Sadly, many people like Descartes, still feel this way. People who abuse, mistreat, starve and neglect animals simply because they are less important than the human species and appear to be "biological robots" from their perspective. Personally, I feel that people who leave their animals permenantly outdoors would be a form of mistreatment. Animals have souls, feel pain and love, process thoughts and dreams just like humans. Descartes was wrong in this respect and psychology can prove that.