Yeah but that is what happens if you declare them to be 'persons'. It means you get the same legal rights as human beings.

Yeah but that is what happens if you declare them to be 'persons'. It means you get the same legal rights as human beings.

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with that. They have equal rights as any human imo

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rOZZ
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Yeah but that is what happens if you declare them to be 'persons'. It means you get the same legal rights as human beings.

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with that. They have equal rights as any human imo

So...

You arrest a Male Chimpanzee for rape?

A Female Chimpanzee to Sexual Assault.

With Rights, comes Responsibilities.

Oh, I forgot - They are 2 year olds. What if it is found out they are really 4 - 5 - 6 Years Old. They are Suspended from their housing, for pointing a 'Finger Gun', at another Chimp, as has occurred in American Schools. We must 'Protect Chimps' from this terror.

This discussion, and ANY Court taking up this 'issue', is deranged.

I would better have stated they have equal rights within Their possibilities and place in Earthly hierarchy of course. I don't think a chimp would stand up in court and object to the judge LOL

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rOZZ
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I would better have stated they have equal rights within Their possibilities and place in Earthly hierarchy of course. I don't think a chimp would stand up in court and object to the judge LOL

Julie...

Agree. Chimpanzee's, Orangutan's, Gorilla's have to be treated as Intelligent. But 'Personhood'? No.

We don't 'Hunt', nor raise them for food. Why do we do this to Whale's? Another Topic?

Indeed another topic... We humans tend to take advantage of our power, Clyde:(

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rOZZ
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I would better have stated they have equal rights within Their possibilities and place in Earthly hierarchy of course. I don't think a chimp would stand up in court and object to the judge LOL

Julie...

Agree. Chimpanzee's, Orangutan's, Gorilla's have to be treated as Intelligent. But 'Personhood'? No.

We don't 'Hunt', nor raise them for food. Why do we do this to Whale's? Another Topic?

CLYDE,

1 word... Bushmeat.

Agree. Chimpanzee's, Orangutan's, Gorilla's have to be treated as Intelligent. But 'Personhood'? No.

We don't 'Hunt', nor raise them for food. Why do we do this to Whale's? Another Topic?

CLYDE,

1 word... Bushmeat.

Should have said Hunt for Sport, and not sustenance in certain parts of The World.

Maybe Martin should answer this one since he is a very vocal opponent of Whale hunting around here...

But isn't the whale hunting that Japanese (and others) do for food (whale meat being a delicacy in some nations)? I know it used to be a big business hunting them for 'whale oil', but I thought that it was for food now...

Maybe Martin should answer this one since he is a very vocal opponent of Whale hunting around here...

But isn't the whale hunting that Japanese (and others) do for food (whale meat being a delicacy in some nations)? I know it used to be a big business hunting them for 'whale oil', but I thought that it was for food now...

Technically if you ask them its for 'science'. I assume molecular gastronomy.

I've changed my mind, they should be granted personhood. After all...

They've learnt the art of politics

Yeah but that is what happens if you declare them to be 'persons'. It means you get the same legal rights as human beings.

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with that. They have equal rights as any human imo

Ah, then what's their draft number?

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Yeah but that is what happens if you declare them to be 'persons'. It means you get the same legal rights as human beings.

Personally, I wouldn't have any problem with that. They have equal rights as any human imo

Ah, then what's their draft number?

You and I both know they don't have any, Gary, humans rule the world, didn't you know?

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rOZZ
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Any living creature with self awareness and the ability to communicate is as much a person as you or I am.

The day when self awareness will be undoubtly proved for monkeys or for dolphins or whatever will mean Earth has 2 (or more) sentient species. Until then "the person" regarding animal means not too more than the person of home PC or bike or favorite car. All those have own "persons" in some way...

End even in this case to give other species _same_ rights as to humans is quite foolish. Cause their needs are different. So to make chimp the subject of human law... ridiculous at least. To establish some rules and laws special regarding what humans can and can not do with chimps with base of chimp needs has sense, to make chimp the subject of human law - no sense at all. Just as with other sentient ( if any would be found) species.

btw, recently I heard some lection about evolution of human brain. There was example of perhaps cleverest chimp in history was given. yep, smth like human being of very small age... or as australopitec(that is even before Homo habitus).
There are good reasons why even human being of small age with not fully developed brain is restricted regarding human law. The same full self-awareness is the key reason. Child brain not fully developed to adequately react and foresee consequencies (*). If current human law treat childs differently (in ALL countries I heard of) why one should bother with question why not to exercise whole law on monkeys???
Lets give 2-years child vote right first then return to monkey-question...

(*) NB, in most law systems there is procedure to check if person was compos mentis in the moment of crime. That means, under modern human law, even adult human specie can be not fully in self-awareness state to exercise human law in whole...

The question wasn't about making a chimp subject to human law. It was about giving it human rights.

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Reality Internet Personality

The question wasn't about making a chimp subject to human law. It was about giving it human rights.

That's the point isn't it? It's not human.

