PART II of the interview with Marc Bekoff: ‘More compassion for animals feeds into more compassion for people.’
This is the second part of the interview with Marc Bekoff, vegan and professor emeritus Ecology and Evolutionairy Biology from the University of Colorado.
INTERVIEW – PART I:
Most people attribute emotions to their companion animals, but not to chickens, pigs, cows or other non-companion animals. We treat the animals we eat different than our pets. Biologist Dr. Marc Bekoff is hopeful and makes a call for a more compassionate world where people treat one another and animals better.
Preview video of the interview with ethologist Marc Bekoff
This short video is a teaser for the interview with American ethologist dr. Marc Bekoff.
The first part of the interview will appear soon on my website (in English) and in the science magazine Eos (Dutch only). I talked to Bekoff about emotions, morality, intelligence, consciousness, pain and tool use in animals. Bekoff strongly believes in Darwin’s concept of evolutionary continuity where differences between species are differences in degree and not in kind. This means that if we have a certain characteristic – for example empathy or pain – animals have it too, but in a different degree.
The second part of the interview will appear later on my website. In part two Bekoff addresses the artificial dichotomy between men and the other animals, ‘whom’ we eat, how we treat animals and vegetarianism. Bekoff concludes by sharing the biggest change he believes the world needs right now and how we can help to bring about this change.
Enjoy your vegs and your nitrate
Image credit: Christa Richert
Being a vegetarian – and consequently eating a lot of vegetables and fruit – I have been concerned about my intake of nitrate. On a daily basis I consume a bunch of super healthy and yummy leafy green vegetables, the latter being known to be high in nitrate. It is time to find out the truth about this nitrogen compound…
The original Dutch version of the article can be read in EOS magazine 10 (Nov. 2009) or downloaded here. The English version follows below:
Health educators and toxicologists tell us that nitrate is dangerous for our health. More and more research is countering this statement. Nitrate would benefit heart health and help maintain a healthy blood pressure.
