animal rights

Young pea (Pisum) sprouts in a sunny vegetable garden

^{Wesley J. Smith
December 20, 2022
Human Exceptionalism}

The Fear of Suffering Is Driving Us Crazy

_{Wesley J. Smith
December 20, 2022
Human Exceptionalism}

But eliminating suffering is impossible. Not only is the goal Utopian, but it leads to ever-more-extreme distortions of decency and a collapse of public policy rationality—which ironically, can cause the very “evil” that suffering abolitionists yearn so desperately to prevent. Read More ›

A huge elephant bull approaches in golden light

^{Wesley J. Smith
June 6, 2022
Human Exceptionalism}

Why Happy the Elephant Should Not Have Rights

_{Wesley J. Smith
June 6, 2022
Human Exceptionalism}

Promoting the proper care of animals is a noble cause, but that is not what the legal effort to have Happy declared a “person” is ultimately all about. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
October 27, 2021
Human Exceptionalism}

Stop ‘Outsourcing’ Unethical Science to Other Countries

_{Wesley J. Smith
October 27, 2021
Human Exceptionalism}

It is long past time for an ethical house cleaning. Overseas breaches of moral propriety by U.S.-funded researchers, domestic companies, and American scientists make us all complicit in wrongdoing. It doesn’t have to be that way. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
February 8, 2021
Human Exceptionalism}

How Much More Should We Pay for Costco’s Chickens?

_{Wesley J. Smith
February 8, 2021
Human Exceptionalism}

New York Times columnist Nick Kristof wrote one of his periodic columns decrying industrial methods of animal husbandry. This time, he focused on chickens and the raising methods that permit Costco to sell a whole rotisserie chicken for only $4.99. Read More ›

Statue of Gaia — Photo by David Fuentes on Adobe Stock

^{Wesley J. Smith
May 10, 2010
Human Exceptionalism}

Ecocide: A Crime Against Peace?

_{Wesley J. Smith
May 10, 2010
Human Exceptionalism}

Environmentalism is growing increasingly antihuman. Having left Teddy Roosevelt-style conservation and Earth Day consciousness-raising behind, the cutting edge of the movement is pursuing utopian “save the planet” agendas while angrily castigating mankind for supposedly sucking the life out of Gaia. Such environmental misanthropy used to be confined to the fringe. For more than three decades proponents of Deep Ecology have Read More ›

^{Discovery Institute
July 14, 2009
Human Exceptionalism}

Push to Grant Animal Rights in Congress

_{Discovery Institute
July 14, 2009
Human Exceptionalism}

Congress is considering a ban on “invasive research” on chimpanzees and a few other intelligent primates in a move that represents the first step toward a ban on all experiments using animals. According to Discovery Institute Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith, this is just the tip of the iceberg as animal rights extremists look forward to the confirmation of law professor Read More ›

Dawkins at the University of Texas at Austin, March 19, 2008.

^{David Klinghoffer
May 1, 2009
Intelligent Design}

Richard Dawkins: A Biography

_{David Klinghoffer
May 1, 2009
Intelligent Design}

Clinton Richard Dawkins (born March 26, 1941, in Nairobi, Kenya) is a bestselling atheist popularizer of Darwinian evolutionary theory and its counter-religious implications. His scientific field is ethology, the study of animal behavior. The most readily recognizable figure in the Darwin debate, Dawkins retired in 2008 as Professor for Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, a position he held Read More ›

Legs of four teenagers sitting on a bricks wall

^{Wesley J. Smith
December 15, 2007
Human Exceptionalism}

Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad

_{Wesley J. Smith
December 15, 2007
Human Exceptionalism}

If you are reading these words, you are a human being. That used to matter morally. Indeed, it was once deemed a self-evident truth that being a Homo Sapien created intrinsic moral value based simply and merely on being human — a principle sometimes called “human exceptionalism.” No more. Human exceptionalism is under unprecedented assault across a broad array of societal and intellectual fronts. Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
August 4, 2007
Human Exceptionalism}

Vick Charges Speak To Our Humanity

_{Wesley J. Smith
August 4, 2007
Human Exceptionalism}

The arrest of football great Michael Vick for allegedly participating in a dog fighting/gambling ring has shocked the country. The charges are horrendous: In a throwback to the brutality of the Roman arena in which wild animals were forced to fight and kill each other to the frenzy of the crowd, Vick and his co-conspirators, according to authorities, bred pit Read More ›

^{Wesley J. Smith
October 17, 2005
Human Exceptionalism}

Wall Street Goes Wobbly

_{Wesley J. Smith
October 17, 2005
Human Exceptionalism}

The fury of radical animal liberationists is growing, leading them to acts of brazen lawlessness and flagrant vigilantism. In the United Kingdom, a farm family that raised guinea pigs for medical testing was subjected to years of personal threats and property vandalism by animal liberationists. The family had courageously refused to be intimidated, but when the liberationists robbed the grave Read More ›