gmr044@leah.Albany.Edu (Gregg Recer) (08/08/90)
In article <49038@seismo.CSS.GOV> cooper@beno.CSS.GOV (Dale Cooper) writes: > ..loads of stuff about "the nature" of pets and so on deleted.... >If everyone decides that dogs and cats should eat only non-meat, they >are altering the course of nature. This change forces adaptation to >something new thus changing the animal's chemistry and ultimately its ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >genetics. This to me is a direct violation of the animal's rights to ^^^^^^^^ >exist in an unaltered state. I see no difference between this and >forced extinction of a species. You force change just because of the >way YOU believe. I realize this is a bit off the main thread here, but, to be honest I think the main thread is a bit silly. Anyway, the description above of altered diet leading to altered genetics is just plain wrong. This is the typical Lamarkian idea that traits acquired during an organisms lifetime -- such as developmental traits or biochemical changes as suggested above -- will be passed on to offspring. The Classical argument is that giraffes have long necks because they attempted to reach higher and higher into tall trees for food, this caused their necks to stretch and then their offspring had longer necks. Doesn't work that way. Phenotypic variation due to environmental effects is not something that can be acted upon by natural selection (or artificial selection for that matter). As far as an animal's "right" to exist in an unaltered state goes it should be quite clear that many pet species (dogs, cats, many fish and bird species) are genetically quite dissimilar from their progenitor species. It seems to me that if such a right existed it would imply that keeping pets at all would be in violation of that right. Do you own any pets Dale? Is that what you had in mind by this statement? Just wondering.... Gregg ******************************************************************************* "In future you should delete the words crunchy frog and replace them with the legend crunchy raw unboned real dead frog!!" -- Inspector Bradshaw, The Hygiene Division *******************************************************************************