It seems that the Monkeys are men meme has surfaced again, and that they should obtain legal representation because they share 98.7% of our genetic code. I wonder if this means quite what the tree (ape?) hugging statisticians would have us believe... after all, most of our genetic code is, strictly speaking, inactive rubbish -- is it this part we share? Also, does this mean fish should gain 24.5% of the rights of a person?
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autarch on 2002-04-27T15:04:03
If you had read the whole article a little more carefully, you might have noticed that there are other arguments presented, besides that of genetics. I would agree that the genetics arguments is potentially misleading, if not outright bogus.
Even worse, in my opinion, it bases animal rights solely on their "resemblence", genetic and behaviorally, on humans, which I think is a terrible position for any animal rights activist to take.
Animal rights should be based on something more concrete, like their ability to suffer or their ability to be "subjects of a life", as Tom Regan says. These are less speciesist and arbitrary than "well, the chimp picks his nose too."
But to characterize all animal rights activists on the basis of this one article, and this one action, is quite ridiculous.
