The Frontal Cortex

I have actually started a small discussion specifically on the behavioural and intellectually aspect of the difference between species over at my own blog (the first post can be found here while the more substantive post can be found here ). I would appreciate any additional thoughts and input from others, as it is a topic I think about often in relation to my own studies.

Posted by: Mozglubov | June 3, 2009 8:17 AM

@golikewater

There is actually several important differences between factory farming and scientific research utilizing non-human animal models. In factory farming, profit is the central motivator and there is very little ethical oversight (that is gradually changing). In contrast, scientific research undertaken with non-human animals must go through intense ethical scrutinization. The key difference is that one area gains their profit directly from the animals in question, while the other group receives public and private funding in exchange for the generation of intellectual capital. The funding for scientific practices would be readily revoked following violations in their ethical conduct, whereas agricultural practices are much less ruthlessly enforced and slower to change (farm lobbies, for example, are quite powerful in the United States). Yes, both practices have some similarities (and I agree with you that there are abhorrent characteristics of both), but it is overly simplistic to label them as identical.

Posted by: Mozglubov | June 3, 2009 12:21 PM

As a pro-science atheist & vegetarian, I have to say: this is where the scientific community has failed completely. We've stumbled on all the evidence we'll ever need to show how our treatment of animals is immoral (as nicely outlined in Jonah's entry above, actually) ... and, generally speaking, we've completely ignored it all. Nice science, guys.

Scientists should be on the front lines of the animal rights movement (and some are), but generally, we get the standard "their deaths save human lives" argument ... but in light of our close evolutionary relationship with mammals, all the arguments you can make for animal experimentation can basically be made for experimenting on human babies.

In effect, there's no moral reasoning that allows me to kill animals/babies, or promote the killing of animals/babies, in order to cure my mother's cancer. Only a "might makes right" argument works here -- which is the exact opposite of an ethical argument.

They are completely at our mercy -- so we show none, and exploit them to whatever extent we wish. But they are weak and they need our help ... and we owe them.

Posted by: Ncoffee | June 3, 2009 1:43 PM

Animal experimentation is a thorny issue. While I support it in the abstract (at least with the oversights we have in place these days) it is sometimes painful to come face to face with it.
I recently listened to the scientist who carried out the glowing monkey studies: even though these did not include harm to the animals, it was depressing to think about the confined lives of these primates and their offspring. And to actually study disease will involve incorporating disfunctional DNA into the monkeys, certainly causing further suffering.
On the other hand, factory farming has little to recommend it other than profit, and I firmly believe that we need to aggressively regulate and oversee CAFOS. Besides the inhumane conditions and nasty environmental effects, they give me the willies when I think of the spread of disease and contamination. I made a decision about a year ago, which I have largely kept, to buy only pasture-raised meat. This has lead to us eating less meat, which balances out the extra cost of the better product.

Posted by: Dacks | June 3, 2009 11:01 PM

Can you really go through life without killing anything? Plants are living things, and you consume their cells when you eat a salad, don't you? Even if you don't kill the entire organism when you eat a mushroom, you are still consuming tissue that was alive at one point and would be still if it hadn't been harvested for your consumption. I would argue that there is in fact no way to live your life without taking life in some form. After all, you need the carbs, fats, amino and nucleic acids that only life can produce. The line that one person draws as to what constitutes life is going be be different than someone else's. These distinctions are all completely arbitrary, BS confabulatory explanations we create to satisfy our individual moral consciences (see Jonah's previous post).

None of this is to excuse the abhorrent conditions that lab animals must endure for the entirety of their lives. If their lives are going to be taken in order for us to live longer lives with less suffering, then we should act to ensure that the lives that they do lead are not themselves full of suffering. Just to give an example of a simple way to make a big difference, how much evidence does there really need to be that "environmental enrichment"--simply giving rats extra space, toys to play with and social interaction, is beneficial for rats' health and cognitive capacity before it becomes the standard way for them to be housed? And even from a scientific point of view, doesn't this come closer to a "natural" situation with more relevance to the real world? Why wouldn't we want to study biological processes as closely as we can to the conditions of the natural world?

