There was a rally in LA for a group in favor of animal experimentation, Pro-Test, which also had a counter-rally by animal rights groups. You can guess which side I'm on in this debate: blocking experimentation on animals would kill biological research dead. The tactics of the anti-vivisectionists are also reprehensible and deserving of condemnation.
The Pro-Test group, an offshoot of an Oxford, England-based group founded in 2006, was organized by J. David Jentsch, a UCLA neuroscientist who was the target of a recent attack by anonymous animal-rights activists. In the attack, Jentsch's car was set on fire while it was parked in front of his Westside home. (The FBI recently announced that a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible has been increased to $75,000.) Jentsch, who researches schizophrenia and drug addiction, conducts tests on monkeys. While he acknowledges that some monkeys are killed as part of his research, he maintains that they do not suffer. Jentsch was expected to speak at today's rally.
Most importantly, we're biologists. We're in this business because we have a passion for the organisms we study, not because we're some kind of sick sadists. We're also currently swaddled up to our ears in regulations and monitors to prevent abuses of the animals in our care.
Unfortunately, the article discussing this rally has associated with it a poll. This makes me rather cranky—it's a serious issue worth discussing, so please, don't slap a stupid internet poll on it. It just means that advocacy groups will push at the numbers as if they mean something. So, please, go forth and destroy this pointless metric:
Can medical research on animals be conducted humanely?
Yes -- and I support it if the animals are treated well 27% (1872 votes)
No -- it's inhumane by definition and I don't support it 73% (5049 votes)
Not sure
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Not hating science or modern medicine (I love my health, thank you very much), I gladly voted Yes.
What about "Yes -- but only if a rabbi is present and the animal's blood is used as a consecration to Yahweh"?
On a more personal note, seeing as I have a schizophrenic brother-in-law who is currently wandering the streets of LA after catching a cross-country bus because he thought the home he was in was acting like "the gestapo"... I get a little cranky about people trying to impede research into schizophrenia. :|
Whacked it once from work. Seeing a little movement in the right direction. Only a little over 7,000 votes, which means we can have an effect.
Research on tissue then, PZ. Don't research on live animals, these protesters are right; it's inhumane.
It's already at 30/70. Man, that's fast.
Errm... How exactly do you research developmental biology on tissue? If we knew enough about that to use tissue, we wouldn't have anything left to research.
I voted yes. I am a big fan of medical reseach which has helped preserve the life of many of my family members. I have been in animal labs and saw how well the animals were treated. Yes, some were killed. Usually very humanely, if it was necessary.
I would dearly love to see the day when there is a viable, practical alternative to animal testing. For now, though, there are too many variables involved to make it anything but necessary. Still against cosmetics testing and the like, though.
If you conduct 'research' in the same way research is done on bonobos and other apes, in sanctuaries where behaviour is observed and chimps are given occasional tasks to perform (things like matching sounds to words, which I've seen them do before), then that isn't degrading or hurting the animal. But if you keep it locked up in a cage and inject it with all manner of drugs, surely you can recognise how evil that is? It is that kind of research I object to.
"It's inhumane by definition but I still support it" would have gotten my vote.
Far more--and much worse--animal suffering is caused by factory farms. The protesters seem curiously silent on that subject. Wonder why.
Eh, I've got to disagree with you. Of course setting cars on fire is not the proper way to go about protesting, and of course most biologists won't be sadists (although on the other hand, "we're just doing our job" isn't much better than "we were just following orders"), but the question of whether it's justified to hurt, torture and/or kill animals in order to further research is a very valid one.
Myself, I don't think that there is an easy answer; it depends on the research, on what exactly you intend to do, and probably on other factors as well. But I think you're making it all far too easy for yourself when you say that biological research would be hindered if no experiments on animals were conducted. Not that it's not true, probably, but it's missing (or ignoring) the point.
Here is where we find disagreement. One thing that you don't understand PZ that science puts itself above our humanity. Using animals that did not volunteer for the experiment is a crime to a sentient being, and no amount of talk can allow anyone to evade that.
If you want to use vivisection, use a human volunteer. If this seems extreme, then one has lost the ability to understand evolution. Evolution is not voluntary.
Also, as an addendum, is this meant to be ironic?
"It just means that advocacy groups will push at the numbers as if they mean something. So, please, go forth and destroy this pointless metric:"
Honestly, except for the "group" part, you're an advocacy group here as well, PZ, aren't you?
Boy, that's stacking the deck.
An honest question would be, would it be more inhumane to do medical tests on animals, or to let humans (and animals) suffer through lack of knowledge.
As written, the only stated concern is for the test animal, not for the humans and animals which might benefit.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
oldtree has some good point in #13, BTW. To elaborate on my earlier comment, I'm not against animal testing per se, but I'm opposed to the idea that (non-human) animals are worth less than humans and that therefore, making animals suffer and/or killing them is a-OK in order to help humans.
Check out what Peter Singer has to say on the topic, for example. You may very well not agree with him (although I'd recommend actually reading his books; there's quite some misinformation floating around concerning his positions), but it's food for thought, at the very least.
