“The whole question of evolution seems less momentous than it did, because, unlike the Victorians, we do not feel that to be descended from animals is degrading to human dignity.”

— George Orwell

"As I Please," Tribune (21 July 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/</sup>
As I Please (1943–1947)

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George Orwell 473

English author and journalist 1903–1950

James Rachels (1941–2003) American philosopher

Created from Animals (1990), p. 172

“We call them dumb animals, and so they are, for they cannot tell us how they feel, but they do not suffer less because they have no words.”

Anna Sewell book Black Beauty

Source: Black Beauty

“I do not want to discuss evolution in such depth, however, only touch on it from my own perspective: from the moment when I stood on the Serengeti plains holding the fossilized bones of ancient creatures in my hands to the moment when, staring into the eyes of a chimpanzee, I saw a thinking, reasoning personality looking back. You may not believe in evolution, and that is all right. How we humans came to be the way we are is far less important than how we should act now to get out of the mess we have made for ourselves.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Source: Reason for Hope: a Spiritual Journey (2000), p. xx

“It is probable that the future will be more limited by the slow evolution of the human animal and the corresponding human laws, social institutions, and organizations than it will be by the rapid evolution of technology.”

Richard Hamming (1915–1998) American mathematician and information theorist

The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)

“If Evolution is true, how would you answer the question, ‘where did I come from?’ Well if Evolution is true, you came from a cosmic burp about twenty billion years ago. Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Well if Evolution is true, there is no purpose to life. So we might as well have fun. If it feels good, do it. Where am I going when I die? Well if Evolution is true, you’re just going to the grave and you’re going to get recycled into a worm or a plant. But the Bible says, ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the Earth.’ Now if that’s true, that puts a whole different set of answers to those questions.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Age of the Earth

“People did not proceed, as the theory of evolution really requires by demythologizing their symbolism about animals and the downward direction. Instead they resisted evolution at all costs, or accepted it with the provisio that the future was to lift them out of the degrading company that admittedly contaminated their past. The Future was seen as leading many away from the rest of nature as fast as possible, as giving him the hope of escaping continuity with it after all. Those who felt a sense of pollution at the thought of kinship with other animals could dwell on the hope of becoming less like them.”

Mary Midgley (1919–2018) British philosopher and ethicist

Beast and Man: The Roots of Human Nature (1979). 198.

“Dog, cats, horses, all animals could do this at will much easier than us humans, Rosa and her husband Emilio, had explained to me, because animals were much closer to God than we humans were.”

Victor Villaseñor (1940) American writer

Burro Genius: A Memoir (2004)

“Human dignity has long been understood in this country to be innate. When the framers proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence that 'all men are created equal' and 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights', they referred to a vision of mankind in which all humans are created in the image of God and therefore of inherent worth. That vision is the foundation upon which this nation was built. The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity, any more than they lost their humanity, because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Obergefell v. Hodges http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/14-556_3204.pdf (26 June 2015), pp. 16-17.
2010s

“It is less degrading to fear than to be feared.”

Antonio Porchia (1885–1968) Italian Argentinian poet

Temer no humilla tanto como ser temido.
Voces (1943)

“I say ethical principle, because it is beyond doubt that the chief motive of Vegetarianism is the humane one. Questions of hygiene and of economy both play their part, and an important part, in a full discussion of food reform; but the feeling which underlies and animates the whole movement is the instinctive horror of butchery, especially the butchery of the more highly organized animals, so human, so near akin to man.”

Henry Stephens Salt (1851–1939) British activist

The Humanities of Diet

“The whole question of evolution seems less momentous than it did, because, unlike the Victorians, we do not feel that to be descended from animals is degrading to human dignity.”

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George Orwell 473

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