Animal Souls

A scientist once conducted experiments to discover whether living beings had souls. He was a metaphysician trying to prove that life hereafter existed. His inquiry began with animals. In the first experiment he postulated that if dogs had souls they it would weigh less dead than alive because their souls would be gone. So he weighed a living dog, killed it and then weighed it dead. The result? The dog's weight remained unchanged, and the metaphysician concluded that dogs have no soul.

We can chuckle at this silly business now because science has come such a long way since then. Today, hundreds of years later, even lay persons can clearly see the folly in this experiment: the breed of dog used was a poodle and everyone knows that poodles have no souls. We stand on the shoulders of great scientists who lived before us.

My friend Alan and I discussed the dog soul experiment recently when we met for lunch in town. I maintained that the experiment was a flop because its experimental design was faulty. Alan believed that the experiment was a success because a poodle died.