A Discussion On Animal Rights :: essays research papers fc

A Discussion on Animal Rights     "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness The Declaration ofIndependence holds these rights to be self evident and unalienable. In theeighteenth century when these words were written they were called natural rights,today we call them human rights" (McShea 34). The pop out of whether or not togrant beast rights such as those that humans retain, is a greatly disputedissue. Philosophers, clergyman, and politicians have argued the point of animalrights for years, but without success. Animal right is an extremely involvedissue that involves the question of animal intelligence, animal activist groups,and the pros and cons of granting animals their rights.     Psychologists around the world, who have canvass nonhuman primates,argue that these animals possess the capacity to communicate. They go on toexplain that a communication barrier is all that separates humans from animals.If they bridged that bar rier, then humans could talk with animals. Beatrice andRobert Gardner, two psychologists of the University of Nevada, realized that thepharynx and larynx of the chimpanzee are not suitable for human speech. Sincechimpanzees are far superior to humans in manual dexterity, the Garners decidedto try to teach chimpanzees American Sign Language or Ameslan. The Gardners andothers studied these chimpanzees, Washoe, Lucy, and Lana. These threechimpanzees learned to use and could display a working vocabulary of 100 to 200words. They also distinguished between different grammatical patterns andsyntaxes (Sagan 615). anyways distinguishing, the chimpanzees also inventivelyconstructed new words and phrases. For example, when Washoe first saw a duckland on water, she gestured "water bird," which is the same phrase used inEnglish. Washoe invented that gesture for the occasion (Sagan 615). Lucy alsodisplayed her creative mind by signing "candy racket" after tasting a watermelon.Th e description "candy drink" is essentially the same word form as the English"water melon" (Sagan 615).     Another method of bridging the communication gap between humans andanimals is by computer. At the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center inAtlanta, Georgia, researchers teach chimpanzees like Lana a specific computerlanguage called "Yerkish" (Sagan 616). "Yerkish" allows the chimpanzees to talkwith the computer by keyboarding in messages. The computer in turn respondsappropriately. While Lana types, she monitors her sentences on a computerdisplay and erases those sentences with grammatical errors. At one point whileLana typed an intricate sentence, her trainer mischievously and repeatedlyinterfered with her typing from a separate console. Lana, who had becomeaggravated by this, typed, "Please, Tim, leave room." (Sagan 616).     People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, is a nonviolent