In Reference to: The Dominion of Love: Animal Rights According to the Bible
I agree that both Frank and Mary relate important points.
Thanks to a recent suggestion from none other than Norm Phelps (who offered many helpful suggestions for my book), I've been thinking a lot lately about how we might find that ethology is an effective path toward animal liberation. In other words, studies that have shown animal feelings, intelligence, and altruism illustrate the connection between human and nonhuman animals that is the foundation for animal advocacy. The reason we don't advocate for rocks is that we have no sense of connection -- no sense that we have similar subjective experiences. In contrast, our animal advocacy reflects a conviction nonhuman animals have similar subjective experiences as we do.
I recently listened to a recorded version of the book Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath. They have been studying why some messages stick in the public mind and others do not. If there is interest, I'll summarize their conclusions in greater detail. A few features of ideas that stick I recall off the top of my head are: concreteness -- people can visualize the message (e.g., the ad campaign about Jarrod losing 240 lb eating at Subway is concrete; "you'll lose weight" is not); simple; believable; and unexpected (e.g., someone losing 240 lb by eating only fast food is unexpected). People tend to remember stories more than facts, and then tend to be more emotionally charged by stories about individuals than stories that relate the general experiences of lots of individuals.
Steve
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