Aquatic Point of View

I visited the New England Aquarium this weekend and beheld a flock of fish. In particular, the poor fish that were in a circular tank. These fish were constantly swimming with no goal, exploration or anything in a dark tank that was circular with a light shining on them as they passed in front of the kids going "wow! That's a lot of fish!" and three seconds later, they proceeded to say "that's boring, lets see the other fish." Looking at these fish, there was a plaque explaining how they have senses that help them see other nearby fish and keep tight formations that can distract and harass predators, I found it interesting and was enraptured by their display, even though the fish must have been bored out of their minds! The seals which were for the most part excited to see people looking at them were happy enough, except for two of them who were brutally mauling, chasing and biting each other to the point of scraping fur and drawing blood. It was upsetting to see them so unhappy that they would fight.

There were other times where little kids disregarded the educational benefits of exhibits. We went to the museum of science and there was an exhibit about archaeology which me and this father were really interested in. The father's kid was not happy. He constantly complained about it being boring and how he wanted to see the baby chicks. The father replied, "Can you sit down and calm down, some people are trying to learn from this." It made me a little upset how unintended most of the kids were about these sciencey things. I remember when I was their age, my favorite thing to do was to look at all the exhibits that were on display! However, not all kids are like me at that age so.... yea.

Overall, I was disappointed at the general disinterest that it seemed kids had in science. The exhibits for the live animals (mainly fish, arthropods, amphibians, and reptiles) seemed rather well put together, not too constrained, the animals had more then enough room to maneuver and, despite the fact that they were still in captivity, I believe the fish and turtles were content with their surroundings.

A Response to Mr. Gaudet

In response to the question Humans and animals. Humans or animals. Humans vs. animals. Are these legitimate separations? There is an interesting battle with words when it comes to distinctions, especially between "humans" and animals, since, as Mr. Gaudet put it, "Humans are animals; so, from where does this fictional distinction come?" I feel this is a very difficult question to answer, especially because I am not as well acquainted with semantics and linguistic history as some people may be. In my best way of understanding this question, I feel it comes down to the human's (and I believe animals share a similar a similar state of mind as well) fear of being attacked by the unknown.

To define this "Unknown", we will call it some unknown other animal. For instance, I have a fear of dogs I am not personally familiar with, as I do not know how they will react to me being around them or trying to pet them. They could be happy with me petting them, or seeing a hand move, they could think I am going to hit them, thus bark and bite. The animal (be it human or otherwise) does not know how the other animal will react to it and thus it will likely try to avoid it if possible, distancing itself from a possibly hostile encounter. Us as Homo sapiens with our language systems, we like to classify things, and classify we do. Since the "wilds" are lands with other animals that haven't been domesticated, killed by us, or possibly discovered by us, we tend to avoid that area of uncertain encounters. Any being that we do not know, without reasonable doubt, how it will react to us, is considered unknown, and thus, wild.

"wild humans" are "humans" who act in ways that are unpredictable, or against the "norm" and thus are regarded with fear for their unpredictability. Much like animals that act in ways we can't predict are termed "wild" animals due to the nature of the "wilds" for which we assume they hail from. I believe this is where the term "wild animals" comes from. We refer to Dogs as "pets" as an overarching umbrella meaning companion animals such as fish, cats, dogs, gerbils, etc. While pigs, cows, and sheep are considered "livestock", minnows and worms and other small creatures are termed "bait".

In colloquia  I believe that anything that is not within our species is termed an "animal" as an overarching umbrella term for "non-Homo sapien beings in the Kingdom Animale".  Humans is a term we made for ourselves I believe to delineate these non-"human" animals from us. This could possibly date back to the time before Darwin's putting together of the concept of evolution, whereby we as Humans were created separately from the other creatures of the earth, and perhaps that term has stuck with us like slang and swears have. We may not want to use them because they don't make sense, but they are there through time so we have to deal with it wether we use them or not.

Dealing with the initial question of using the terms humans and animals as legitimate separations, I believe if we take "humans" to be slang for Homo sapiens, and we take "Animals" to mean "non-Homo sapien species" then I believe we can use those words... however it would be easier to understand if we just said "Homo sapiens vs. non-Homo sapien animals."

An Animal, or a  "Human"?

Travel catches up!

I asked the question "Just because science allows us to perform an experiment or advancement in technology, are we obligated to follow and attempt that endeavor?"

Mainly with regards to animals being used for research, but this question can be applied to many other scientific advances as well, such as the Atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima which, after taking Nuclear Age, knowing about my family history and seeing the wreckage and exhibits first hand at the peace memorial in Hiroshima, I felt conflicted in what I knew about science, but that is a discussion for another blog and/or time.

In regards to animal research, I believe Singer brought up testing performed on rabbits to see if new shampoos would harm them. I believe this form of scientific research regarding animals falls under my question. I can understand that companies need to continually churn out new products or they will loose money, but I don't believe it is ethical, defensible, or even necessary to test new products on animals. From an chemistry perspective, if we know the compounds used within the shampoo and the approximate concentration, comparing that with known concentrations/ compounds, we should have our answer without harming more rabbits. Just be cause we can test new products on animals doesn't mean we should in that case.

