> Animals imagine they have rights too. They just aren't capable of communicating this to people because they don't speak our language. got news for you. . .in my alien example, chances are bloody likely that we wouldn't be able to communicate with them either, so they wouldn't see our rights either. Additionally, Koko the gorilla has proven that animals can imagine and think for themselves. After learning sign language for various objects, she showed an untaught ability to sign for things that she wanted - -not just food, but things like her cat, her toys, her irritation at her trainer for various things, etc. Koko clearly sees she has rights, and is lucky enough to be able to communicate them. Just because you can't understand the language doesn't mean the other animals aren't communicating them as well.

So this proves what? That Koko is intelligent enough to express instinctive desire for certain things. The "irritation" that she expresses isn't proven. It's proven that if the trainer does something conflicting with Koko's instincts, Koko's instincts will cause her to express that in a way that is instinctive. The things Koko has done certainly do express high amounts of intelligence, but nothing so far as her knowing she has rights. If you were to demonstrate to me with hard evidence that some animal imagines that it has rights, I will concede that that animal does. But it'll take a lot to prove that.

Char "oh, and I'm a guy, Wormwood :)" on