The nutcase indoors (The wife) has just came up with another one of her deep thought "gems"

[Captaincrunch]

She actually said to me as we were having the sunday roast "Riding horses, donkeys, camels and any other animal should be made illegal and why are we bullying animals that are smaller than us just because we're smarter?"

I replied, without us being able to ride elephants safely through the jungle, horses/oxen through agricultural land and camels through the desert we'd still be living in the dark ages and we owe these animals bigtime.

She then said "We could've easily evolved without their help" I nearly choked as i heard that., What's the truth? Am i right in saying that we needed and currently need these animals to evolve or is she right in thinking that we would've somehow managed without them?

[2sp_]

I'm with you Captain.

We needed animals to do all the hard graft (or donkey work) for us in farming, construction, travel etc, before the invention of machinery.

If you look at developing countries, humans still need working animals to help us survive.

[Brinjal]

Hmm don't think these are smaller than us or necessarily less smart than us. I have owned and ridden horses and my children all had horses. You put your six year old on a pony and trust that animal to look after your child and they do. That isn't done by bullying an animal into submission.

[boxtops]

Not knowing what you had for your dinner, I hope you referred to her to the cow (or sheep, or lamb) that she'd bullied into submission in providing its meat for us..

[wildwood]

I believe that we could no doubt do without animals now as we are able to extract all food elements needed from plants, but not so in the past.

Primitive Men would not be able to survive on a purely vege diet. Even small shell/fish or insects was needed to provide the trace elements