Trump Nameflames Nikki Haley

[rogue06]

An ability to be empathetic, or more inclined to form lifelong bonds, or display selfless behaviour?

In humans we generally consider all the above to be virtues.

An ability to spread filth and disease virtually unparalleled by any other species. There is a reason someone being likened to a rat is considered an insult.

Tell me H_A, if one morning you spotted a rat running along the baseboard, or up on a cupboard, would you welcome your new housemate (and the dozen or so pals of his you haven't seen), or would you be setting traps or calling an exterminator to do it for you?

[CivilDiscourse]

An ability to spread filth and disease virtually unparalleled by any other species. There is a reason someone being likened to a rat is considered an insult.

Tell me H_A, if one morning you spotted a rat running along the baseboard, or up on a cupboard, would you welcome your new housemate (and the dozen or so pals of his you haven't seen), or would you be setting traps or calling an exterminator to do it for you?

Well, if she called the exterminator she might give them names first....like Goldstein, Weinberg, Horowitz

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

An ability to spread filth and disease virtually unparalleled by any other species.

Apparently not. From this article in 2022

https://www.sciencealert.com/rats-ar...ts-explain-why

Rats have been seen as filthy disease-spreaders since at least the time of the plague, but new research shows that rodents and other city-dwelling animals are less likely to cause the next pandemic than previously thought.

Researchers at Georgetown University in Washington DC studied data on about nearly 3,000 mammals, expecting to find that those living in urban environments hosted more viruses that could be caught by humans, because they were in such close contact.

They found that urban animals did in fact carry 10 times as many kinds of disease – but also that more than 100 times as many studies had been published about them.

When the researchers corrected for this massive bias – a long-standing scientific preference to study animals scuttling under our feet rather than hiding in rainforests – they were surprised to find that rats were no more likely to be the source of a new human disease than other animals.

However, "it's still not a good idea to get too close and friendly to urban wildlife," said Greg Albery, a disease ecologist who led the study published in the Nature Ecology & Evolution journal on Monday.

So while urban rats carry diseases and it is not advisable to get too close to them, we know they have lived alongside us for millennia. Like humans they intelligent and good at adapting to new environments; and those who keep ~"fancy rats" as pets will tell you they are very clean creatures.

I would also point out that humans likewise act as vectors of diseases.

There is a reason someone being likened to a rat is considered an insult.

Attributing certain human characteristics and/or abilities, some base and some more worthy, to various animals is found across human cultures. Examples include attributing the fox with cunning and trickery, the owl with wisdom, and the elephant with phenomenal memory. The rat in western culture is associated with less admirable human traits, although so I understand in other cultures it is considered a symbol of good luck, prosperity. and intelligence.

Your last remark is somewhat redundant as my comments pertained to behaviours in rats, not whether I would wish to have them in my home, which given that we have cats, is probably somewhat unlikely.