8 ms·

>The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been able to prov

by rtpg 12y ago

>The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions. Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly

Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
When working in labs studying brain function, the oddest thing I found was the huge resistance in what or what not an animal can do. Even in the face of years of research by big and small names, even with video, even when you train an animal and show them. They couldn't even provide a good hypothesis on why it was not so. It was argued circularly like trying to talk a paranoid schizophrenic out of their false world-view. Very frustrating. I would usually just tell them that if they could find a reason it wasn't so, they could easily get a nature paper out of it.
- sillysaurus3 12y ago
  Could you provide an example? I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
  - Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
    It could be as simple as a mouse being able to discriminate white from black or low tones from high tones. Sometimes I think the culture in some areas of science has become twisted. It really has to be experienced to be believed.
    - sillysaurus3 12y ago
      Ah, are you saying that scientists had trouble accepting the idea that a mouse could discriminate white from black? It seems like a repeatable test would be pretty convincing evidence. What justification was there for ignoring it?
rurounijones 12y ago
> This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly I think having some (seemingly) humourous bits in research is a great way to make it presentable to the public. Personally I found if very funny.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  Sometimes yes. Other times the silly bit becomes the headline and the rest is ignored.
  - rurounijones 12y ago
    ah yes, good point.
devnonymous 12y ago
> > The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed > > it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been > > able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions. > Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights > movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion Indeed. That statement surprised me too, since I remember reading a number of sources stating that research pretty much confirms that some animals do experience emotions. So I headed over to wikipedia[1] and saw that although some (most?) research does lean towards confirming this, the scientific community is not convinced, yet. Interesting stuff. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals
- dueprocess 12y ago
  The "scientific community" doesn't have a unified view on animal emotion, or on any matter. However, it is widely understood that animals are non-human persons who are aware of their own existence and who feel a wide range of emotions, just like we do. Mice feel empathy[1], elephants grieve[2], birds hold funerals for their dead[3] and so on[4]. But yes, for many scientists the overwhelming evidence that animals are sentient beings[5] with feelings akin to ours is an inconvenient truth, since nearly 20 million animals are killed each year during experimentation in the U.S. alone[6]. [1]http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel-empathy-with-peers/ http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel... [2] http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-american-explores-grief-in-animals http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-a... [3] http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-for-their-dead-120905.htm http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-... [4] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201112/empathic-rats-and-ravishing-ravens http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201112/e... [5] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/universal-declaration-animal-sentience-no-pretending http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/u... [6] http://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-testing-statistics/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-testing-statistics/
  - lilsunnybee 12y ago
Lerc 12y ago
There's proof and proof. No one has managed to prove other humans experience emotions, or even exist. Given a hypothetical model of a continually manipulated memory and consciousness you could even argue that you can't prove that you yourself have emotions (you might merely have the mistaken belief that you experience them). To take a more pragmatic approach to proof (good enough but not absolute) Humans and some animals experience emotions. At the very least most Mammals. Probably not all animals. A trickier proposition would be whether all vertebrates do, that's a different level of debate entirely. If you can't take things like the Monkey fairness tests as a sign of emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_detailpage#t=75 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_d... then you have a standard of proof that a lot of humans wouldn't meet.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- olouv 12y ago
  I'd highly recommend the Blackfish documentary about killer whales regarding mammal emotions (trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg). Especially this part where a mother is separated from its baby, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw ; it gives pretty good insight about whether animals can experience emotions.
  - meowface 12y ago
    Yep, I absolutely agree. Even if mammal emotions have not been scientifically "proven", I think there's a lot of strong evidence that they do experience most or all basic emotions. It's not like it's very shocking that they would, either, considering humans aren't that distantly related from them.
    - koralatov 12y ago
      As someone who has two cats, and has had a dog and a cat previously, I'm always amazed when I come across people who categorically state that animals don't have emotions. Spend a small amount of time with a cat or a dog, and it becomes pretty clear that they have moods and emotional states, albeit simpler ones that humans. I realise that domestication will have changed animals and their environmental responses, but I find it very hard to believe that dogs or cats would have developed emotions from scratch in the ~10,000 years since they were domesticated. In my experience, those who claim animals don't have emotions are usually justifying some kind of behaviour; in one case, it was a hunter, and another, someone who was generally unpleasant and cruel to animals. The former was otherwise a nice guy, though I found his hobby extremely distasteful; the latter was an irredeemable arsehole.
Shish2k 12y ago
> I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion I thought it was rooted in people's knee-jerk anthropomorphic emotions, science be damned... (Not saying they're right or wrong; they may well be right - but pretty much everyone I know who is involved in that movement does so for un-scientific reasons)
