Milk contains pus?!

Humans are the only species on earth that drinks the milk of another mammal. We are also the only species that continues to drink milk after being weaned off of mother's milk. Just sayin'.

Humans are the only species on earth that drinks the milk of another mammal. We are also the only species that continues to drink milk after being weaned off of mother's milk. Just sayin'.

This is kinda weird....

We are unique in our capacity to knowingly care about something beyond ourselves.

As far as we know. Possibly not, though. Dolphins have been known to save human beings from shark attacks. For all we know, they do it consciously and for species preservation reasons. How do they know there are billions of us buggers on land?

Or maybe human proportions and (from their view) clumsiness in the water trigger their "aww wookit the widdew baby" nurturing instincts.

LOL, quite possibly but that very tendency for apparent altruistic behavior seems to strongly associate with species who also show highly structured social systems, potential self awareness and some scientists have even gone so far as to say language and culture.

And for obvious reasons. And it nice to see the word "apparent" in there. An important distinction. But self awareness, language or culture are not necessary as dogs, for example, also produce apparent altruistic behavior without them.

Certainly not necessary, but altruistic behaviors do seem to have some significant adaptive advantages in social structures that have gone beyond tit-for-tat interactions, and given the fossilized evidence of dire wolves in the la brea area that died of old age despite having clearly lived with debilitating arthritis and other fossils of wolves who had crippling femur breaks that had healed and apparently the animal survived for years afterwords, dogs in general certainly qualify as well beyond the tit-for-tat stage.

The problem of course with trying to establish self-awareness, language or culture with animals like orcas and dolphins is there's such a massive umwelt issue going on. We're talking about an animal that lives in a three dimensional environment who's primary sensory system is a sonar system quite possibly better than anything we've been able to develop since we first started working with sonar in the early 1900's. We're probably not even picking up on half of what they're actually communicating to each other and understanding even less.....:ohwell:

If dolphins had a language it would be pretty easy to prove. We don't need to communicate with them, just show they communicate with each other. So take dolphins that live together, separate one, show it a puzzle/problem and give it the solution, then put it back with the others. Then cycle out the next one. If they talk to each other in a grammatical language, they'd share the solution with the next ones and it would be obvious that the first one to encounter a problem takes longer or fails to come up with a solution yet the others immediately come to the solution.

Humans are the only species on earth that drinks the milk of another mammal. We are also the only species that continues to drink milk after being weaned off of mother's milk. Just sayin'.

Everything that comes from a unhygienic factory farm will contain pus, feces, and other desirable items.... best way to stop eating the pus and feces is go Plant-Based... You don't need Milk and Animal products to get your nutrition

Except that plants are grown in animal faeces (that's the best organic fertiliser) and if they're not washed you'll still be eating animal faeces. And greenfly. And other insects. And the faeces of those insects and whatever other secretions they have on them. And if you want to get even more technical, the nitrogen and other organic compounds in the plants you grow are actually the same atoms/ions that came from the animal poo.... so in a sense plants are partly animal poo by nature.

My parents grow their own organic vegetables, so I know these things (and frankly don't give a rat's hairy behind - a bit of greenfly never hurt anyone.... and when I was a kid we used to go camping in farmer's fields that were set aside in the summer as campsites... we used to throw cow sh** at each other for fun. (only the dried ones... although if you stepped in the squishy ones then it was a PITA to get it out from between your toes... yes we did play barefoot in those fields... and only occasionally stepped on thistles or nettles or similar....)

Some people are just too squeamish when it comes to nature. I agree that farmers should treat animals humanely (and animals fed on their natural foods with freedom to move around actually taste a lot better too), but all this whining about white blood cells and traces of animal secretions in milk and other animal products (or greenfly and traces of horse sh** and similar on plant products) is just silliness. Milk is pasteurised to prevent a risk of infection. Meat should be cooked to 65 degrees centigrade all through, except for some cuts of meat which can be eaten rare (and even then they're cooked on the outside where the bacteria will be if it's been cross contamintated. That's why the food industry has laws for hygiene and why everyone should practice good kitchen hygiene. Because nature is full of poo and germs and if you don't like it then make like a tree and learn to photosynthesise.

....oh but wait, the tree is going to get some of its mineral ions from the poo and pee of animals who choose to relieve themselves under it....

But.. the first post in this says that pus and feces are DESIRABLE items. Why stop? :laugh:

We are unique in our capacity to knowingly care about something beyond ourselves.

As far as we know. Possibly not, though. Dolphins have been known to save human beings from shark attacks. For all we know, they do it consciously and for species preservation reasons. How do they know there are billions of us buggers on land?

Or maybe human proportions and (from their view) clumsiness in the water trigger their "aww wookit the widdew baby" nurturing instincts.

LOL, quite possibly but that very tendency for apparent altruistic behavior seems to strongly associate with species who also show highly structured social systems, potential self awareness and some scientists have even gone so far as to say language and culture.

And for obvious reasons. And it nice to see the word "apparent" in there. An important distinction. But self awareness, language or culture are not necessary as dogs, for example, also produce apparent altruistic behavior without them.

Certainly not necessary, but altruistic behaviors do seem to have some significant adaptive advantages in social structures that have gone beyond tit-for-tat interactions, and given the fossilized evidence of dire wolves in the la brea area that died of old age despite having clearly lived with debilitating arthritis and other fossils of wolves who had crippling femur breaks that had healed and apparently the animal survived for years afterwords, dogs in general certainly qualify as well beyond the tit-for-tat stage.

The problem of course with trying to establish self-awareness, language or culture with animals like orcas and dolphins is there's such a massive umwelt issue going on. We're talking about an animal that lives in a three dimensional environment who's primary sensory system is a sonar system quite possibly better than anything we've been able to develop since we first started working with sonar in the early 1900's. We're probably not even picking up on half of what they're actually communicating to each other and understanding even less.....:ohwell:

If dolphins had a language it would be pretty easy to prove. We don't need to communicate with them, just show they communicate with each other. So take dolphins that live together, separate one, show it a puzzle/problem and give it the solution, then put it back with the others. Then cycle out the next one. If they talk to each other in a grammatical language, they'd share the solution with the next ones and it would be obvious that the first one to encounter a problem takes longer or fails to come up with a solution yet the others immediately come to the solution.

I don't think the puzzle thing exactly has been done but dolphins do teach skills to their offspring:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7475-dolphins-teach-their-children-to-use-sponges.html#.U6hP__ldWCk