I thought there were documented cases of that across a bigger range of different species?

But seriously this works both ways. if dolphins get to be treated equally as a human then I only think it's fair that I should be able to be unemployed and do nothing but play with hula hoops and beach balls , go "eeee eeee eeeee!!" and splash people all day without everybody looking at me like I'm an asshole.

and get fed in the process too...

Maybe SimonG will take you out drinking!

Your avatar makes this comment.

PETA isn't even about animals rights as much as they are against humans...

Go play Soccer then?

You know what, there's millions of species, the insect variety alone producing over ten trillion. If they should have rights, then they should have taken over.

Either way, mankind has done many things over many thousands of years, good, bad, deplorable, sickening, the laws we have in place are meant to help keep us from destroying each other and letting the weak become your hunting practice. And Human Rights are there to let us understand as humans, what rights we should be giving to all humans.

Giving rights to animals, all well and good, noble of you, but it isn't going to be human. We've domesticated dog, cat, pig, cow, sheep, so on, whatever we feel we can get away with. But they're still animals, and they aren't going to follow whatever laws or rights we offer to them, such as the right to not be a god damn beached whale that gets blown up with dynamite after it's dead. Well, the other whales certainly aren't complaining about the lack of a proper funeral. Chimps rape, wage war, kill, murder, assassinate, what have you. And for animals the world over, the only thing they care about is a meal. If you give rights to a dolphin, will you give it to the fish it has to eat to survive? And then will you put the dolphin on trial for murder?

That's what these idiots miss about all of this. If you're going to give them rights like this, well, don't pussy foot about it, give them the whole damn system. Animals being put on trial for murder, theft, destruction of private property, whatever. But you can't get an answer out of an animal, and all it does is so that it can try to survive. If you hold animals accountable, we'd be left with nothing but humans and some hundred billion bones stacked as high as Mount Everest, because that's the only way you can make it fair. The way things are now, we at least try to keep them safe, try to make sure they live their lives while we live ours....... Unless you're a farmer or a republican. Right now, animals have all the protection they need, we try to save whales and dolphins, we relocate bears and small mammals instead of killing them, insects are kept alive so that we can use them for whatever, like fly maggots used to clean bones. So, bullshit to human rights. The animals already have human protection, and that's the best thing that could ever happen to them.

Wasn't the idea of the article about granting dolphins rights because they may have human-level intelligence and sapience?

How sophisticated must a creature be for us to stop treating it like a dumb animal? Or does everyone in this thread aspire for society to become the Imperium of Man?

Are working on the two issues really mutually exclusive? Does working on one really block work on the other?

Uhm, if dolphins get human rights, shouldn't humans be entitled for dolphin rights then? :)

This particular proposal is nothing to do with PETA (and I doubt its proponents would welcome PETA participation). Nor is it John Lilly's drug-fueled speculations.

The scientists and philosophers advancing this proposal are respectable and deserve to be heard, even if their ideas are far out and even if there are other ways to better society.

PETA is the institutional equivalent of the Crazy Cat Lady. They're not for animal rights. They're animal hoarders and killers. They're despicable, and their officers would be run in for felony cruelty to animals if the Attorney General for Virginia were not so spineless.

Truth. To be honest, though, I'm more concerned about people overseas not having enough to eat than issues here in the U.S., like gay rights. (Sorry, James) Some of that stuff just is not MY fight, while other things seem more significant to me.

Yeah I can see how certain rights should be guaranteed toward 'intelligent' creatures aside from Homo sapiens and I can see how many cetaceans, a word which I just learned :), could apply. But, like many of my former posters, I am more concerned about basic rights being denied humans, even in developed, liberal countries. But this can only be a move in the right direction and, who knows, in 10,000 years maybe our descendants will be going to school with dolphins.

Top of my head I can name at least three current US issues that need some serious involvement. And none of them are gay rights related.

I, on the other hand, don't care about Africa. I've worked in development aid ...