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A San Francisco science fair recently awarded a prize to a junior high school student whose science project consisted of cutting the head off a live frog with a pair of scissors, to find out whether frogs swim better with or without their brains.
Of course, this is not the only case of frogs being treated cruelly in our schools. They are often dissected by children ostensibly learning “how life works.” But what did this youngster learn through his experiment? I think he learned that it is all right to treat other living things as if they have no feelings, as if they are nothing but machines. I think he learned disrespect for life. And I wouldn’t call that a good thing.
The science fair judges, however, obviously disagree with me, for they commended the boy on his contributions to the forward march of science, predicted great things for his future, and rewarded him for scientifically proving that: “Frogs will not swim with brain missing unless harassed. A frog swims better with head on.”3
The attitude we develop towards animals as children tends to stay with us through the rest of our lives. And it continues to influence our experience, not only of animals, but of other people, ourselves, and life itself. There is a great deal of evidence from all over the world indicating that people who have, as children, learned to care for animals, grow up more capable of caring for themselves, and for other people. By the same token, people who later become criminals have very often abused animals as children. We find high statistical correlations in every country and culture where research has been done.
The way we treat animals is indicative of the way we treat our fellow humans. One Soviet study, published in Ogonyok, found that over 87% of a group of violent criminals had, as children, burned, hanged, or stabbed domestic animals.4 In our own country, a major study by Dr. Stephen Kellert of Yale University found that children who abuse animals have a much higher likelihood of becoming violent criminals.5
Studies of inmates in a number of U.S. prisons reveal that almost none of the convicts had a pet as a child. None of them had this opportunity to learn to respect and care for another creature’s life, and to feel valuable in so doing.
But these attitudes can be reversed, even in criminals. Heartwarming research has been done in which convicts nearing their release dates were allowed to have pet cats in their cells with them. The result? “Of the men who loved and cared for their cats, not a single one later failed as a free man to adjust to society.6 This in a penal system where over 70% of released convicts are expected to return to jail.
The attitudes towards animals shown by the youngster at the science fair, and by the Soviet criminals when they were youths, are not at all unusual. We’ve all grown up in a system that condones such cruelty. Our public stance is basically that animals are ours to treat any way we wish, and that kindness to animals and sensitivity to them as fellow beings is an option some may choose if they want to, but it is no more incumbent upon us than being nice to plastic dolls.