Give A Captive Chimp His Day In Court? Of Course!

“Tommy” is an ape, actually a chimpanzee, who was left in a grungy cage in a big shack in the yard of a Trailer Sales place in Gloversville, N.Y. after his owner passed away.  He was unceremoniously discovered by Steven Wise on October 10, last year and the dreadful condition of Tommy’s digs – a small steel mesh cell on which were strewn soiled bedding and odd toys – was enough to mobilize the human to action on the chimp’s behalf.


On December 2^nd, Wise – a 63-year old legal scholar in the field of animal law, walked with his fellow lawyers into the Fulton County Courthouse in Johnstown, New York flashing multiple copies of a legal document which had never before been seen in any of the world’s courts.  Under the partial heading of: “The Non-human Rights Project On Behalf of Tommy” the legal petition and memo included amongst its 106 pages a detailed account of the petitoner’s “solitary confinement in a small, dank, cement cage in a cavernous dark shed” along with a series of nine affidavits gathered from leading primatologists around the world – each one detailing the cognitive abilities of a being like Tommy – thereby underscoring the psychological and physical ravages of being in such confinement.

 A chimp like Tommy is clearly the best example to use in a test case. As Wise et al’s legal memo reads (cf. New York Times Magazine, May 4):

“Like humans, chimpanzees have a concept of their personal past and future …they suffer the pain of not being able to fulfill their needs or move around as they wish, and they suffer the pain of anticipating a never-ending confinement.”

None of this ought to be amazing to us, despite our human chauvinism, given that the chimp and human have the exact SAME cytochrome –c protein sequence! If evolution is false we’d expect the human and chimp cytochrome-c sequences to vary dramatically given that it exhibits 10^93 variations in functionality with other organisms. That is, 10 followed by ninety three zeros!

 They are, in effect, our closest non-human cousins.  It is this that the skeptical human must bear in mind on considering that Tommy was about to make history as the first non-human primate to ever sue a human captor in an attempt to gain his own freedom. Insane? Hell no! It logically follows if one fully accepts the tenets of Darwinian evolution.

Indeed, James Rachels, in his controversial book, Created From Animals, invokes Darwinian evolution to make the strong case that unless animals are extended consideration and value, humans can't have it either. Merely to argue humans- by virtue of being "exalted thinking beings"- merit more consideration, is no argument and can indeed be shown to fail at numerous levels. As Rachels points out (p. 191):

"For example, normal adult humans have the obligation not to torture each other. What characteristics make it possible for a person to have this obligation? For one thing, he must be able to understand what torture is, and he must be capable of recognizing that it is wrong."

Rachels, in his book (ibid.) uses the example of a "severely retarded person" who is incapable of relating what he does in terms of actions, to consequences or suffering. Thus, such a person could willy-nilly stab or slice people at will with a pen knife or drawing compass-divider and not know any better or appreciate their suffering from his actions. We do not regard such people as possessing the discriminating capacity for empathy, so don't hold them accountable. (Or at least we shouldn't).

As Rachels puts it (p. 192)

"A severely retarded person may not be able to understand what torture is, or see it as wrong, and yet still be able to suffer pain himself. So we- who are not retarded - have an obligation not to torture him even though he cannot have a similar obligation not to torture us." Thus we come to the key point made:

"It is wrong to torture someone ...not because of his capacity for understanding what torture is, or for recognizing it is morally wrong, but simply because of his capacity for experiencing pain."

The premise for the extension of the legal and logical argument is that if we aren’t prepared to grant standing for an ape like Tommy, we aren’t justified in doing it for a severely retarded or disabled human (e.g. unable to speak) either. Humans don’t get any special merits for being “human” in other words. And citing supernatural piffle like "souls" doesn't get you there.

 The point was also rendered by Wise to his lecture class, when he had them consider the case of a 4-month old anencephalic baby, that is, an infant born without a complete brain. The intact brain stem allows the baby to breathe and digest but there is no remote consciousness nor will there ever be any. In fact, there can be no feelings or awareness whatsoever.  At this level, the chimp is vastly more advanced than the baby human and no one could argue differently.

 Wise in this context put it to his class why one couldn’t just eat this baby and done with it. Or put her in a cage as a pet until expiry. Of course, the class was instantly appalled and as Wise put it (when they were asked the question):

 “Got all tied up in knots and said things like ‘because she has a soul’ or ‘all life is sacred’

 Wise’s reply was to dismiss such answers since “we aren’t talking about characteristics here that can’t be proven” but rather that she has the FORM of a human. But is this a sufficient condition to be conferred legal rights?  Why is a human individual with no cognitive abilities whatsoever a legal person with rights while cognitively complex beings like chimps have no rights at all?

 Therein lies the rub, and James Rachels himself would argue that unless legal rights are also extended to cognitively complex animals (including dolphins, gorillas and Orcas) you are not entitled to extend them to all humans merely by the fact they possess human forms.

 Again, the invocation of humans having “souls” is useless because souls have never been proven to exist. The rejoinder that “we already have animal rights laws on the books” is also inadequate because it does not advance the definition of a true legal person for all situations. (Imagine a mutation that would confer speech to a chimp.)  In this case,  as Wise and Rachels would quickly point out, a legal person is not synonymous with a human being.

Rather, a legal person would be an entity that the legal system considers important enough so that it is visible and has interests. Under this rubric, the anencephalic baby would be a legal person, but so would Tommy the chimp. We aren’t allowed to discriminate on the superficial basis of “humanness” because that doesn’t provide both the sufficient and necessary conditions to be a legal person. Humans are only a step up the cognitive ladder from apes, but if we use that evolutionary spread as a standard for legal personhood we aren’t entitled to extend the latter to severely disabled humans, such as the anencephalic baby.

