I have to do an essay on animal rights, basically trying to answer the question, if we deny animals have rights do any absurd consequences arise. Right, sorry all the people that are members of PETA but whilst I'm not going to be condoning mindless violence towards animals, I'm not going to be saying that we should treat them as equals. I think the whole speciesism thing is rubbish. However, due to the lecturer and notes being written by someone who is pretty for animal liberation I'm lacking a few sources and I wonder if anyone could help me.

First, I think behaviourism has been convienently over-looked and was wondering if anyone whose done psychology or is just interested in it could point me in the direction of a fairly brief over-view (but not wikpedia brief) of the topic. Prefferably one that sites people like B.F. Skinner and the like so I have some proper authority to back it up.

Secondly, the issue of speech has come up as dividing factor between ourselves and animals, however it seems to have been rebutted purely because a few chimps learned sign language. We were told that "there have been lots of criticisms that the chimps were not using "language" but all these criticisms have been disproved and the critics just keep moving the goal posts on what language is." with a few brief examples. I fortunatly have read a little about language, and things like the ability to relate hypothetical, counterfactual, conditional, unreal, fitional ideas, the ability to ask a question, to form abstractions, displacements, negations and modifying words (not forming new ones) were not mentioned as things the chimps could do. She seemed to be excited because they came up with a new word for fridge. SO....... what I'm looking for is a fairly uptodat criticism of animals using language but all the net ones I've found are from the animal rights side of things and these things are not mentioned. Any help?

please even if you're a animal rights activist type don't hold out on me or I'll kill a rabbit or something.

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love is from hell

most animals who use sign language only use it based on a reinforced reward system. Monkey see, monkey do, monkey gets the bananna...

there have been experiements that have shown they can make new words and answer new questions but like, the only reason we focus in on this ability of speech is it's an externalisation of our ability to reason. I think, no matter how complicated a string of words a chimp can put together it still isn't reason it's mostly just telling things like they are using more words. It seems to be in the people who think animals can use language say there is a big difference between a chimp going "banana" (in ASL) and a chimp going "large, yellow, cold banana on a black tray." it's a sentence but it dosn't show any reason.

It's hard to get stuff on this though because they people that raise the chimps don't let critics near them, the critics merely have to shoot down all the evidence the supporters present.

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love is from hell

Many people, including a shrinking list of scientists, want a wall that separate us from other animals. That's part of the reason creationists don't like evolution. Evolution knocks down almost every barrier humankind has put up. Creationists don't like the idea that people are not a "special" creation of god.

Skeptical Inquirer wrote some criticism of Koko the gorilla and her ability to use sign language. They also had some doubts about ASL abilities in chimps but had to acknowledge that many leading scientists, including the late great Carl Sagan, supported the research.

One can also say that about a 5 year old child.

Experiments with monkeys have shown they can think things out. Some have even learned to play video games, and become very good at it.