Dick,

"If they don’t [think for themselves], than they are no different than the rest of the animal kingdom."

I think you are exactly right. I think the job of humans in this and the following centuries, is to stop letting our behavior be determined by instinct and biology like all the other animals, and start controling our behavior by making deliberate, conscious, intellectually driven decisions.

We have made some modest inroads along this path in the past centuries in our control of such things as our own excretory functions. A little less progress maybe has been made in our sexual and eating practices. But, the way seems clear and there is hope that we can begin moving away from animal behavior and toward thinking behavior.

I just finished reading E.O. Wilson's "Consilience" in which he does a good job of outlining in broad terms how this changeover to intellect-driven behavior can be made. I think there is hope.

Warm regards,

Paul