Quote from AutomatonIt's a tough thing to debate, but I would say it doesn't really mean we should place ourselves above animals other than due to our morals. Why should intelligence, no matter how superior, be used to determine our superiority? I don't, for example, think that dolphins are "better" than turtles, or frogs, or cats or dogs. I suppose the opposing argument is that if this is the case then there truly isn't any means of ranking the living, and I would have to agree with that.
I'm not saying that we are objectively superior to other animals. What I mean is that we must consider a human life superior to the one of a dog cause simply the human is of our race. As a lion would save a lion instead of another animal, we must put a man's life before the one of another being. It's simple.