Birds.

Why do so many scientists do intelligent work and then draw idiotic conclusions? Are they really so lost in their disciplines that wisdom evades them?

     Recent research shows that birds are not the proverbial (in the West) "bird brains." In fact they have brains organized for higher thought as do we, but in a different and, by weight, more efficient way.

     Pigeons were recently taught to distinguish between paintings by Picasso and Monet, for but one example. Parrots are capable of meaningful speech, for another. Crows can recognize themselves in a mirror and solve complex problems that would stump a human child. Yet the same people who conduct such research so often feel compelled to grumble "Of course, that doesn't mean that an animal has consciousness."

     What?? Are these lab coats so afraid of facing their chicken dinners they deny the obvious? Animals are conscious. They have to be to survive. Their consciousness is just not the same as ours, or of each other's.

      Until we stop regarding ourselves as the lords of creation our  moral errors will never cease.

     Wisdom begins, though hardly ends, with recognizing our fellow creatures as kin, with the same love of life and motivation to avoid death. In ways differing only in detail from ours, they feel, think, and dream.