Thursday, October 23, 2014

Cats are Selfish, Unfeeling, Environmentally Harmful Creatures -- and That's the Opinion of a Fan


Researchers say cats are "selfish, unfeeling, environmentally harmful creatures". A bit harsh, but also a bit hard to argue with. As the folks at Vox note,
Compared to dogs, scientists have found, cats don't seem to have the same sort of emotional attachment to their owners, and show genuine affection far less often than you might think. Further, they're an environmental disaster, killing literally billions of birds in the US every year — many of them from endangered species.

Most alarmingly (and as explained in this 2012 Atlantic article), there's compelling evidence that a parasite often found in cat feces can subtly change people's personalities over time, increasing rates of neuroticism, schizophrenia, and perhaps even suicide.

In other words, research is telling us that cats are selfish, unfeeling, environmentally devastating creatures. If you need to convince someone not to get a cat, here's the research you need to show them.

Now, before folks start sending me hate mail (delete!) you should know that the person doing this research is Daniel Mills, a veterinary researcher at the UK's University of Lincoln, and a confirmed cat lover.

But he is also a rational objective scientist and knows a problem species when he sees one.

What about cats that purr, or which rub up against their owner? They are not signs of affection. The former is what a cat does when it is manipulating people into feeding it, the latter what it does with trees when it is scent-marking.

And what about the billions of wild animals they kill every year, and the sometimes-fatal brain disease they carry to humans? Read the whole article!

Click to enlarge.

4 comments:

Dan said...

To be honest, cats would be top of my list for replacing with a robotic pet of some sort. For such a device to be effective, it needs to be soft, cuddly, make nice noises and have a large, rounded head with large, round eyes. A tendency to simple play and chasing moving objects (or laser pointers), plus "cute behaviour" like reacting to human gaze, purring, rubbing against people together with primitive face and voice recognition, is about all it needs.

Wireless long-range inductive charging ought to work quite well, as cats seem to get away with lying around much of the doing not so very much. All in all, a few hundred bucks ought to be able to get you what amounts to a cybernetic house-cat without the claws or ability to crap on the floor. Oh, and a hibernate function to make it head for its charge pad and do absolutely nothing whilst its owner is on holiday, or even an active patrol function to use it as part of an intruder alarm...?

BarnChick said...

Makes you wonder about cause and effect with the whole "crazy cat lady" phenomenon! And I'm saying that as a female cat lover.

Although that has a lot do with how incredibly rodent free they keep my barn...

Lucas Machias said...

Cats are not totally useless as this likely new millionaire can attest. LM


http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/18/bob-street-cat-books-sell-1m-copies-in-uk-james-bowen

Bob the Street Cat books sell 1m copies in UK

topped sales of 1m copies – 1,082,025 to be exact – in the UK, in all formats. The extraordinary sales bring Bowen into the company ofpublishing phenomena including JK Rowling, EL James, Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown.

seeker said...

Cats also proved to be the death of one of America's most famous poets. Recently they proved that Edgar Allen Poe died of rabies probably caught from a pet cat of his. Evidently he had a pride of kitties and one evidently scratched him.

Debi and the Jack Rat Pack.