Hey. Hey you all remember a while back, when some climate change denialists hacked into someones email, and released all these 'damning' statements on how climate change is all a lie. Except, its not.
You know how climate change denialists are normally crazy right wing Christian/Libertarian dipshits?
Apparently, crazy left wing hippy freaks arent above doing the exact same thing.
A while back, some monkeys at a breeding facility (provide the primates for research) got into a fight. So pics were taken, everything was documented-- the vets got experience dealing with these situations, the monkeys got taken care of.
No big whoop.
... Until Animal Liberation freaks 'magically' came into possession of those pics, and 'magically' knew that those monkeys were being hacked into pieces by evil scientists. Lord knows monkeys, like humans, dont ever get into physical altercations. And so these animal liberation freaks justly started harassing the researchers/Uni/company involved. Naturally.
I mean, these injuries clearly look like they were inflicted by a cut happy scientist with a scalpel, not sharp monkey teeth. And why wouldnt a masochistic scientist carefully document their transgressions to go back and masturbate to their destruction at a later date. I mean, duh.
Fucking morons.
And like how the climate deniers totally retracted their claims after an investigation firmly established nothing inappropriate happened in Climategate, Im sure PETA et freak are going to retract their claims and stop the harassment, now that the USDA investigated, and concluded that there were no insane mutilators stalking the hallways of this breeding facility.
Read the whole summary of Vivisectiongate at 'Speaking of Research'.
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Thanks for the link Erv, the parallels to the climategate affair were not lost on us at Speaking of Research either. Seems like cranks on the right and left of the political spectrum have all attended the same "misrepresentation 101" course.
Marino, Budkie and their ALF friends are the Westboro Baptist Church of the left, and it's time people woke up to the damage done by the hate they spew. Since the campaign against PPI began they've also started a hate campaign against a lecturer at the University of Florida http://www.gainesville.com/article/20101008/ARTICLES/101009463.
Lets hope that students at UF take a leaf out of UCLA's book and tell these AR extremists where to get off http://speakingofresearch.com/2009/04/27/ucla-pro-test-post-rally-print….
Damn, those monkeys play for keeps. Big chunks of flesh ripped off the skulls. I'm glad we've (for the most part) gotten more civilized.
Robert, it's probably worth pointing out that although these fights do happen in Rhesus macaque groups, they are quite infrequent and years can go by without serious incident. Of course there are fairly frequent confrontations and aggressive incidents in macaue groups, but the great majority of the time they are resolved by those involved without any monkeys getting hurt.
Yeah ... right ...
I do not envy the technician who had to either try to break up that fight, or stand by and watch it through until he/she could get in to pick up the pieces safely. Do primate facilities keep those riot-control water-cannons on site?
No, they use choke nooses, tasers & shotgun fired tranquilizer darts, for breaking up confinement-stress induced fights.
I hate the black-and-white mentality that often comes up in debates about animal welfare in science: either all animal research is unnecessarily painful (even sadistic) or all researchers use proper protocols and minimize suffering whenever possible. The truth is obviously somewhere in the middle, but it seems impossible to acknowledge that without giving too much credence to "the other side"'s arguments.
I myself work on mouse models of cancer metastasis and am well-aware of the benefits of using animals for research purposes. The annual AAALAC inspections are, however, almost a running joke: no one actually does any animal work during inspections for fear of accidentally doing something wrong (or finding that you've been doing something wrong all along). Although I feel the majority of animal researchers do follow correct procedures and protocols, there is a definite minority that disregards these standards either because of ignorance or lack of concern. I think a primary source of noncompliance is that (at our facility) it is the responsibility of the PI (or lab manager) to educate new employees and students about proper animal care standards beyond the 2 hour orientation required for access to the animal facilities. I think too often it is assumed if someone has worked with animals before they have the experience to work with them while minimizing suffering. Sorry, I don't really know what I'm trying to express here other than frustration that it is difficult to have an honest discussion about animal welfare in science.
it's mutual, I'm sure
Speaking as a hippie who supports animal research and is not afraid of genetically-engineered plants or animals - because of your willingness to make generalizations about people: Go Fuck Yourself. You need to learn that human beings are far more than the infantile and superficial impressions that you have of them.
I don't see any similarity of animal extremists with legitmate climate skeptics (not "denialist", please!). The 'catastrophic global warming' computer model-based disaster scenarios have been seriously challenged by a significant number of scientists, statisticians and technically able people--a far cry from the animal rights Luddites you're criticizing (I agree with your take on them though).
AMReview-
If you have new information it would be great to hear. I think that we are boned on the climate front and most of the models seem to be if anything not dire enough.
