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Elephants show capacity for compassion, scientists find

 
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:14 pm    Post subject: Elephants show capacity for compassion, scientists find Reply with quote

Elephants show capacity for compassion, scientists find

Tue Aug 8, 12:22 PM ET

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060808/sc_afp/sciencebritainanimals


LONDON (AFP) - Elephants pay their respects to lost loved ones and venerated leaders in a way that suggests a human-like capacity for compassion, scientists have said.

In a paper to appear in a scientific journal this month, researchers said Tuesday they came to this conclusion after watching how elephants on a Kenyan game reserve behaved towards a matriarch who fell ill and died.

The dying elephant -- named Eleanor by the researchers from Britain and the United States -- was first assisted by an unrelated matriarch from another family.

At one point the helper, called Grace, was observed lifting the collapsed animal to her feet using her tusks. When Eleanor fell again, Grace tried again to lift her up -- this time without success.

Eleanor died where she fell, and was subsequently visited by elephants not only from her own family, but from four other families as well.

All the animals showed a distinct interest in the body, the scientists discovered, sniffing it with their trunks, hovering a foot over it, or nudging it with their tusks.

"It leads to the conclusion that elephants have a generalised response to suffering and death... and that this is not restricted to kin," they wrote in a paper for the August issue of Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

The research was led by Iain Douglas-Hamilton, from the zoology department at Oxford University, who founded the charity Save the Elephants.

With colleagues from the University of California, his team monitored 50 animals on the Samburu National Reserve in northern Kenya, tracking them with GPS collars and taking automatically dated and timed photos.

Most animals, apart from humans, seem to show little interest in the dead bodies of their own species -- but chimpanzees, dolphins and elephants are all known to show concern for the sick and dead, the scientists said.

"This behaviour in an animal species can be compared to human behaviour, and indicates that such feelings as compassion may not be restricted to our species alone," Douglas-Hamilton said.
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AmirN



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PostPosted: Tue Aug 08, 2006 5:35 pm    Post subject: I wonder Reply with quote

I wonder if such evidence points to the consciousness of animals. For how can anything that shows compassion and feels in any way not be conscious?

If one buys the argument that consciousness necessitates the presence of a soul, I wonder if this shows that elephants have “souls.”

I wonder if it therefore shows that humans are not the only ones with “souls.”

I wonder if it follows that animals also continue in the afterlife after they die.

I wonder if animals are also judged by God in the afterlife based on the life they led in this life.

I wonder then, why religious people don’t wish to also save the souls of animals by attempting to teach them God’s word and converting them to their respective religions.

I wonder if this has been another demonstration of logic. You remember logic, don't you? It's that thing that's suppressed right before one accepts God.

I wonder a lot of things…. This is just one of them.
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Rhuan



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You are also an extremist atheist, who has decided his oppinion on a great many things before looking at the facts involved.
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anusiya



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 4:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
I wonder then, why religious people don’t wish to also save the souls of animals by attempting to teach them God’s word and converting them to their respective religions.

Most animals are incapable of human languages (lip-tongue-vocal cord articulation), so trying to get an elephant to read the bible could ... fail.

I believe that animals have "incomplete" souls - i.e: they are not capable of evil. Despite communication in other animals, the only species to ever wage war on itself is the human, because i believe that the human soul is capable of evil, unlike animals. (you've never seen 300 mice on two sides of a field firing rockets at each other Very Happy)
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AmirN



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 6:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Cartoon Character,

Normally, I try not to get mixed up with the “Theological discussions” that you and your buddies have in the philosophy section (if you can call that stuff philosophy). I find all your discussions to be nothing more than humorous and entertaining, and don’t even bother reading most of them. I am quite content to post my own thoughts within the context that I prefer to express and then move on.

However, since you are directly addressing me in this thread, I feel it would be rude of me not to respond. So here goes:


The term “extremist” has gained popularity recently, what with the “terrorist extremists” and all.

Muslims carrying out acts of violence are called “extremists” by those that wish to be politically correct, and don’t have the balls to call Islam itself a terrorist ideology.

Christians carrying out crusades, persecutions, Witch hunts, or Inquisitions are called “extremists” also by those that wish to be politically correct and don’t have the balls to call religion in general, and Christianity specifically, persecutory.

There is no such thing as a Muslim extremist. There is no such thing as a Christian extremist. All is encompassed within Islam itself, or Christianity itself.

There is also no such thing as an atheist extremist. One either believes in fairy tales such as God or one does not. I suppose an argument can be made regarding Agnosticism, which is the same as atheism with the footnote that a negative cannot be conclusively proven, but that is another discussion.

Conclusion: the term “extremist” is reserved for use by those that either don’t understand the term they affix this description to, or for those that need to grow balls and oppose that which they believe must be opposed, whether that entity is Christianity, Islam, or Atheism.
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I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

Naqshe Rostam
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AmirN



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PostPosted: Wed Sep 13, 2006 7:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dear Anusiya,

What does it mean to have an “incomplete soul?” One either has a soul or one does not. The definition of a soul being an existence anterior to and independent of the material world and the brain. An animal may have a different type of soul than a human –if that is your hypothesis, which I can’t imagine it being more than your personal belief based upon intuition- but “incomplete soul” makes no sense.

Though I understand your explanation that animals are incapable of evil through your example that they do not wage war, I cannot completely agree with you. Though man is relatively capable of far greater evil than any other animal, what we consider “evil” is not completely absent in the animal kingdom outside of man.

Animals kill each other. One may consider that to be evil. One may argue that they kill only to survive and fulfill a certain biologic necessity. However, that is not always the case. Animals sometimes kill simply to vanquish another, such as in competition over territory or access to a mate. Animals sometimes abandon or even kill their own young. Certainly, any definition of evil would include such acts perpetrated by animals, which were then inherited and magnified by humans.

Therefore, your presumption that animals are incapable of evil does not appear sound. If they do have a soul, and if they are capable of evil, then what happens to their soul when they die, and are they in fact in need of salvation? Are they to stand trial before God for any evil they may have committed during their lifetime? These are quite interesting questions indeed.

In regards to your challenge of elephants’ incapacity towards language and their dismissal from religious teaching, I hold the challenge to be limited by imagination. Certainly, if God created elephants and every other creature on earth, it was very well within his capacity to grant animals the capacity to understand language and the bible. Yet he didn’t. And yet, it appears that they do have a soul, as anyone who accepts that humans have souls must conclude that elephants have souls based upon their behavior.

These are just a few things to consider here, anusiya.
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I am Dariush the Great King, King of Kings, King of countries containing all kinds of men, King in this great earth far and wide, son of Hystaspes, an Achaemenian, a Persian, son of a Persian, an Aryan, having Aryan lineage

Naqshe Rostam
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