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A review by iseefeelings
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog
4.0
The book by Hal Herzog is a joy to read but the more reviews I read on Goodreads, the more I realised how many flaws it still has (which my background knowledge is still weak to defend).
The good point of this book is how readable it is for common readers and each research/ scientific experiment was chosen and laid out carefully. It's challenging thoughts by evoking lots of questions related to human-animal relationships and despite the fact that some readers might not agree with how he concludes each chapter, I - on the other hand - find it interesting and easy to comprehend rather than feeling upset for being left in confusion about which side he is on.
___
PERSONAL NOTES:
* 'The bottom line is that there are many reasons why human-animal interactions are so often inconsistent and paradoxical. Thousands of studies have demonstrated that human thinking about nearly everything is surprisingly irrational. And the waters get particularly muddy when we think about other species. Instincts seduce us into falling in love with big-eyed creatures with soft features. Genes and experience conspire to make it easy for us to learn to fear some animals but not others. Our culture tells us which species we should love, hate, and eat. Then there are the conflicts between reason and emotion, our reliance on hunches and empathy, and our propensity to project our own thoughts and desires into the heads of others.
No wonder our relationships with other species are so messy.' / p.65
* 'vivisection - the nineteenth-century term for invasive animal research' / p.207
* 'Philosophers have a phrase for what happens when people take logic to bizarre extremes. They say you are "caught in the grip of a theory."' / p.255
* 'You can't save all the animals in the world, but the ones that come into your care, you are responsible for. So, once the fly enters my house, I have a responsibility to treat it with kindness' //Words by Michael Moutain, Best Friends Animal Society// / p.266
* 'When I first started studying human-animal interactions I was troubled by the flagrant moral incoherence I have described in these pages - vegetarians who sheepishly admitted to me they ate meat; cockfighters who proclaimed their love for their roosters; purebred dog enthusiasts whose desire to improve their breed has created generations of genetically defective animals; hoarders who caused untold suffering to the creatures living in filth they claim to have rescued. I have come to believe that these sorts of contradictions are not anomalies or hypocrisies. Rather, they are inevitable. And they show we are human.' / p.279
The good point of this book is how readable it is for common readers and each research/ scientific experiment was chosen and laid out carefully. It's challenging thoughts by evoking lots of questions related to human-animal relationships and despite the fact that some readers might not agree with how he concludes each chapter, I - on the other hand - find it interesting and easy to comprehend rather than feeling upset for being left in confusion about which side he is on.
___
PERSONAL NOTES:
* 'The bottom line is that there are many reasons why human-animal interactions are so often inconsistent and paradoxical. Thousands of studies have demonstrated that human thinking about nearly everything is surprisingly irrational. And the waters get particularly muddy when we think about other species. Instincts seduce us into falling in love with big-eyed creatures with soft features. Genes and experience conspire to make it easy for us to learn to fear some animals but not others. Our culture tells us which species we should love, hate, and eat. Then there are the conflicts between reason and emotion, our reliance on hunches and empathy, and our propensity to project our own thoughts and desires into the heads of others.
No wonder our relationships with other species are so messy.' / p.65
* 'vivisection - the nineteenth-century term for invasive animal research' / p.207
* 'Philosophers have a phrase for what happens when people take logic to bizarre extremes. They say you are "caught in the grip of a theory."' / p.255
* 'You can't save all the animals in the world, but the ones that come into your care, you are responsible for. So, once the fly enters my house, I have a responsibility to treat it with kindness' //Words by Michael Moutain, Best Friends Animal Society// / p.266
* 'When I first started studying human-animal interactions I was troubled by the flagrant moral incoherence I have described in these pages - vegetarians who sheepishly admitted to me they ate meat; cockfighters who proclaimed their love for their roosters; purebred dog enthusiasts whose desire to improve their breed has created generations of genetically defective animals; hoarders who caused untold suffering to the creatures living in filth they claim to have rescued. I have come to believe that these sorts of contradictions are not anomalies or hypocrisies. Rather, they are inevitable. And they show we are human.' / p.279