A Discussion On Animal Rights :: essays research papers fc

A Discussion on Animal Rights     "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of gratification The Declaration ofIndependence holds these rights to be self evident and unalienable. In theeighteenth century when these dustup were written they were called natural rights,today we call them valet rights" (McShea 34). The issue of whether or non togrant sensual 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 intricateissue that involves the foreland of animal intelligence, animal activist groups,and the pros and cons of granting animals their rights.     Psychologists around the world, who have studied bloodless primates,argue that these animals possess the capacity to communicate. They go on toexplain that a communication barrier is all that forks humans from animals.If they bridged th at barrier, then humans could peach with animals. Beatrice andRobert Gardner, two psychologists of the University of Nevada, realized that thepharynx and larynx of the chimpanzee are not suited for human speech. Sincechimpanzees are far superior to humans in manual dexterity, the Garners decidedto try to teach chimpanzees American Sign speech communication 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 excessively distinguished amid different grammatical patterns andsyntaxes (Sagan 615). Besides distinguishing, the chimpanzees also inventivelyconstructed new words and phrases. For example, when Washoe first saw a duckland on pissing, she gestured "water bird," which is the aforementioned(prenominal) phrase used inEnglish. Washoe invented that gesture for the occasion (Sagan 615). Lucy alsodisplayed her creative mind by signing &qu otcandy drink" afterwards tasting a watermelon.The description "candy drink" is essentially the same word form as the English"water melon" (Sagan 615).      other method of bridging the communication gap between humans andanimals is by computer. At the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center inAtlanta, Georgia, researchers teach chimpanzees wish well 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 temporary hookupLana 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 handling of Animals, or PETA, is a nonviolent