For a second, I forgot that monkeys aren't really people.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080115-AP-chimp.html

Vienna, Austria
Associated Press
January 15, 2008

A chimpanzee cannot be declared a person, Austria's Supreme Court ruled Tuesday.

An animal-rights group had sought to have the chimp, Matthew Hiasl Pan, declared a person, hoping to gain guardianship of the animal.

The shelter where Matthew has lived for 25 years is going bankrupt, threatening to leave the chimp homeless. Donors have offered to help support the animal, but under Austrian law, only a person can receive personal gifts.

The Vienna-based Association Against Animal Factories petitioned to be appointed as Matthew's trustee.

But the high court upheld a September ruling by a judge in the town of Wiener Neustadt rejecting the petition, the group said Tuesday.

The rights group said it would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Matthew and another chimp at the shelter, Rosi, were captured as babies in Sierra Leone in 1982 and smuggled to Austria for use in pharmaceutical experiments. Customs officers intercepted the shipment and turned the chimps over to the shelter.

Organizers said they may set up a foundation to collect donations for Matthew, whose life expectancy in captivity is about 60 years. But they argue that only personhood will ensure that he isn't sold outside Austria.

There are worse laws on the books.

So, why can't someone take him as a pet? Or if they have so many donations open a new smaller shelter for the monkey?

For a second, I forgot that monkeys aren't really people.

He's an ape.

Originally posted by Bardock42
So, why can't someone take him as a pet? Or if they have so many donations open a new smaller shelter for the monkey?

Originally posted by chillmeistergen
He's an ape.

"Get your stinking paws of me, you dame dirty ape!"

It's like apartheid, but on a species level rather than a race level. Both are a bit silly, species-level apartheid only slightly less so.

It's only sheer coincidence that intermediate species between us and apes (our closest relatives) don't exist anymore. A few intermediaries between us and them would throw open a gigantic can of worms for those who place some special significance in humans beyond cognitive complexity. Hell, there's already monkeys that can converse with people in sign language and have learned thousands of words. What point do we need to reach before we realize "is this thing a 'person'?" isn't a valid question. It's demarcating false distinctions on what is more akin to a smooth line of descendancy, not rigid groups that should and shouldn't have rights.

Well, monkeys/apes do share about 90% or more of human DNA, don't they? So you could say that the monkey/ape whatever it is, is almost human...

Crap law, when you can't even help an animal in need.
What about animal shelters? I assume they have these - if only humans can recieve gifts, who donates to the animal shelters?

Originally posted by Tempe Brennan
Well, monkeys/apes do share about 90% or more of human DNA, don't they? So you could say that the monkey/ape whatever it is, is almost human...

Crap law, when you can't even help an animal in need.
What about animal shelters? I assume they have these - if only humans can recieve gifts, who donates to the animal shelters?

Yes, around 90%, but that's a bit misleading. We share a large percentage of DNA with a lot of different species, not just apes. You can even find traces of shared DNA with much different species (squids, for example). I forget exact percentages, but it's higher than most would assume once you go past apes.

Scientists sometimes use percentage of DNA comparisons to determine rough estimates of how far back we have common ancestors with modern species. It's via this process that we determine where fish ancestors branched into reptiles, amphibians, eventually mammals, where reptiles brached into birds, etc. etc. so that we form a fairly accurate tree of descendants and ancestors for each species.

...

But in any case, yeah, crap law.

A few years ago a report came out that based on genetic evidence Chimpanzees should be reclassified from the Pan genus into the Homo genus.

Chimpanzees are highly intelligent animals, capable of grasping human language and outperforming humans in some simple cognitive tasks. It blurs the lines between what you can say is or isn't a person.

Originally posted by Tempe Brennan
Well, monkeys/apes do share about 90% or more of human DNA, don't they? So you could say that the monkey/ape whatever it is, is almost human...

I heard similar things in highschool biology as well. I think it is between 96 and 98%. Does anyone even know what that 9x% number is a measure of?

But what does that number even mean? I understand genetic nucleotide sequences better because that makes more sense. It translates into tangible manifestations, both physiological(something we all can relate to) and chemical(something nerds in lab coats in clean environments can relate to.). I read about a study done by Asao(sp?) Fujiyama and his associates which presented a large amount of data about nucleotide sequences compared between humans and chimps. I think they came up with 48 or 49% match between nucleotide sequences. (I didn't verify that so I could be talking out of my ass.) Hell, Chimps have one more pair of chromosomes than we do! (I had a long and drawn out debate about this one with a dumb ass creationist.)

No, a chimp should never have the same rights as a human. In fact, they never had rights and should never have rights. "Gasp" you say? The "rights" part of it simply comes down to another form of "rights" for humans and not the chimp: a negative "right", or rather, laws that prevent humans from doing certain things to chimps or other animals for that matter. We call these things "animal rights" because people like tree hugging animal lovers feel better saying "rights" but let's get real; are they really "animal rights" or are they simply "rules" for humans?

