I could ask you the same question. You have your "feelings" and I have mine.

Ah, but i have more than just feelings.

Animals arn't aliens or robots, I dont see what reason you have to assume they wouldn't have emotions. It's their

very similarity to us that makes animals so valuable in medical research. Every animal we've tested so far has

large portions of it's dna that are identical to our own DNA. We test our drugs on them first. And speaking of

drugs, drugs have an effect on animals that is very much like their effects on us. They make them feel good and

because many pathways in animal brains have synonymous function to pathways in human brains, there is no reason to

assume that they dont feel emotions in a similar way to how we feel emotions. For example, Cocaine is a stimulant

and it causes dopamine reuptake inhibition in rats, humans, apes, and just about any other animal. By increasing

dopamine in the synaptic cleft between neurons, more is absorbed at once, resulting in strong stimulation of the

reward areas of the brain. That happens to all the animals i mentioned, when they are given cocaine. For most drugs

the tactile component is only a small part of it's charm, so what would keep the animals coming back for more unto

death? Emotional bliss, that's what. I think you assume that emotions are more complex than they really are. Sure

humans and animals arive at various emotions for different reasons, but that's no reason to devalue animal

emotions. Animals need emotions to survive, just like we needed and still need them to some degree. Emotions, give

us our drive, they drive us away from danger. Emotions drive us to seek food shelter and companionship. This

behavior is demonstrated by pretty much all animals, it's certainly not just a human trait, some animals will even

find companionship in animals of a different species, take Koko (the gorilla) and her kittens for example. So if

you deprive an animal of it's emotional needs or its other needs, it's a pretty sure bet that it is suffering.

That has been demonstrated repeatedly. Chimps and other animals that live in cages their whole life are depressed,

withdrawn and sometimes crazy, this is evidenced by the fact that they no longer show interest in many normal

activities and by the fact that they show many other abnormal behaviors. (

http://www.brown.edu/Research/Primate/lpn30-2.html http://www.psychology4all.com/enviro...psychology.htm

http://www.awionline.org/Lab_animals/biblio/variab.html ) Chickens that are stressed are shown to have decreased

function of their immune system. ( http://www.upc-online.org/980616salm..._comments.html ) It's actually rather

common knowledge that an animal's drive can diminished by caging them in a non stimulating environment. I can't

prove without a doubt that they have emotions, only because i can't prove without a doubt that any1 but myself has

emotions, (and i can only prove that to myself) that includes people. I can never know what others are feeling, no

one can, but that isn't much of a reason to assume they don't feel emotions. Emotions can be directly stimulated

with intra-cranial self-stimulation in rat brains. This is confirmed by a study done in the 50's by a man named

James Olds. Here is link that details his studies: http://www.nap.edu/books/0309066441/html/251.html - and if you

keep paging through it, it becomes quite clear than animals can experience emotions, or just as clear as any test

could be. Here are a couple more links which clearly show an animals emotional drive.

http://www.hedweb.com/wirehead/hypermotivation.html http://www.hedweb.com/wirehead/index.html

Here are some links which highlight some similarities between human brains and chimp brains: http://brainmuseum.org/specimens/pri...imp/index.html
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6691


Aside from all that research, I think it's pretty clear that most if not all animals feel fear.

Oh I've got more, but i think that's enough for now...