Posted by: Kurt | June 4, 2009 1:27 PM

Hmm, then viruses and bacteria owe all life on earth a LOT, and we owe THEM a lot for all those horrible antibiotics and medicine. And do not forget, all of us "conscious" beings are in actuality little more than a complex collaboration of specialized bacteria and other microorganisms.

Seriously, what makes mammals so special? Why do you draw a line between those who are "conscious" of their life and those who are not? If you believe "life" is valuable, then it is certainly valuable in all forms. And certainly you wouldn't call the exterminator if you found out your house was infested with mice/rats, cockroaches, termites, right? And certainly you wouldn't slap a mosquito on your arm? You'd let them have the "freedom and pleasure" of raiding your pantry, eating the foundations of your house, consuming your blood to survive...

Posted by: Anath | June 5, 2009 10:25 AM

Like with many ethical issues, there is a great deal of nuance here that the immediate knee-jerk reaction tends to miss. While I applaud Ncoffee's sentiment, it ignores some fairly fundamental things about the natural world (namely, that living free from human intervention is generally not a particularly happy way to live, either. Life in all manifestations tends to be "nasty, brutish, and short", to quote a famous fellow). That said, the argument that not wanting to abuse and destroy life is an unreachable goal and therefore we should stop caring in general is not logically sound. There are important differences between different forms of life (in this case, I don't think making the line between mammal and non-mammal is very fair, as there are some very intelligent birds out there and we continue to find interesting behavioural and cognitive abilities in other species, even in invertebrates like squid). After all, if one rationalizes the abuse of chickens and pigs because they are alive, but so is a tree, then what about the abuse of another human? We cannot simply abandon our interactions with other species, and, as was correctly pointed out, we have the right to defend ourselves (such as swatting a mosquito), but at the same time we should be aware of the cognitive abilities of other species and take steps to reduce undue suffering and misery. The communication barrier between humans and other animals does pose a challenge, but a challenge is no reason to give up and not try.

Now, I admit that I sound awfully pretentious, but what the hell. I'm in a pretentious mood today.

Posted by: Mozglubov | June 5, 2009 11:28 AM

Re: #13 Mozglubov

Yes, the natural world is red in tooth and claw, for sure, and left to their own devices, animal's lives are brutal. Agreed.

But the difference between what happens in the natural world and what we as human beings do is this: we have the cognitive abilities to examine the situation and make a decision before acting. We have a responsibility because of our enhanced mental abilities, wolves don't.

And, despite the violence in the natural world, if we make the right decisions, the world really will have a lot less suffering in it. We've built giant, global industries on the concept of efficient mass breeding and slaughter, after all.

And Re: #12 Kevin --

"Knowledge is not evil nor is ignorance a virtue."

I think the question that you're completely ignoring here is: at what cost? How would you feel about all that awesome knowledge if it was gained by experimentation on human babies? Sure, you'd use the knowledge gained thus far, it's good, useful knowledge, but would you advocate more of the baby experimentation?

Or would condemning it be willful ignorance?

Posted by: Ncoffee | June 5, 2009 12:23 PM

Re: 16 Kurt --

I do like where you're going with all this, don't get me wrong. However, when you say

"Scientists draw these lines to aid in the understanding of our world, not to confuse our perception of it."

I have to ask: do you think there is a line, morally, between killing a human being and killing an insect?

Certainly I do (and I'm sure you do as well), but that judgment can only be made by appealing to these (as you say, ultimately arbitrary) lines.

Within the context of this conversation, if we say there's no real moral difference between killing a cow and an insect, then we also have to concede there's no real moral difference between killing an insect and a human being.

With that in mind, I don't think I can go forth with your idea of treating these lines as simple preference. Clearly, they are extremely important when we start talking about humans.

I think this is one of those times when the lines actually do aid in the (moral) understanding of our world, and instead of being thrown away, need to be clarified more so.

