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Các nghiên cứu về đồng hồ phân tử đề xuất rằng nhánh Linh trưởng thậm chí có thể cổ hơn, xuất phát vào thời kỳ Creta giữa, cách đây khoảng 85 triệu năm. | 76 FRANS DE WAAL chimpanzees. And over the last decade state legislatures have upgraded animal cruelty crimes to felonies from misdemeanors. The debate over animal rights is not new. I still remember some surrealistic debates among scientists in the 1970s that dismissed animal suffering as a bleeding-heart issue. Amid stern warnings against anthropomorphism the then prevailing view was that animals were mere robots devoid of feelings thoughts or emotions. With straight faces scientists would argue that animals cannot suffer at least not the way we do. A fish is pulled out of the water with a big hook in its mouth it thrashes around on dry land but how could we possibly know what it feels Isn t all of this pure projection This thinking changed in the 1980s with the advent of cognitive approaches to animal behavior. We now use terms like planning and awareness in relation to animals. They are believed to understand the effects of their own actions to communicate emotions and make decisions. Some animals like chimpanzees are even considered to have rudimentary politics and culture. In my own experience chimpanzees pursue power as relentlessly as some people in Washington and keep track of given and received services in a marketplace of exchange. Their feelings may range from gratitude for political support to outrage if one of them violates a social rule. All of this goes far beyond mere fear pain and anger the emotional life of these animals is much closer to ours than once held possible. This new understanding may change our attitude toward chimpanzees and by extension other animals but it remains a big leap to say that the only way to ensure their APPENDIX C 77 decent treatment is to give them rights and lawyers. Doing so is the American way I guess but rights are part of a social contract that makes no sense without responsibilities. This is the reason that the animal rights movement s outrageous parallel with the abolition of slavery apart from being insulting is
