The Truth Will Set You Free...

I began scanning a few articles here and there on the science and culture site, trying to find an article and one interesting thing to write my blog post on. I found an article titled "Rat=Pig=Dog=Boy=Moral Nonsense" and was instantly obliged to delve deeper. The article itself is brief and to-the-point, but it still stuck out to me. The author, Jay Richards, is simply arguing against the animal rights movement. But what really interests me is this statement; "but to ascribe rights to animals is to strike at a core truth on which Western civilization is built: human exceptionalism." Here it is drawn out simply; he was even kind enough to actually include the word truth. Truth is defined by webster as conformity to fact or reality. So, Here is a concept much of the world has accepted or "conformed" to; animals are inferior to humans. Simple enough. These people are arguing that we cannot treat animals as equal to us and they do not have the same rights, nor is it possible for them to obtain these rights.

Human exceptionalism is the belief that humans have a "special status" in nature. This could possibly stem from religious ideologies. The verse 1:26 in the Book of Genesis from the christian bible reads: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." In something like the Center for Science and Culture I feel as though this "truth" would most likely stem from studies showing differences in the brains and genetic makeup of humans versus every other living being on the planet.

Wherever and however this belief was formed, the condescending attack on the animal rights movement from this man remains the same. While it may be common sense that a cat cannot figure out how to use pythagorean theorem to solve a right triangle, this man and others in his community have taken it upon themselves to claim animal's inferiority to be "true" and definite. Hmm, interesting.