To those claiming we have souls and animals not, I ask, why? Is it because of intelligence? Then how would you explain the cases of individuals with mental disabilities? Do they have souls? Some animals beat them in terms of intelligence.
Being intelligent does not equal having a soul and only intelligent person can think of such nonsense.
Why is nothing bad? Why are we good? Why there should be anything?
I really like your thinking @suesa.
I was thinking the same; why didn't animals have souls?
This was very interesting, I'm intrigued by the thought that we have souls and yet that is hard to scientifically prove (correct if I'm wrong). The contrast made the story more interesting. Have you heard of auras @suesa ? There could also be something you could use in your science fiction stories.
The animals in the story don't have souls because.. It made sense in the story. Souls can't be scientifically proven and I'm not convinced they actually exist. Same with auras. But if we manage to prove one day they do exist, that'll be interesting.
It's interesting to play with the idea -what if they existed and could be proven. Just like you did in your story.