We, in SETI, are oriented, if not dedicated, towards making contact with (an)
"alien" civilization(s). Some day (not in our time, I'm sure), our civilization
might make it into space, in a large way (envision, migrations).

With that in mind, perhaps we should consider what sort of attitude(s) we might have, if we happened upon a planet possessing hominids, similar to those on Earth, say, 2+ million years, ago. Bear in mind, that Homo sapiens may have done "a number" on "fellow" hominids, here on Earth. They, certainly, are not around (except, perhaps, in a small percent of incorporated Neanderthal genes).

Nature seems to want to blur the lines, and we should continue to debate
these issues. Good prep-work, for the future.

Personally I have not eaten whale meat for quite a number of years now.

Why is it so?

The answer is that it is very expensive to buy. However, because it is a delicacy, I have no problem when it comes to eating such food.

But what about eating meat from a chimp, or another similar animal?

The answer here is definitely no. It tends towards cannibalism, which is a wrong thing to do.

Meat is consisting mainly of proteins. Proteins are meant to be broken down into amino acids before ending up in your body cells.

If such proteins become to similar with our body's own proteins, there may possibly become a misunderstanding between the food you are eating and the elements of your body and you may risk ending up with the possibilty of unwanted mutations and other similar things.

This is the reason for making a good selection about food based on taste and keen instinct.

Nothing else.

The question wasn't about making a chimp subject to human law. It was about giving it human rights.

yep, "rights". Vote right, to marry on people right, what else human right they need? Just as I said, to give non-human human rights is ridiculous. Non-human needs are different. There is no objects they should have some own rights, but definitely not a human ones.

EDIT: and what is "to give some right"? How we define that right was given? Perhaps, if it fixed in law, not? Hence, to give right and to make subject to law not SO different things. Just formulate what is "to give right" is ?

EDIT2: from starting post:

lawsuit over legal

. To me these words assotiated with law, not right...

If such proteins become to similar with our body's own proteins, there may possibly become a misunderstanding between the food you are eating and the elements of your body and you may risk ending up with the possibilty of unwanted mutations and other similar things.

OMG, just go to library and read what % of proteins are different between you and the frog for example (or whale or monkey, or dog...) You will be really surprized :)

I would suggest that the US courts buy a new Dictionary if they even waste time hearing this case. There is no such word in English as "personhood". The word person is primarilly a noun used to descibe a HUMAN BEING (Homo Sapien) which is a distinct species seperate from any of the Apes.

It is dangerous to start ascribing human attributes to other species, would this mean that all Chimpanzee's, Bonobo's and Gorilla in the US are then US Citizens with all the comensuate rights and priviledges this encompasses? Well if that is the case keeping one in a cage in a zoo or otherwise "owning" one would be a criminal offense under human trafiking laws and false imprisonment..

It's simply ridiculous.

Should Apes have more rights that any other species, Yes they should, but then the rights and how we treat all animals should be on a sliding scale anyway. If you treated all animals equal then even killing an insect would be a crime, which is patently ridiculous.

Should any living species that is so far descibed in science have the same rights as Humans, no way, that is daft.

The issue over whether Chimps/Bonobos, Orang-Utans etc are our closed relatives is open for debate anyway. The statements often bounded about as too how close we are genetically is a moot point, we are only around 6% different from earth worms and only about 8% different from flowering plants, yet we are 4% different from the Great Apes, so percentage of genetic different is not and should not be a deciding factor in any decision with massive implications for society.

The genetics points a way forward for evolution and surely shows a roadmap that proves the case for evolution, but that is not the debate here, the real question is when did we stop being a member of the Great Ape family...genetics suggests that the last common ancester of the Homo branch and the Chimpanzee branch was between 6 and 8 million years ago. There is a question over this, and that will likely remain the case, however more importantly is the strongly held belief that the common ancestor of the Homo family was the Australopithicines, but here the fossil record is far from conclusive and is 90% interpretation rather than fact supported.

We have human footprints that are 3.69MYr old, more than 1 million years older than the oldest confirmed Australopithecine fossils (This is also debated) and the footprints have been scientifically shown to be that of a Homo species member, namely the design and use of the foot rules out any of the Ape family. Recently some have claimed the species that made the prints was Australopithecus Afarensis, but this has not been widely accepted and is open to debate.

What this demonstrates is that just because all other known species of the Homo family tree are no longer here and that Chimps etc are the closest living relatives does not mean they should be treated as members of the family and given the same rights. If all great apes died due to a disease unique to them does that mean we would then give the rights previously given to Chimps to the next "cousin" in line, which would be the Baboons? This would clealy be a nonsense.

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The question wasn't about making a chimp subject to human law. It was about giving it human rights.

You can't do one without the other. Human rights do not exist if they are not codified into laws. Thus giving the chimps human rights means the chimp becomes subject to human laws.

Also I think the question wasn't so much about applying human rights specifically on the chimp, but to give him the status of a person, which means he automatically gains access to those rights and again, becomes subject to our laws.