Posted by: Ncoffee | June 5, 2009 2:58 PM

Re: 17 Ncoffee

I think that there is a moral difference between killing a cow and killing an insect and similarly, one between killing a cow and killing a human. Basically, I derive my morality from the cognitive differences present between different species and the necessity in killing anything. Of course, in the end, the lines we draw are arbitrary, but that doesn't mean that they're meaningless. I'm also more concerned with alleviating suffering during the course of an animal's life than with whether or not it's acceptable to kill it. In the future, I hope that we will move towards eating less meat, as our survival does not require the amount we currently consume, and as technology advances, this will permit fewer animal experiments to be performed.

Posted by: hrf | June 7, 2009 11:33 AM

Very interesting conversation. First, before my main point, a word about factory farming, which I find morally repugnant for reasons I will lay out soon. Factory farming is not only about profit (all business is about profit, after all), but also about the application of technology to maximize production, in this case with objectionable results for food animals.

But you must recognize one important positive benefit of factory farming, and that is the relative low cost of food in the industrialized world. That has given access to nutritional diets to millions, if not billions, of humans. Of course, this does not mean that civilization's use of cheap food is always good---junk fast food comes to mind first.

That said, as a society, we have the moral obligation to decide if the mistreatment of food animals in factory farming is a price worth paying for cheap food. The reality is that without factory farming, food would be much more expensive, and we would need to make some choices about what we consumed---much less meat, in all likelihood.

Personally, I believe that is a worth sacrifice for humanity to make if it means an end to factory farming, and I believe that we are slowly moving in that direction. But expect pushback from many sectors of society, especially advocates of low-income populations, whose access to inexpensive food is only a recent phenomenon (late 20th century). It's easy for affluent people to decide to make this sacrifice---one I believe we should all make.

To my main point---it's about the laws of kashrut, the Jewish kosher laws that govern how to eat. I am not a religious Jew nor do I keep kosher, but one of the fundamental tenets of kosher is very appropriate here---it relates to eating flesh, but can easily apply to research animals.

Kosher says that animals are God's creatures too, and as the stewards of the earth, we have both the ability and right to consume them, as well as the critical responsibility to care for them. Kosher says that we must husband (raise) food animals humanely and with compassion, and that we should only slaughter them without pain and distress.

It's a simple concept, but if we adhered to it in the way we raise, process, market and eat meat, and in the way we treat lab animals, it would go a long way toward making our behavior morally acceptable and humane.

Posted by: LKitsch | June 7, 2009 4:31 PM

I was not attempting to "provide you with a philosophy" of anything, merely draw out your irrational bias. No one has satisfactorily answered why mammals are so special, while "lesser" beings can be burned with a magnifying glass for fun, exterminated in large numbers for our "benefit", and so on, with no moral repercussions. Everyone argues for the "rights" of lab rats and mice, but no one argues for the "rights" of the experimental cockroaches or fruit flies. It also makes no sense to make claims about the horrible things we have done to animals' habitats and well being, state that "we owe them", then refine our definition to "Oh really we just owe other mammals because they're like us", rather than accepting the logical conclusion to be drawn by that statement and include ALL ANIMALS. I denounce these contradictions as hypocrisy and irrationality.

To your credit, least you admit your bias. I do agree that it makes sense to want to nurture our own species, and same-species interaction is the natural justification for human "rights". It is to our greatest advantage in every category to work together, strive for peace, knowledge, to end needless war, and treat each other equally, and this is the logical justification for human "rights". But we are the ONLY creature that is truly "conscious" of our lives and actions, and generally it is this higher level of consciousness, ability to understand complex cause-effect, plan ahead, that causes us to attribute "rights" to our species. Once we get beyond humans, HOW do we discriminate which animals deserve "rights" and which don't? WHY exclude arthropods? They have complex social systems, personalities, a need to survive, and there are even species such as certain desert scorpions, that care for their young.

And as for the question that no one answers:
""How would you feel about all that awesome knowledge if it was gained by experimentation on (already born) human babies?""