While these particular images are of the aftermath of a fight in the animal house, I know from hands-on experience that you can get equally (and far more) gory images of actual animal research that goes on every day.
... but then, you can also get equally gory images from any veterinary hospital or, for that matter, from any ER. Images of unconscious animals with open wounds means precisely zip. What matters is how they're treated when they're conscious.
User:
Well said.
Most of the time, most animal research is done in a reasonably ethical manner. Researchers mostly do care about the welfare of their animals. But sometimes they're in a hurry, or under pressure to finish more procedures, or poorly educated, or simply careless. So to combat abuses and negligence we've got organizations like AAALAC the IACUC which oversee animal research and police the researchers involved.
Every research institution has some sort of local committee that oversees all animal research. Some of these committees have all the power they need to oversee and enforce good standards. Unfortunately in many cases, like User mentioned, the inspections aren't effective. You might have violations that are reported and ignored, since they occurred in the lab of a powerful faculty member. Some committees are lax and miss the violations they should be spotting. Often you get an attitude of "us", the researchers, vs "them", the people who are trying to interfere with our work.
There's a lot of room for improvement, even in this particular case of monkeys that injured each other. It's true that monkeys fight each other, sometimes viciously. It's also true that they fight more when stressed, interfered with, or improperly grouped together.
There are a lot of people who work hard from within institutions to improve the lot of research animals. All too often, though, researchers view their work as an impediment to science.
AMReview, somehow I suspect your information may not be coming from actual climatologists if that is your position.
Because, to date, there is nothing that's come from climatologists that has exactly dashed the current models.
I support animal research, and I also support hippiedom to some extent... and I'm not going to tell you to fuck yourself, because I understand and agree with the anger. My father did animal research for many decades, and always tried to treat his subjects humanely and give them the best life possible, and I know how the actions of these activists have made things worse for the animals (I have a lot of documentation on this, in fact, which I haven't had time to go through).
The one thing I would say, as far as this whole "damn hippie" thing, is this: by what token are animal rights extremists "hippies"? Do they self-identify as hippies, or do they just act like hippies (and if so how), or is there some other reason you're classifying them that way (and if so what)?
...because as I understand it, hippiedom is largely about leaving other people's business alone and being mellow -- and extremist animal activism violates both of those principles.
This is ScienceBlogs^TM after all, Woozle. Myers is poobah 'cuz he has the most syncophants so all the other bloggers feel like they need to emulate him. Since he's biased against supernaturalists & that seems to work, other bloggers seek to score hits by being biased against someone, too. Primate see primate do. The pope, hippies, televangelists, animal rights activists, climate change deniers, vaccination evaders... doesn't matter, just hate on someone & watch your readership go up.
Or, you could follow the links in the OP and see I was making a 'South Park' reference, as I have done ~1 million times before.
However, if you have a sense of humor of a dried out Twizzler, ERV isnt a blog for you, nor has it ever been. If you dont like my personality, leave.
Crivvens! People on Scienceblogs, biased against the supernatural!?! Jeeves, my smelling salts!!!
darwinsdog = obvious troll. Thanks for playing.
/ignore
Perhaps the animal extremists will offer to take the place of test animals then research can continue and no animals will be harmed.....sorted!
Yeah, hard to believe, ain't it, minimalist? So much for the vaunted objectivity scientists are supposed to exhibit. Or maybe it's that the real scientists have work to do and can't afford the time to hang out in the blogosphere hating on people who don't share their views.
I wouldn't insult hippies by comparing them with animal rights extremists. Most hippies are non-violent. Groups like ALF are quite willing to engage in violence to achieve their goals. It's no wonder they are classed as a terrorist group.
Darwinsdog "The pope, hippies, televangelists, animal rights activists, climate change deniers, vaccination evaders... doesn't matter, just hate on someone & watch your readership go up."
Judging from the animal rights websites I've visited lately, that's a trick they learned long before the science bloggers. It's also fair to say that I've never seen the level anything near the level of hatred, not to mention threats and incitement, on pro-science blogs that I've seen pretty often on animal rights, anti-abortion or anti-vaccine sites. There's simply no equivalence between saying somebody is an idiot, a nutcase, or evan a danger to society, and posting their home address online alongside a remark about how pretty fires are (as AR extremists often do).
Seriously, the tactics used by crank/denialist/anti-science groups start looking very familiar once you've experienced a few, including the obligatory "experts who agree with us" that every crank group seems to be able to find. Doesn't seem to matter much whether it's animal rights activists, creationists, climate change deniers or anti-vaccine campaigners. Unfortunately the crap these groups spew is all popular among various demographics, witness the rise of the tea party, which is why the scientific community needs to speak out against the tide of lies and idiocy.