Another experiment brought up by Singer and a few books I have read relates to deprivation of maternal care for animals. This relates to epigenetics, a new field that is still misunderstood, and I feel needs more looking into, not only for the sake of humans, but possibly for "rehabilitation" of test/ food product animals. If we understand how the environment can affect not only that particular animal, but methylation passed through genes, we can understand how to limit the harm to future generations through the environment. It's not like a chicken with a cut off beak will have offspring with cut off beaks, it's more like a piglet who was taken from the sow before age 1 would lack the constant tactile stimulation of her mother and therefore be less socially compatible  forgoing food, interaction, mating, and being agressive and stressed more easily.

I believe these epigenetic studies are necessary at this point, since we can perform basic behavioral experiments  I feel these should be done for the betterment of not only our species, but other species that, at this point, we use but may in the distant future, release back to the wild.

There are two extremes I have just listed, One where it is absolutely not necessary except to visually express the pain that can be seen by animals (or not seen if they are blinded.... bad joke), and one where it can be beneficial in the long run not only to humans but to the animals we interact with.

An artist's concept of epigentic modification that I quite like

Any thoughts or opinions are welcome

Post from Tokyo!

In our travels I have heard of dogs referee to as items however, a lot of statues of important people have dogs next to them probably to show the loyalty of the samurai but I am not sure. Also we saw a poster depicting different lunches around the world and guess what America's was: steak and frenchfries!!!!!!! Just another observation

First post from the middle of Kyoto

While walking the streets there are many shrines devoted to Kami. One such Kami is that of a boar that save a guy's life. It was then enshrined and I actually had a chance to pray to the Kami, it was an interesting feeling. There were also many dogs around with no leashes. There was even one that had sunglasses and a pink fedora, it looked perfectly content walking through the crowded streets of Kyoto during the lantern festival! I have done no reading as of yet, but it is really interesting seeing the connection to nature and animals people here have

A Response to Mr. Keefner, and Thought Generating

Responding to Kurtiss Keefner's response to me, I can see where he is coming from with regards to the selfish humans attributing rights to ourselves above all other organisms, and by doing so, we have worked the right to life into our laws. I believe that us, as "moral agents" have not necessarily an obligation, but  we should at the very least, respect those who share "mental capabilities" or "social capabilities" with us, such as chimps, and whales. I believe the idea of giving rights to life to "moral Agents" such as ourselves and, perhaps these "persons" (whales and apes) is justified in our mind, but I still have trouble wrapping my head around the idea that we have so much authority as to dictate "what lives". This is something that I can identify and come to a conclusion in my head but have trouble saying or expressing, therefore I'm going to use this post to try and determine what exactly I'm trying to say.

Humans are the top of the "food chain" because of our advances in technology such as holding sticks to strike at a greater distance, or pick insects out of trees or reach further, early agriculture to step out of hunter/gathering, and the advent of cooking meat to aid in digestion and production/ advancement of the telencephelon (fore-brain, cortex, "major part of the brain" "grey mater" whatever, they are all essentially the same thing) Due to this, we were able to think, remember and eventually step towards eusociality.

Us humans, we like to label, it's in our nature, we also like to believe that we can empathize or tell body language saying "my baby looks sick" or "that dog looks hurt" whether we know it or not. This broken thought leads me to the idea that we put rights on ourselves, but rights I feel are a construction of our own minds, we use rights to justify how humans treat humans saying "there's a right to bear arms, or a right to the freedom of speech" these two having nothing to do with animals other then a bear.... that's a joke on bear arms...

Evolution, or looking back on the past? -Relevancy is unknown!

I just don't get why we need to say "this whale has the same rights as me" I try my best to respect animals as much as I can and, maybe I'm being selfish, but I don't care if all animals have a right to life, or if only a few have a right to life, I'm just going to try not to hurt them as best I can unless I need to, and if I do, i'm not going to be sadistic and slowly drive a screw through their brain or anything gruesome, i will try to follow Temple's idea that I should give them a quick, painless death if necessary  after a few warning shots, a shot right between the eyes, rather then shooting it's legs and intentionally making it suffer.

Looking Back on Pages Past!

    When I asked, "Just because something shares 'similar development' with us, and similar attributes to us, does that mean they should have similar rights as us?" with regards to Cavalieri's argument for whales having a basic right to life due to their complex brains and social structures with cultural differences  much like our own. This made me think briefly of our conversations with attributing rights to animals if they share similarities with us. I can't remember exactly who brought up this idea in one of our earlier class discussions, but I remember having an "aha!" moment as that concept made total sense. If mice can forgo food and basic needs for the sake of pleasurable shocks to the brain at the pull of a lever, and we can do the same thing, why don't we think they have a similar desire to rights and not being treated like, well, animals? Though I agree with Cavalieri's idea and examples of the complexity of cetacean social structures and cultural differences between populations, I wonder if that gives them the specific rights that we, as humans have given ourselves.

      I believe this beings it back to Donnovon's criticism of attributing our feelings of how things should be treated to animals: that dog is hungry, it should at this food, it isn't eating the food, it must be sick... we don't know that for sure, maybe it doesn't like the food you are offering it, we are just using our knowledge of how we handle ourselves to analyze animal behavior. Though I personally agree with the idea that any animal would like to avoid being harmed, and I feel we are potentially beyond the times where we need to hunt whales excessively for whale oil, I still feel odd saying "whales have rights as us humans do. I can't explain why in any good way, but I just feel we as humans are pushing our ideas onto animals too much for my liking.

If anyone has any ideas on this, I would appreciate reading them as they may help me formulate my opinions better!

Since there is no picture, I included an article on the coordination of killer whales in attacking a baby whale, and the attempt of a mother to keep the baby above water so it can breathe.