NO DIFFERENT. The important thing is what we have achieved and how what we have achieved can help preserve the lives and well being of millions. The knowledge we have gained "unethically" is invaluable. It is thanks to vivisection of live dogs that we even know how respiration and the circulatory system works, it is thanks to the dissection of criminals, (who may not have "deserved" to die, or who may have been wrongly accused) that we know many other things about the human body, especially the brain. There are many other cases of unethical experimentation that yielded important results in history, even within the past century. We should not go back to Galen and the four humors because the methods used in gaining the knowledge are unsavory. If you replaced "human babies" for animals in all the vivisections and other unsavory practices, I would feel the same disgust for the practice that I feel when we talk about animals in that position, but STILL acknowledge that given the technology and knowledge of the time, the practice was justified. If it weren't for the horrors of the past, we would NOT have increased our level of knowledge and technology to render them unnecessary.

This is also not to say that we SHOULD behave unethically in order to achieve these results--IF WE HAVE AN ALTERNATIVE. But really, what IS the alternative? Now that we have mapped the mouse genome it may be possible in the near future to run certain tests on computer programs, but there will be a need for live test subjects in other areas. The same thing applies to us that applies to the old scientists--we are limited by our knowledge and technology. There is no alternative for us in 2009CE. When there is an alternative, and we are committing morally reprehensible and unnecessary acts, THEN history will frown on us. But really, what is the 2009 alternative to an oncomouse?

Posted by: Anath | June 10, 2009 9:06 AM

This may be a little out of order but it flows right.

"Well, a brand new human baby or a mentally impaired person would work far better, so there's the obvious alternative, and in fact, from a practical point of view, that should be our first choice."

NO actually, these subjects would not work better than an Oncomouse. From a practical point of view, it is the ONCOMOUSE that is the logical choice. I speak primarily for cancer research here since I brought up Oncomice, but most of this information is applicable in other areas.

First of all, an Oncomouse has been specifically modified to carry an Oncogene, making them genetically predisposed to cancer. A standard human baby or a mentally impaired person does not have this advantage, obviously. We could make Oncopeople, sure, but lets look at this from a practical standpoint. The gestation period for a human fetus is 9 months, and humans do not reach sexual maturity for about a decade, can live up to 80-=100 years, the first 2 years of their life require intensive care. When they do breed, they generally have litter sizes of 1 or 2 young. Mice, on the other hand, only live 2.5 years maximum in captivity and frequently less than 4 months in the wild. Their gestation period is about 20 days, and they can have up to 12 young. They are also smaller, require less food and less intensive care, and the scientists can keep their control and variable groups completely isolated and in optimal conditions.

Additionally, the entire life of an Oncomouse can be monitored. If we were to go around collecting mentally impaired people, we would include a significant amount of variables. Additionally, mice share about 92% or more of our genome so what is applicable to them tends to extrapolate very well. So the practical advantages of using an Oncomouse population over a human population for studying cancer are quite significant. Primarily due to the short gestation and breeding time, large litter size, and short natural lifespan which ensures that many generations of Oncomouse could pass in the time it would take to raise a single generation of human test subjects. Additionally we will get to study all levels of aging by using subjects that live short lifespans, so relatively late-onset effects CAN be quantified, and quickly. Once the data has been quantified in mice, it can be extrapolated onto human volunteers that exhibit the same core problem. Human experimentation is significantly less efficient than animal experimentation. THAT is why we don't do it, not because there is some sort of moral/ethical barrier. If human experimentation actually WAS more efficient, it is likely a system would have developed to foster it. In areas where human experimentation IS more efficient, such as human psychology or human aging studies, a system HAS been developed to foster it, which relies on volunteers that fit the criteria that the researchers are looking for. The closest thing we get to "animal research on humans" is experimentation on human zygotes.

Again I ask, is there a 2009 alternative to an Oncomouse? NO. Without an alternative, it is the only answer to CURRENT research. Ideally the results of the research will allow us to create technological developments to render the necessity of live subjects in certain experiments unnecessary, and I am pleased to say that this is slowly becoming a reality. I support finding alternatives because there is no LOGICAL reason to use an inefficient process in research. Compared to the potential of computer simulation, it is a waste of energy and resources to continue to support live animal research in qualified experimental procedures. But we do not have this technology yet, so we will have to take what we can get.

But also here is a little problem:
"but because the methods are immoral, I'm also condemning future experimentation."

