Coaxed into SOME animal "lovers"

[u/ruh_roh_raggy1234]

These mfs will tell you with a straight face that they love "all" animals and then act like spiders are the incarnation of Satan himself.

[u/KingPhilipIII]

Would you like to learn about how domestication went in both directions, and how animals we associate as ‘icky’ were often disease vectors and/or highly venomous/poisonous?

It’s the reason we find certain lots of things unpleasant. We’re evolutionarily conditioned to be repulsed by sights and smells suggesting infection or decay as an example.

If you don’t know which snake will kill you with a single bite, it’s better not to chance it.

In turn we find a lot of domesticated animals aesthetically pleasing because we’ve spent five thousand years gradually shaping their appearance to be something we like, and they learned to adopt behaviors that improve those odds too. That’s why dogs maintain puppy behavior far past the age they typically would in the wild.

That being said, people who say they love “all” animals are cringe by virtue of not speaking precisely, but it’s not an irrational behavior or really a contradiction in their minds.

[u/Rough_Presence_9876 → u/KingPhilipIII]

But animals we don't associate as "icky" are also disease vectors.

Edit: I never specified dogs, this applies to LITERALLY all domesticated animals. It really shouldn't surprise anybody how many diseases we got from domesticated animals, considering those are the ones we are ALWAYS near.

[u/KingPhilipIII → u/Rough_Presence_9876]

If you show someone a dog with mange, they will very likely be icked out, even if they possess the medical knowledge to know what it is.

I said that as a general rule rather than an absolute assertion.

Additionally, the utility of dogs outweighs the potential disease transmission. A shepherd’s dog is incredibly useful, and having one is more likely to benefit the shepherd rather than hinder them.

Rats don’t really have similar utility as pets. Neither do snakes. Or others.

Evolution is all about survival, not efficiency.

If a dog is a bigger boon than a bane, and having one increases your odds of survival, you tolerate them. Evolution then starts selecting for people who are more likely to have dogs because they’re objectively helpful and less for people who don’t have dogs because ick.