"Rungs of the Ladder"

Only recently I discovered that animals and humans share DNA. Bananas share DNA with humans. Many, many animals have more chromosomes than we do. Does this not make them superior to us? Shouldn't they have at least equal rights to humans? We tend to believe that because our brains are larger than some of the animal kingdom's members', it means we are far more intelligent than animals. Every living organism on the planet has unique DNA. My theory is that we were each given what we needed the most. Only idiots believe that DNA has nothing to do with talents or abilities. They think only physical features are "handed down" through generations, such as long legs, large noses, crooked teeth, etc. They refuse to acknowledge that human tendencies are in the blood.

Birds don't have a neocortex, as human brains have; instead they have palliums which, although not shaped like neocortexes, serve the same basic function in birds as the neo cortexes do in humans. They help sight and hearing. Scientists have discovered many similarities between humans and animals, due, of course, to all that shared DNA.

In the past, scientists didn't believe that animals have emotions. It was said that dogs don't cry. Everything an animal did was attributed to instinct. I have no idea what science believes now about animals, but I know that animals have emotions. They grieve when they lose a child, or a mate...or a master. They think. They plan. If you pay attention, they communicate. Because they don't speak French or English, Russian or Chinese....humans tend to think animals aren't as intelligent as we are. They also believe that there is no "intelligent language" in the animal kingdom. The plain fact is that we don't have the intelligence to understand their languages, while they have proved themselves to us, time and again, proved that they comprehend us when we speak. Some of them are even able to imitate human speech. They all have the brains they need to perform their function in life....and the good sense not to venture over into someone else's function.

The animal kingdom would not have survived at all, if they hadn't been able to speak to one another. It is more than instinct that enables a bird to fly safely, a wolf to avoid contact with humans, mouse to hide from a cat, an ant to store food for winter. These things are taught, by mothers and fathers, from birth. From before birth, I would imagine, in some cases. They love. They have family connections. They play. They grieve. They came from the same elements as humans.

They are us. If we kill them, we kill ourselves. They are Family.

___rute