- arrrg 12y ago
  Animal rights seem like a predominantly ethical issue to me that has little to do with science.
  - koide 12y ago
    It's an ethical issue because it's likely that they have emotions. For instance, there is not a widespread movement for the ethical treatment of rocks. If science moved that likelihood close to certainty, the animal movements would gain lots of traction, which is what might be happening already
    - Shorel 12y ago
      Insects are animals. Jellyfish are animals. I don't think they can feel the great range of emotions mammals can. In fact they totally lack a brain limbic system, and it is presumed they can't. Yes, this means that I believe it is unethical to torture a dolphin or a dog, but I don't give a damn for mosquitoes or flies.
- Houshalter 12y ago
  What science do you suggest they are ignoring? I wouldn't call it "knee-jerk". It's not a reaction to a new thing. It is the new thing. Animals not having rights has been the norm for a long time.
  - Shish2k 12y ago
    > What science do you suggest they are ignoring? All of it - again not saying they're wrong, just that the overall mindset I've seen is "I believe animals have emotions, and that's what matters" or "we don't need proof, it's just obvious", not "I have collected evidence beyond anecdotes that animals have emotions". By knee-jerk, I mean people tend to believe first, and look at the evidence either later or never. (Though to be fair, much of the animal-non-rights movement seems to be similarly non-scientific :P)
cLeEOGPw 12y ago
> is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion Is this really still a question? Isn't it common sense that many animals do have emotions? If you call emotion a state of mind, controlled by a flood of certain hormones/neurotransmitters into the brain, then even the most simple animals will have at least fear emotion. I'm pretty sure most developed animals like elephants, orcas, etc., have pretty complex emotions that are not too far from humans.
- anon4 12y ago
  Sometimes it seems obvious they do. Other times you think they seem to be having an experience, but it's not really comparable to human emotions. And several times per day you doubt the presence of higher brain functions in the people around you.
  - w0utert 12y ago
    Why should the 'emotions' animals can or can not experience have to be like 'human emotions' though? Maybe the dog can be 'sad' in a way that isn't exactly like sadness as experienced by humans, but it's still an emotion, right?
  - cLeEOGPw 12y ago
    It doesn't matter how it seems though. Fact is they have. What many are not aware of, is that when they mean "animals have emotions", they actually mean "animals have exact same emotions as human", which is false. But saying that animals don't have emotions is the same as saying that dogs are blind just because they can't differentiate some colors humans can.
lotsofmangos 12y ago
I think that the criticism that it is wrong to read emotional responses in animal behavior runs somewhat counter to evolution as it assumes that our emotional responses have not developed from our mammalian ancestry, but have rather sprung fully formed from somewhere. I tend to see the concept of anthropomorphism as something of a Abrahamic position, as it only makes sense if you already think of humans as being separate from animals and nature in general.
- dueprocess 12y ago
  The "Abrahamic position" comment was interesting, although I'm not certain I understand what you meant. I do know that while the nomadic culture of Abraham's time used animals for sacrifice and the necessities of life, the Torah explicitly states that animals have souls[1]. The Bible goes on to say animals have an affinity to God[2] and will go to heaven[3]. [1] Gen 1-20-21, 24, 30 (translation from Hebrew word nephesh) [2] Ps 148:7-10, 150:6 [3] Isa 65:25, Rev 5:13-14
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    What I was getting at is that in the Abrahamic tradition, while animals may sometimes be considered to have a form of soul, they are still kept very distinct from humans, who are considered made in gods own image. In some other cultures, such as Hinduism, although the form that a soul inhabits affects it, the soul itself can move from animal to human and back again over cycles of reincarnation, so there may be less resistance in those cultures to the idea that humans are part of a continuum rather than being a separate class of entity.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    But here's what people say about "dominion" in the bible. http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/what-does-dominon-mean-in-genesis http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/what-do...
    - dueprocess 12y ago
      In Psalms 145:8-21, God is described as exercising dominion over creation with compassion and loving kindness. As an aside, I think dominion also refers to harnessing and utilizing natural resources in an economic sense. In Genesis chapter one, God mentions the word 'good' seven times, each time in reference to His creation. The eighth time the word good is used is for gold[1], the eternal symbol of commerce. [1] Gen 2:12
Houshalter 12y ago
I don't know how credible this is, but scientists have apparently declared that some non-human animals have consciousness: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious... >The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.
mantrax5 12y ago
Well that's humans for you. Until proven otherwise, a species lacks intelligence, emotions and self-awareness. It was not long time ago we'd claim that for our peers, based on silly traits like skin color. By the way, I wonder where's the "proof" that humans experience emotions. I demand someone prove it to me.
- cicero 12y ago
  We can't prove that other humans experience emotions; each individual only knows what he or she experiences. It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation. I'm not. I'm just the output of /dev/random on a server in Iceland, converted directly into ascii by a line of perl. It is pure chance that anything I post is coming out as understandable words. vyfQUct 18x9t ngm3H60gODwOG2OpRSeSp5 7cMG3fF9
  - mantrax5 12y ago
    Then why do we expect to prove such traits for animals? Keep in mind we use said "proofs" to justify how we treat animals used for food, experiments, hunting them for sport, and so on.
pwg 12y ago
> as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions. Anyone who has ever had a dog who happens to be afraid of thunderstorms will tell you that dogs can very genuinely experience fear. Fear is an emotion (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear).
goodcanadian 12y ago
I would not use the animal rights movement as an example of scientific rigour. :) My wife is a biologist working in animal behaviour. Among her peers, it is widely accepted that animals have emotions. Proving it in a scientifically rigourous manner, however, is extremely difficult.

