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Letter: Letters: Unanswerable

Published 9 May 1992

From JAN HOLT

Re your front cover headline ‘Do animals feel pain?’ (25 April). Is
this the first of many questions that will plumb the depths of stupidity?
I can think (with a nod to P. G. Wodehouse) of an equally cretinous question:
Are the stars God’s daisy chain?

Of course, this lacks the provocation and inflammatory bite of your
question. To equal that we would need something like: ‘Are blacks fully
human?’ or ‘Do Jews enjoy being gassed?’

Don’t think I am against provocative questions as such. Copernicus once
asked if the Earth went round the Sun instead of vice versa. But I am, and
you should be, against stupidity.

Moreover, I’m an animal.

Jan Holt Skeaboat Bridge Isle of Skye

Issue no. 1820 published 9 May 1992

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