What is a dog's life worth relative to a human's life?
Data Scavenger Hunt
Find answers to the following questions using the visual above:
In the scenario above, when people were asked which they would save: a boat containing 1 person or a boat containing 100 dogs. What percent of people polled chose to save the 100 dogs?
How many people took part in this survey (what is the Unweighted N)?
How did gender (women versus men) impact the choice of saving the humans or the dogs?
How did Party ID (the political party of the respondent) impact which boat they chose to save?
Of all the demographic characteristics listed above (gender, race, age, etc.) which had the greatest impact on the decision of whether to save the dogs or the humans?
Big Brain Questions
Answer these questions by yourself using your brain and the links below:
List one thing the visual makes you wonder:
If you could save one of the following: a boat containing 1 person or a boat containing 100 dogs. Which would you save?
What if they were beagles? Seriously, I have a beagle. He howls a lot. And if they could speak English, how do you think a dog would answer this question?
in 2020, driven in no small part by the pandemic, Americans spent more than an average 1,300 hours on social media according to a new study from Uswitch. Let’s not forget that Americans have always used the media. What do you think people did with all that time before the invention of social media?
Apart from physical differences, describe the main way you believes that humans are different from dogs.
Write and Discuss
Take ten minutes to write about the question at the top of the page and then discuss with your classmates.
Act on your Learning
There is a common misconception that animal rights activists want nonhuman animals to have the same rights as people. No one wants cats to have the right to vote, or for dogs to have the right to bear arms, or for bears to have the right to dog arms. The issue is not whether animals should have the same rights as people, but whether we have a right to use and exploit them for our purposes, however frivolous they might be. The Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was signed into law on August 24, 1966. It is the only Federal law in the United States that regulates the treatment of animals in research, teaching, testing, exhibition, transport, and by dealers. The Act is enforced by USDA , APHIS , Animal Care. Contact the president and let them know your thoughts about animal rights.
Get Creative
Imagine a really smart dog had Google translate and could write in fluent English. Write their answer to today’s questions from a dog’s perspective. Then ask seven people you know how they would answer the questions from the YouGov poll above and share their answers with your classmates.
Learn More
Listen to this story from NPR.