by rtpg 12y ago

Lost_BiomedE 12y ago

When working in labs studying brain function, the oddest thing I found was the huge resistance in what or what not an animal can do. Even in the face of years of research by big and small names, even with video, even when you train an animal and show them. They couldn't even provide a good hypothesis on why it was not so. It was argued circularly like trying to talk a paranoid schizophrenic out of their false world-view. Very frustrating. I would usually just tell them that if they could find a reason it wasn't so, they could easily get a nature paper out of it.

sillysaurus3 12y ago
Could you provide an example? I'm having trouble understanding what you mean.
- Lost_BiomedE 12y ago
  It could be as simple as a mouse being able to discriminate white from black or low tones from high tones. Sometimes I think the culture in some areas of science has become twisted. It really has to be experienced to be believed.
  - sillysaurus3 12y ago
    Ah, are you saying that scientists had trouble accepting the idea that a mouse could discriminate white from black? It seems like a repeatable test would be pretty convincing evidence. What justification was there for ignoring it?

rurounijones 12y ago

> This is pretty great research, seeing a slug in a running wheel is particularly silly I think having some (seemingly) humourous bits in research is a great way to make it presentable to the public. Personally I found if very funny.

Houshalter 12y ago
Sometimes yes. Other times the silly bit becomes the headline and the rest is ignored.
- rurounijones 12y ago
  ah yes, good point.

devnonymous 12y ago

> > The researchers claim the animals ran on the wheels because they enjoyed > > it, which could be a little bit of anthropomorphizing, as no one has been > > able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions. > Is this really the state of the art? I thought the entire animal rights > movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion Indeed. That statement surprised me too, since I remember reading a number of sources stating that research pretty much confirms that some animals do experience emotions. So I headed over to wikipedia[1] and saw that although some (most?) research does lean towards confirming this, the scientific community is not convinced, yet. Interesting stuff. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_in_animals

dueprocess 12y ago
The "scientific community" doesn't have a unified view on animal emotion, or on any matter. However, it is widely understood that animals are non-human persons who are aware of their own existence and who feel a wide range of emotions, just like we do. Mice feel empathy[1], elephants grieve[2], birds hold funerals for their dead[3] and so on[4]. But yes, for many scientists the overwhelming evidence that animals are sentient beings[5] with feelings akin to ours is an inconvenient truth, since nearly 20 million animals are killed each year during experimentation in the U.S. alone[6]. [1]http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel-empathy-with-peers/ http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/researchers-say-mice-feel... [2] http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-american-explores-grief-in-animals http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/06/when-doves-cry-scientific-a... [3] http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-for-their-dead-120905.htm http://news.discovery.com/animals/birds-hold-avian-funerals-... [4] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201112/empathic-rats-and-ravishing-ravens http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201112/e... [5] http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/universal-declaration-animal-sentience-no-pretending http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/animal-emotions/201306/u... [6] http://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-testing-statistics/ http://www.statisticbrain.com/animal-testing-statistics/
- lilsunnybee 12y ago

