1/29/2024 0 Comments Sentience animalsOne telling example: humans share with other mammals and vertebrates the same areas of the brain that are important for consciousness and processing emotions. This is called evolutionary continuity and shows that it is bad biology to rob animals of the traits they clearly possess. There are shades of gray, not black and white differences, so if people have a trait, "they" (other animals) have it too. Solid evolutionary theory - namely, Charles Darwin's ideas about evolutionary continuity in which he recognized that the differences among species in anatomical, physiological and psychological traits are differences in degree rather than kind - also supports the wide-ranging acceptance of animal sentience. There is also an upward trend in the number of articles published on animal sentience (identified using sentience-related keywords) from 1990 to 2011. Of particular interest is that Proctor and her colleagues also discovered "a greater tendency for studies to assume the existence of negative states and emotions in animals, such as pain and suffering, than positive ones like joy and pleasure." This is consistent with the historical trend of people who readily denied emotions such as joy, pleasure and happiness to animals accepting that animals could be mad or angry (see also Helen Proctor's " Animal Sentience: Where Are We and Where Are We Heading?"). They concluded: " Evidence of animal sentience is everywhere." The effort used a list of 174 keywords and the team reviewed more than 2,500 articles on animal sentience. There is no reason to embellish those experiences, because science is showing how fascinating they are (for example, mice, rats, and chickens display empathy) and countless other "surprises" are rapidly emerging.Ī large amount of data are available on an interactive website called the " Sentience Mosaic" launched by the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA for more details please see also), which is dedicated to animal sentience.Īn essay written by Helen Proctor and her colleagues at WSPA provides a systematic review of the scientific literature on sentience. Scientists know that individuals from a wide variety of species experience emotions ranging from joy and happiness to deep sadness, grief, and post-traumatic stress disorder, along with empathy, jealousy and resentment. The database of research on animal sentience is strong and rapidly growing. If you're a topical expert - researcher, business leader, author or innovator - and would like to contribute an op-ed piece, email us here. Evidence of animal sentience is everywhere - the remaining questions are a matter of why sentience evolved, not if it evolved. I call this Dawkins's Dangerous Idea.īut, the Universal Declaration on Animal Welfare is instead based on what I believe is the indisputable fact that animals are sentient and that they can suffer and feel pain, as recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon and the rapidly growing field of compassionate conservation. One notable exception is Oxford University's Marian Dawkins who continues to claim we still don't know if other animals are conscious - using the same data as those who wrote the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness. I don't offer any specific, geographic location for this declaration because, with very few exceptions, people worldwide - including researchers and non-researchers alike - accept that other animals are sentient beings. For the purpose of this essay I am defining "sentience" as " the ability to feel, perceive, or be conscious, or to experience subjectivity" (for wide-ranging discussion please click here.) And, I'm sure as time goes on, researchers will add many other animals to the consciousness club.Ī universal declaration on animal sentienceīased on the overwhelming and universal acceptance of the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness I offer here what I call a Universal Declaration on Animal Sentience. They could also have included fish, for whom the evidence supporting sentience and consciousness is also compelling (see also). Non-human animals, including all mammals and birds, and many other creatures, including octopuses, also possess these neurological substrates." Consequently, the weight of evidence indicates that humans are not unique in possessing the neurological substrates that generate consciousness. The scientists behind the declaration wrote, "Convergent evidence indicates that non-human animals have the neuroanatomical, neurochemical, and neurophysiological substrates of conscious states along with the capacity to exhibit intentional behaviors. As I was flying home, I thought of a previous essay I wrote called " Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings" in which I discussed the the Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness that was publicly proclaimed on July 7, 2012, at that university.
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