A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Animals

  • Whence the cat?

    Fascinating article about how and where cats were first domesticated. Not Egypt as you might think. I think it was Jeffrey Masson who said that cats are the only animal to truly benefit from domestication (as any cat owner can attest!). Read more

  • Justice among the beasts

    Interesting review of a new book portraying behavior of animals that can fairly be described as moral (via). I think our resistance to seeing animals as in any way “moral” might be rooted in the Kantian legacy of modern moral philosophy. Roughly, for Kant, you’re only acting morally when you’re acting for the sake of Read more

  • Call of the wild

    Here’s a good review of what sounds like a fascinating book–philosopher Mark Rowlands’ The Philosopher and the Wolf, in which Rowlands tells the story of his relationship with his pet wolf Brenin. Rowlands’s unusual book — part autobiography, part philosophical discourse; harshly cynical yet somehow also inspirational — is above all a meditation on the Read more

  • Why do we have pets?

    A new book suggests that we get a bio-psychological reward from them. Salon interviews the author: Touch releases oxytocin in humans and animals. Oxytocin is one of the most powerful hormones that the body makes. This is a chemical that is responsible for social bonding. When you pat your cat, you should be getting a Read more

  • Bird brains

    More and more evidence that they’re smarter than we’ve given them credit for. What this article suggests is that we’re so used to thinking of ourselves as the pinnacle of evolution that we’ve misled ourselves into thinking that qualities like intelligence must be strictly correlated with how much the animals resemble us anatomically. But more Read more

  • (Non-human) animals who use tools

    Very cool. It seems like birds, in particular, are proving to be smarter than we thought. The mole rat face mask is pretty incredible too. Read more

  • Assorted links with no particular unifying theme

    –Lynn on why some people are pro-choice on abortion but anti-gay marriage and the various meanings of “sodomy” –Matt Yglesias on DC Statehood (bonus: a couple of nifty images of US flags with 51 stars from Yglesias commenters) –Humane Society CEO Wayne Pacelle recently appeared on the Kojo Nnamdi show, an excellent program on DC’s Read more

  • The zen of steer

    Jon Katz writes about his friend Elvis the steer’s spiritual centeredness. Read more

  • Notes on human uniqueness and the Imago Dei

    In light of this post, here are some thoughts on what it might mean to affirm human uniqueness and to say that we’re created in the image of God: The Bible doesn’t give us much to go in when it says that human beings are created in God’s image: Then God said, “Let us make Read more

  • Human uniqueness qualified (if not debunked)

    From the New Scientist – six traits found in animals formerly thought to be the sole preserve of human beings. Really, this is exactly what you would expect if evolutionary theory is right – not sharp breaks between human beings and the rest of the animal kingdom, but differences in degree. Some Christians still seem Read more