Merely to spout  for human exceptionality on the basis of “soul -hood” doesn’t cut the mustard, apart from the fact that millions of us (atheists) don’t recognize the existence of souls anyway. It is time then, to put away the shits and giggles and give the apes their day in court – or else admit we’re hypocrites. "Hypocrite Humans", yeah that’s a good one! We might remember that next time we behold a hapless chimp seized for horrific medical "experiments" (say to test a new Army nerve gas) or locked up in a 2' by 2' cage in conditions no creature ought to abide.

Muslim Author Slams Richard Dawkins - Why SHE Is the One Oh So Wrong.

Richard Dawkins: author of The God Delusion. When are clueless religionists - of whatever stripe - going to learn that he's basically correct as regards human evolution and the conflict between science and supernaturalist religion?


Salon.com contributor Sana Saeed in a ridiculous article ('Richard Dawkins is So Wrong It Hurts: What the Science vs. Religion Debate Ignores')  takes Richard Dawkins and other "New Atheists" to task for basically engendering a conflict between science and religion which is exaggerated.

Of course, this is nonsense. The conflict is real and pervasive, whether between Evangelical creationism and Darwinian Evolution or between the latter and any Muslim sect's claims - as I will show.

As I pointed out in my (March 23) blog post, science - based on naturalism and Materialism - is counterpoised to ANY system based on supernaturalism. It's like trying to mix oil and water. It is a fool's errand. Since ALL the monotheistic religions - whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam -  are based on supernaturalism, then science must be fundamentally opposed to the theological claims and doctrines of each.

ALL the monotheistic religions (and by extension their derivative cults, sects)  encourage and indeed, DEMAND one sacrifice one's mind to their respective beliefs and dogmas. Dogma is part of religion, at least most of them, as is "sacred revelation" (e.g. in "sacred scriptures")  which religious types are obliged to accept and do so unquestioningly. This is one of the reasons I left the Catholic religion behind.  I couldn't abide their ridiculous dogmas, whether virgin birth, immaculate conception, transubstantiation or whatever. None of it made sense, and given the Church's hierarchy didn't allow 'free thought" I had no choice. Either one is honest with himself or not.

Thus, from the outset Saeed is on shaky ground. This despite, writing a truly naïve sentence:

"It never once occurred to me during those years, and later, that there could be any sort of a conflict between my faith and science; to me both were part of the same things: This universe and my existence within it."


Well, if indeed this "never once occurred"  to her, it means that either: a) she didn't appreciate or accept the supernatural basis of her religion, or b) somehow believed science is invested in supernatural bunkum.

This is highlighted with her additional claim, pertaining to evolution, that :  "In my own religious tradition, Islam, there is a vibrant history of religion and science not just co-existing but informing one another intimately"

Maybe so, but this is more a matter of pragmatic mutual exploitation than anything else. The same has occurred in the Christian Western tradition, but that doesn't mean astronomers and astrophysicists as well as chemists and geologists, accept "souls" and life after death, or "heaven and hell".  Nor, as Saeed later admits (see below), does it mean religionists accept an ape-human common ancestor .In other words, cross-fertilization serves pragmatic purposes but doesn't alter the basic oppositional frame of reference, which often manifests as religionists cherry picking what they'll accept and what they won't.

This may be why Saeed can also state - presumably with a straight face:

"Muslims, generally, accept evolution as a fundamental part of the natural process; they differ, however, on human evolution – specifically the idea that humans and apes share an ancestor in common. "

But here, her whole thesis collapses, because if  Muslims don't accept the evidence of ape-human common ancestry then clearly they don't accept evolution as a whole. Human common ancestry with the ape is part and parcel of the whole theory, as I pointed out many times before on this blog, e.g.
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/01/why-are-fundies-so-averse-to-accepting.html

As I noted therein the evidence is overwhelming for common ancestry between apes and humans, including:

- BOTH  human and ape have the exact SAME cytochrome –c protein sequence! If evolution is false we’d expect the human and chimp cytochrome-c sequences to vary dramatically given that it exhibits 10^93 variations in functionality with other organisms. That is, 10 followed by ninety three zeros!

- Photographic evidence exists for the telomeric fusion of the ape 2p and 2q chromosomes to become the single ‘2’ chromosome in humans. In other words, prima facie evidence of a common ancestor. (See, e.g.: Yunis and Prakash, 1982, Science, Vol. 215, p. 1525, 'The Origin of Man: A Chromosomal Pictorial Legacy')

If Saeed or her Muslim sect doesn't accept common ancestry then they don't accept the science behind evolution. One cannot willy-nilly cherry pick which parts of evolution they will accept and which they reject.  Richard Dawkins, contrary to what she claims - is exactly correct regarding the antagonism and conflict between supernatural religion and science. Those who try to sweep differences under the rug or minimize them do neither science or religion any favors.

And supernaturalism, for Saeed's information, would be the only reason to reject common ancestry. The reason is simply that the supernaturalist demands his point of origin be from a supernatural source, as opposed to a common ape-human ancestor. Philosopher Daniel Dennett ('Darwin's Dangerous Idea') compared the two versions of origin to skyhooks and cranes. Supernaturalists, whether Christian or Muslim, embrace skyhooks because they originate humans from the sky as it were, at the 'hands' of a Sky Daddy.  Cranes, by contrast, have to hoist from the ground up to effect their constructions. They're prosaic, dirty material-mechanical flotsam and jetsam like cells, electric signals and chemicals.

Embrace your faith and skyhooks, if you must, but please don't try to portray it as compatible with any realistic science!  Not unless you're prepared to accept your origin via the 'Crane'  paradigm!