I'm so tired of seeing this thread. Really. But I guess I don't mind it because it'll always be something people have to argue over.
I did want to comment on something Melissa said: "Do some humans anthropomorphize, while others disallow emotional capabilities that animals ARE capable of?"
This is a good point. People always want to point the finger at those who believe snakes have emotional capacities and say, "You're just anthropomorphizing. It's silly to put human capabilities onto animals. You're too sensitive" etc. But what about turning it around? These same people seem completely unwilling to admit that animals (or in this case snakes) may have any emotion at all. They consistently return to the argument of anthropomorphization. Which would also lead me to believe that they are, "disallow[ing] emotional capabilities that animals ARE capable of".
Think about the meat market - animals that are bred and produced specifically for meat consumption. Look at any of PETA's videos and you'll see how bad some of the conditions can be for these animals. If the persons responsible for caring for these animals and transporting them, etc. believed they were capable of feeling emotion, would they really be able to treat them in this manner? And these aren't reptiles; these are cows and pigs - animals that have been scientifically proven to have a reasonable amount of intelligence. (No, I don't have any links to sites that back this up. Go ahead and start arguing that all of this is moot now.) But really, if animals could talk we'd all be vegetarians. It seems some people only believe an animal is capable of intelligence and emotion if it can talk - which rules out just about everything.
I completely agree that there are those who anthropomorphize to an extreme. But there are also those unwilling to accept any humanoid capabilities from animals altogether.
Not sure if I added to the "my snake does/does not love me" argument, but I just wanted to throw that out there. Good point, Melissa.
And for the record - I do believe my snakes recognize me as their handler and prefer to be in my hands than the hands of others. I don't necessarily believe that qualifies as "love" but there is some level of comfort and that's gotta count for something, right?
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