation in this research was to grant animals an 'uncertain' response so they could decline to complete any trials of their choosing," said John David Smith, of the University of Buffalo.
"Given this option animals might choose to complete trials when they are confident they know, but decline them when they feel something like uncertainty."
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Are Animals More Like
Us Than We Dream?
Scientists Discovering Culture Not Unique To Humans
By Peter Christie
The Globe and Mail
1-25-5
When choosing between two males confined to opposite ends of her cage, the quail in this tape -- call her Doris -- repeatedly sidles up to Sid, looking longingly into his eyes. Then, in a heart-breaking instant, it is over: Doris spots another female that has been placed in the compartment of the male she did not choose. To her, the male in the company of the other female suddenly seems sexier. She marches over. Sid is history.
Simply put, Prof. Galef's quail won't follow their hearts when they can follow other quail. In a hardwired world where most animals appear genetically programmed to choose the best, brightest or strongest mates, these quail seem different: They prefer lessons of love to be passed to them not by their DNA but by their peers. They possess the trick of learning preferences and other behaviours from one another.
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What the quail did is called CULTURE.
SAs well, scientific experiements have shown that rats, dogs and chimps laugh.
S
"If evolution is true, what's to keep us from behaving like animals?"
by Awakened07 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Satanus
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Satanus
Since both creationists and scientists agree that animals were here before we were, one could say that when we laugh, think about though, feel happy, feel sorrow, etc, that we are acting like animals.
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Anti-Christ
Well, if you think your an ape don't be offended if I call you one.
BurnBy that comment I believe you have proved his point.
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jwfacts
If God is true, why did he create animals to behave like animals? If morality is important to God, why create an entire ecosystem that is dependant on infidelity, violence and murder?
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nvrgnbk
We do act like animals.
Who says that's "bad"?
Who says that's "good"?
Well, if you think your an ape don't be offended if I call you one.
BurnI thought I'm a tail-eating snake?
LOL!
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Luka
>>So, the question is: "If evolution is true, we are nothing but animals, so what's to keep us from behaving like animals?".<<
Nothing, we already are.
What other creature is finding it sporty to kill it's own kind, what other animal backstabs those how love them, what other beast rejoices in giving you hope then destroying you very soul instead? I don't really know but to me the only thing that makes us different is ability to bulshit our way out of anything nasy we do to someone else and in doing so find like-minded evil morons to support us instead of telling us off.
Yes we are animals through and through
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SickofLies
If the God of the Bible created us in his image, what's to keep us from behaving like bloodthirsty, genocidal maniacs?
Here here
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DanTheMan
Excellent post Awakened.
Granted - animals can be violent, murderous, "immoral"(!), etc....(Some) animals are 'immoral' by human standards.
This makes me think about lions. Lions practice polygamy. Lions murder each other. Are lions immoral? By human standards, yes. By lion standards, of course not.
So to the theist I would ask, does God have different standards of morality that he bestows on different creatures? A bible fundamentalist might answer that in spite of appearances lions were never intended to be ferocious killers of other animals and of each other, an answer that is ridiculous on its face and not worthy of debate, given the physiological characteristics of lions. And if you're a non-fundamentalist theist and still believe that humans were created in God's image and therefore we possess God's higher moral code, then I would ask, in whose image were lions created? Whose moral code was their's modeled after?
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Satanus
Animals and god - jesus is called the lion of judah. The cherubs floating around yhwh's celestial contraption have 4 faces. One of them is a lion's. Another point about lions, when a new male takes over a pride, he generally kills all the kittens, offspring of the previous alpha male. That makes the fertile lionesses go into heat again, and he gets to mate and have his own kids. Kinda like yhwh, who will not tolerate the children/worshippers of other gods. Yhwh is behaving like an animal.
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LtCmd.Lore
Well, if you think your an ape don't be offended if I call you one.
I was tempted to say: "Well, if you think god made you from dust, don't be offended if I treat you like dirt."
But my highly evolved sense of benignity would not allow it.
Awakened, nice post, did you copy some/all of it from another site?
If so I'd love a link to the original source! (If not, Good Job)
Lore - W.W.S.D?