Lets keep this in general terms and say there is a disease or problem among a species (doesn't have to be us) or potentially destroying an environment. The only research that will yield accurate, usable results involves animal research. By using say, 1000 lives over the course of two years, you will be able to prevent countless deaths and unimaginable suffering amongst those who contract the disease or are exposed to the environmental problem. Would you support the research? Remember that often animal research helps other animals too, its not 100% "human exploitation for sole human benefit."

"... but that's short sighted; those requirements don't give rights to young children or the mentally impaired, both of which do actually have and need rights in our society. And certainly, higher primates actually do possess many of the attributes you list above, and many other mammals have them to varying degrees too."

I do not think you understand my perspective here. I am not talking about individuals but on a larger scale. We, as a species, possess, for example, an enlarged prefrontal cortex among other things. This enables us to think in ways that even other higher primates can not. What I am calling out as fallacious is the constant projection of our abilities onto other SPECIES. It doesn't matter that the boy next door was born with Down Syndrome and cannot utilize these facilities, and it doesn't matter that a certain primate somewhere was born more intelligent than other primates and ultimately more intelligent than the boy with Down Syndrome. There are KEY differences between these species. There are things a cow can NEVER think, no matter how hard they might try, simply because they simply lack the brain functions for it. Don't misunderstand me, this does not make them "lesser" beings, just different. There are things they can do that we can't. A key example of our difference is the facility you are using -- projecting our qualities onto others.

This end of the debate actually could spiral into incredibly off topic arenas... but really the best presentation of our facility to project our own anthropocentric nature is in Dan Dennett's "Breaking the Spell". Most of the book centers around how we have done this in order to create a religious system, but the core concept of anthropomorphizing EVERYTHING can be applied to arguments involving anything that is not human in the first place. The point here isn't that it is "wrong" to want to give them rights, or that they don't somehow "deserve" them, but that it is 100% US that believes they do. WE don't even have "rights" objectively, the entire system is a human construct, with certain altruistic elements.

"We have no reason to think cockroaches experience suffering, their brains don't look or operate like the ones that do, so we put them somewhere behind a certain moral line for that reason. The further an organism is from being conscious of it's own suffering, the worse we can treat it, basically."

Why do you base your reasoning on how little or much an organism can suffer? You have not answered this. If animal life has value, and "They are completely at our mercy -- so we show none, and exploit them to whatever extent we wish. But they are weak and they need our help ... and we owe them." That should apply to all animals, why do you insist that it only applies to animals that appeal to your bias? The lab roach is completely at our mercy too, as is the lab fruit fly. You mean to tell me that you can say with a straight face: "We exploit animals, so we owe them/should not kill them/should not allow them to suffer" then follow it by affirming that there is no moral problem that "The less CONSCIOUS an animal is of its suffering, the worse we can treat it"... and NOT see the glaring contradiction? Also it fails to acknowledge that just because we are highly conscious of our suffering does not mean other animals are--especially the ones you are trying to "protect" with this argument. If we follow the argument logically, it AFFIRMS what we are doing now, because the creatures we utilize generally do not have the mental WIRING to be conscious of their suffering beyond a certain degree.

Also on a slightly other tangent, I find it odd that you find no reason to assume that cockroaches and other arthropods suffer... did you ever play with bugs as a kid? They react to "painful" stimuli just as mammals do, by trying to escape or remove the stimuli. If you keep them in a "painful" environment for extended periods of time, you can NOTICE behavioral changes. They suffer just like the life forms you place above them in your hierarchy.

and I will mention here:
"So come on, for someone so devoted to erasing the lines between animals, you've certainly tried to draw a pretty sharp one here. Everything is in vague shades of gray when it comes to other animals, but when we're taking about humans, suddenly it's all clean-cut, black and white."

There IS no hierarchy. The reason I drew the line in terms of brain functions has to do with our tenancy to anthropomorphize and attribute our emotions and processes to animals that are superficially like us. Ultimately, the only difference between a cockroach, a mouse, and us is genetic, functional, and developmental. Any other "difference" is a subjective interpretation by humans.

And no, I am not an Objectivist. Just a skeptic playing devil's advocate to get you and others to look at other angles.

Posted by: Anath | June 10, 2009 10:13 PM