Granted, animals need to be protected from dumb ass humans and their willful destruction of the planet. (Now I sound like Captain Planet...sort of. 😄 )

Initial estimates were based on hybridization studies, but since the chimpanzee draft genome data was published the ~96% figure has been based on nucleotide sequence homology as far as I'm aware. I don't know where you found a figure of 48%... ermm
http://www.genome.gov/15515096
And the journal article referred to in the news article. Free full text, how nice of Nature.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html

There's probably more refined data published since then, but I'm feeling lazy.

Human chromosome 2 is derived from fusion of two chromosomes; an ancestral species of humans at some point had 48 chromosomes too. It's highly homologous to what are referred to as chromosome 2p and 2q in chimpanzees.

Originally posted by DigiMark007
It's like apartheid, but on a species level rather than a race level. Both are a bit silly, species-level apartheid only slightly less so.

It's only sheer coincidence that intermediate species between us and apes (our closest relatives) don't exist anymore. A few intermediaries between us and them would throw open a gigantic can of worms for those who place some special significance in humans beyond cognitive complexity. Hell, there's already monkeys that can converse with people in sign language and have learned thousands of words. What point do we need to reach before we realize "is this thing a 'person'?" isn't a valid question. It's demarcating false distinctions on what is more akin to a smooth line of descendancy, not rigid groups that should and shouldn't have rights.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Initial estimates were based on hybridization studies, but since the chimpanzee draft genome data was published the ~96% figure has been based on nucleotide sequence homology as far as I'm aware. I don't know where you found a figure of 48%... ermm
http://www.genome.gov/15515096
And the journal article referred to in the news article. Free full text, how nice of Nature.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v437/n7055/full/nature04072.html

There's probably more refined data published since then, but I'm feeling lazy.

I told you where I found my figure. Well it looks like I am going to back up what I say. 🙁

It took a bit, but I found something.

"Amazingly, the authors found that only 48.6% of the whole human genome matched chimpanzee nucleotide sequences."

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2070

After reading through that article, it seemed to be strangely biased to someone trying to prove "creationism" so I don't think that that is the best of articles.

After further research, it looks like it was just pair 21..but I didn't research very well. It has been several years since I read about that project and I might have come across it because some creationist was trying to make a point. (I remember so much "stuff" that it is hard for me to remember where I remembered it from.)

Also, the data on this subject can be "dummied down" into a form to fit whatever purpose you want. In addition, some liberty has to be taken when comparing DNA sequences(nucleotide sequences.) to make an accurate comparison such as nucleotide divergence corrections.

In conclusion to what I said earlier, the 98%(Should be closer to 95% or less) number was wrong by recent studies. (Like I thought.) That number was a nucleotide sequence comparison. (Which was the only way I though a genome comparison could be done.) The 48% number I was thinking of was misleading and my memory was shoddy at best.

Originally posted by xmarksthespot
Human chromosome 2 is derived from fusion of two chromosomes; an ancestral species of humans at some point had 48 chromosomes too. It's highly homologous to what are referred to as chromosome 2p and 2q in chimpanzees.

That is fundamental to understanding human's speciation. But try explaining that to a hard headed creationist. They like to throw all sorts of things at you like polymorphism and how the number of polymorphism is greater in one community of chimpanzees than the entire human race exhibits. (Conveniently discounting completely that humans experienced a mass extinction and we are all descendants of a hand full of early humans.)

We can't and shouldn't give monkeys the same rights we enjox as they are incapable of assuming the responsibilities that come with it.

There should (and probably are) all sorts of mechanism to provide for this ape without granting him the status as a person (a definition it certainly does not fit). I believe that is just animal lover propaganda.

looks like we should debate the rights of the ape vs the rights of man?

where do we draw the line?
black, white, or shades of grey?

Monkeys get the same rights as other animals--namely, the right not to be raped, tortured, and/or mutilated. As they are not sentient in the same way that humans are sentient, they don't get special privileges.

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
Monkeys get the same rights as other animals--namely, the right not to be raped, tortured, and/or mutilated. As they are not sentient in the same way that humans are sentient, they don't get special privileges.

How we treat other animals is a direct statement on our humanity.

Hypothetical: If an advanced race (as far above us as we are above monkeys) where to come to Earth, would we want them to treat us like we treat other animals?

We're sentient enough to contemplate our own sentience. I'm pretty sure that counts as deserving the same rights.

Of course, this brings up the issue of sentience--what if we aren't so hot on the sentience block? What if there are things with more sentience than we have? What would that be like? How can one be more sentient than we are?

Originally posted by Bardock42
We can't and shouldn't give monkeys the same rights we enjox as they are incapable of assuming the responsibilities that come with it.

There should (and probably are) all sorts of mechanism to provide for this ape without granting him the status as a person (a definition it certainly does not fit). I believe that is just animal lover propaganda.

This is the most important aspect of this case

This isn't just a matter of whether apes have "person" or even "individual" characteristics, but that apes would be given the exact same constitutional privileges as humans.

Freedom of movement? Freedom of association? Sexual freedom (if monkeys are people, I can have sex with them)?