Lerc 12y ago

There's proof and proof. No one has managed to prove other humans experience emotions, or even exist. Given a hypothetical model of a continually manipulated memory and consciousness you could even argue that you can't prove that you yourself have emotions (you might merely have the mistaken belief that you experience them). To take a more pragmatic approach to proof (good enough but not absolute) Humans and some animals experience emotions. At the very least most Mammals. Probably not all animals. A trickier proposition would be whether all vertebrates do, that's a different level of debate entirely. If you can't take things like the Monkey fairness tests as a sign of emotions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_detailpage#t=75 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg&feature=player_d... then you have a standard of proof that a lot of humans wouldn't meet.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
olouv 12y ago
I'd highly recommend the Blackfish documentary about killer whales regarding mammal emotions (trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OEjYquyjcg). Especially this part where a mother is separated from its baby, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWFo6kf21Hw ; it gives pretty good insight about whether animals can experience emotions.
- meowface 12y ago
  Yep, I absolutely agree. Even if mammal emotions have not been scientifically "proven", I think there's a lot of strong evidence that they do experience most or all basic emotions. It's not like it's very shocking that they would, either, considering humans aren't that distantly related from them.
  - koralatov 12y ago
    As someone who has two cats, and has had a dog and a cat previously, I'm always amazed when I come across people who categorically state that animals don't have emotions. Spend a small amount of time with a cat or a dog, and it becomes pretty clear that they have moods and emotional states, albeit simpler ones that humans. I realise that domestication will have changed animals and their environmental responses, but I find it very hard to believe that dogs or cats would have developed emotions from scratch in the ~10,000 years since they were domesticated. In my experience, those who claim animals don't have emotions are usually justifying some kind of behaviour; in one case, it was a hunter, and another, someone who was generally unpleasant and cruel to animals. The former was otherwise a nice guy, though I found his hobby extremely distasteful; the latter was an irredeemable arsehole.

Shish2k 12y ago

> I thought the entire animal rights movement is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion I thought it was rooted in people's knee-jerk anthropomorphic emotions, science be damned... (Not saying they're right or wrong; they may well be right - but pretty much everyone I know who is involved in that movement does so for un-scientific reasons)

arrrg 12y ago
Animal rights seem like a predominantly ethical issue to me that has little to do with science.
- koide 12y ago
  It's an ethical issue because it's likely that they have emotions. For instance, there is not a widespread movement for the ethical treatment of rocks. If science moved that likelihood close to certainty, the animal movements would gain lots of traction, which is what might be happening already
  - Shorel 12y ago
    Insects are animals. Jellyfish are animals. I don't think they can feel the great range of emotions mammals can. In fact they totally lack a brain limbic system, and it is presumed they can't. Yes, this means that I believe it is unethical to torture a dolphin or a dog, but I don't give a damn for mosquitoes or flies.
Houshalter 12y ago
What science do you suggest they are ignoring? I wouldn't call it "knee-jerk". It's not a reaction to a new thing. It is the new thing. Animals not having rights has been the norm for a long time.
- Shish2k 12y ago
  > What science do you suggest they are ignoring? All of it - again not saying they're wrong, just that the overall mindset I've seen is "I believe animals have emotions, and that's what matters" or "we don't need proof, it's just obvious", not "I have collected evidence beyond anecdotes that animals have emotions". By knee-jerk, I mean people tend to believe first, and look at the evidence either later or never. (Though to be fair, much of the animal-non-rights movement seems to be similarly non-scientific :P)

cLeEOGPw 12y ago

> is rooted in the idea that animals can experience emotion Is this really still a question? Isn't it common sense that many animals do have emotions? If you call emotion a state of mind, controlled by a flood of certain hormones/neurotransmitters into the brain, then even the most simple animals will have at least fear emotion. I'm pretty sure most developed animals like elephants, orcas, etc., have pretty complex emotions that are not too far from humans.

