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Originally Posted by Ilya  Anyway, humans tend to value the rights of those creatures that are more like to them, especially when it comes to the brain and mind. Monkeys are more similar to humans than cats, so we tend to respect monkey rights more than feline rights. Cats are more like us than lizards, so we respect cats more than lizards. Lizards are more like us than fish, so we respect lizards more than fish. Fish are more like us than bugs, so we respect fish more than bugs.
All of this has a very obvious evolutionary explanation: all creatures endeavor to preserve their own genes, and the more an animal is like us, the more we should desire to preserve its genes. Unfortunately, that is also the cause of problems like racism. |
Hit the nail on the head.
To the alien question, considering aliens even using DNA as their genetic base is speculation at best, they are likely based purely on your evolutionary explanation (which while it correlates with the trend
generally I don't think is the basis for it, octopuses for example arent close to us at all but are considered intelligent, and IIRC require sedation for any medical/scientific tests, rats are pretty close to us, but I'm sure some fish get treated better!), to not give a crap who or what they probe, though id dare say they'd try and hide it from humans if they don't want to be found, as we are probably the only species that could easily conceptualise the idea of extraterrestrial life. I wouldn't blame them personally, if we find reasonably smart aliens, I'm sure our scientists would be banging on the doors of their morgues begging to do autopsies!
But yeah, the less like a human you are, the worse you get it, sucks to be any kind of bacteria or virus that doesnt benefit mankind