anon4 12y ago
Sometimes it seems obvious they do. Other times you think they seem to be having an experience, but it's not really comparable to human emotions. And several times per day you doubt the presence of higher brain functions in the people around you.
- w0utert 12y ago
  Why should the 'emotions' animals can or can not experience have to be like 'human emotions' though? Maybe the dog can be 'sad' in a way that isn't exactly like sadness as experienced by humans, but it's still an emotion, right?
- cLeEOGPw 12y ago
  It doesn't matter how it seems though. Fact is they have. What many are not aware of, is that when they mean "animals have emotions", they actually mean "animals have exact same emotions as human", which is false. But saying that animals don't have emotions is the same as saying that dogs are blind just because they can't differentiate some colors humans can.

lotsofmangos 12y ago

I think that the criticism that it is wrong to read emotional responses in animal behavior runs somewhat counter to evolution as it assumes that our emotional responses have not developed from our mammalian ancestry, but have rather sprung fully formed from somewhere. I tend to see the concept of anthropomorphism as something of a Abrahamic position, as it only makes sense if you already think of humans as being separate from animals and nature in general.

dueprocess 12y ago
The "Abrahamic position" comment was interesting, although I'm not certain I understand what you meant. I do know that while the nomadic culture of Abraham's time used animals for sacrifice and the necessities of life, the Torah explicitly states that animals have souls[1]. The Bible goes on to say animals have an affinity to God[2] and will go to heaven[3]. [1] Gen 1-20-21, 24, 30 (translation from Hebrew word nephesh) [2] Ps 148:7-10, 150:6 [3] Isa 65:25, Rev 5:13-14
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  What I was getting at is that in the Abrahamic tradition, while animals may sometimes be considered to have a form of soul, they are still kept very distinct from humans, who are considered made in gods own image. In some other cultures, such as Hinduism, although the form that a soul inhabits affects it, the soul itself can move from animal to human and back again over cycles of reincarnation, so there may be less resistance in those cultures to the idea that humans are part of a continuum rather than being a separate class of entity.
- DanBC 12y ago
  But here's what people say about "dominion" in the bible. http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/what-does-dominon-mean-in-genesis http://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/questions/2860/what-do...
  - dueprocess 12y ago
    In Psalms 145:8-21, God is described as exercising dominion over creation with compassion and loving kindness. As an aside, I think dominion also refers to harnessing and utilizing natural resources in an economic sense. In Genesis chapter one, God mentions the word 'good' seven times, each time in reference to His creation. The eighth time the word good is used is for gold[1], the eternal symbol of commerce. [1] Gen 2:12

Houshalter 12y ago

I don't know how credible this is, but scientists have apparently declared that some non-human animals have consciousness: http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConscious... >The absence of a neocortex does not appear to preclude an organism from experiencing affective states. Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates.

mantrax5 12y ago

Well that's humans for you. Until proven otherwise, a species lacks intelligence, emotions and self-awareness. It was not long time ago we'd claim that for our peers, based on silly traits like skin color. By the way, I wonder where's the "proof" that humans experience emotions. I demand someone prove it to me.

cicero 12y ago
We can't prove that other humans experience emotions; each individual only knows what he or she experiences. It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  It's possible that everyone else is a sophisticated simulation. I'm not. I'm just the output of /dev/random on a server in Iceland, converted directly into ascii by a line of perl. It is pure chance that anything I post is coming out as understandable words. vyfQUct 18x9t ngm3H60gODwOG2OpRSeSp5 7cMG3fF9
- mantrax5 12y ago
  Then why do we expect to prove such traits for animals? Keep in mind we use said "proofs" to justify how we treat animals used for food, experiments, hunting them for sport, and so on.

pwg 12y ago

> as no one has been able to prove that animals other than humans experience emotions. Anyone who has ever had a dog who happens to be afraid of thunderstorms will tell you that dogs can very genuinely experience fear. Fear is an emotion (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fear).

goodcanadian 12y ago

I would not use the animal rights movement as an example of scientific rigour. :) My wife is a biologist working in animal behaviour. Among her peers, it is widely accepted that animals have emotions. Proving it in a scientifically rigourous manner, however, is extremely difficult.