Let's put it in evolutionary terms then. We're predator, they're prey.
Of course it's humane, because it benefits humans. It may be anti-rat or anti-rabbit, but I'm willing to be anti-rabbit to be pro-human.
It's rare you're wrong, but you are in this case. Maybe you have the corporate university "science" outlook which holds that there's an expensive pill or potion that can "cure" anything, if we just keep looking... You failed to cite examples of animal research that has lead to major disease cures and life-saving breakthroughs. Putting shampoo and beauty products into the eyes of beagles to test how safe these items are -- as they've done at UCLA, in order to help the cosmetics industry -- is not something a lot of people I know approve of.
It's a reasonable compromise. No rational person enjoys seeing animals suffer or die. I wonder what alternatives they would suggest. Consenting human volunteers only? If there was something else that would work as well, I'd be all for it.
I have pharyngulated the poll.
While I am an animal lover, I understand that sometimes sacrifices have to be made. If the research is to find a cure for some desease (like cancer, schizo, etc) then I`m for it, so long as the animals aren't abused.
I am, however, against animal testing for stupid things, such as make-up, using thier fur as fashion accessories, etc.
It's not pretty, but until we find a way to create very realistic fake animals, then there's nothing we can do.
Wait, what? That's not logical:
"Research on tissue then, PZ. Don't research on live animals, these protesters are right; it's inhumane."
Already done where possible. I mean, think about it. Completely apart from all moral values, it's much more convenient and much cheaper!
WTF? Who ever needs that?
That's the very point he wants us to drive home.
Here are the facts. Take the cute puppies and mice and transform them into horrible alien monsters from the planet Vargozz and not one of them stupids will give a damn if you experiment on them.
My appreciation of this issue is that there's probably a good lot of animal testing/experimentation that could be done away with-- and I'd include redundant lab exercises for many students in this category as well. I think that something like a fetal pig dissection could be easily modeled for students on a computer, and that there's probably a large number of household products still being tested on animals that we could reduce. I'd even include that dopey grad student's alcohol/zebrafish nonsense that some of you may recall from a while back...
This would be a BIG step in the right direction, and would definitely satisfy the vast majority of my problems.
On the other hand, I understand there's a lot of stuff you're not going to learn without just taking an animal apart, running an experiment, etc... I'd hope that any such experiments are truly necessary, and have the potential to increase scientific knowledge.
I have a number of questions I have always wanted to ask animal rights activists:
When you are ill, do you use the drugs prescribed by your doctor? Because those drugs were tested for side effects etc. on various animals before being tested in humans.
How else would you test for side effects and efficacy of medications?
Do you have any family members who are affected by diseases that are currently being researched using animal models; these include developmental problems, neurological diseases, cancer and many others?
How would you research developmental problems in tissue as it is a total organism problem?
For the first time, this long time lurker totally disagrees with you. It is absolutely unethical and cruel to test human diseases, whether AIDS or cancer or schizophrenia, on helpless animals. I am sort of surprised to learn that you think of humans as "special" in any way. Personally, as sad as it would be, I would rather myself or a loved one die of a disease -- which is also part of nature's ability to cull the herd and keep things in balance -- than to learn that their cure was discovered through animal testing.
I don't know enough to comment. Humans have no right to lord over other animals. None. What-so-ever. It is because of our own selfish greed that we do so. However I don't know what kind of testing is done on animals. If the testing is something you wouldn't do to a human then there is nothing wrong really.
Bigger brains does not equal superior rights. Just because we can reason giving an animal a disease or something does not mean its right.
That said, I love to eat meat and I fully support animal testing. I am aware and ok with my selfishness.
oldtree: "Evolution is not voluntary."
Evolution doesn't give a crap what we do. It's a process, not a god.
muffin: "Check out what Peter Singer has to say on the topic, for example."
Singer was led by his own utilitarianism - more specifically, the goal of reducing of total suffering - to flip-flop on experimentation on nonhuman primates.
Thanks for highlighting this important issue, PZ.
I don't understand that.
That I understand. That's religion.
I'm vegan, so this is a pretty tricky issue for me. I feel very strongly that we have absolutely no inherent right to use animals for any purpose. On the other hand, I am also a human being, and understand the concept of sacrifice for the greater good. Also, I like medicine and not being dead.
"Most importantly, we're biologists. We're in this business because we have a passion for the organisms we study, not because we're some kind of sick sadists."
The researcher named was a neuroscientist - while that seems to fall under the biologist umbrella, my impression from the article was that Mr. Jentsch's research wasn't as much about the organism as it was about getting results about specific illnesses. Not to say he's a sadist, as I'm sure he is not, but the organisms in question seemed, for lack of a better term, disposable, and that's where I'd have a problem.
All that said: I voted inhumane. I am a reasonable person, but I'd make an educated guess that many tests don't NEED to be performed on animals. Until there is more transparency, I feel like a hard line needs to be taken.
(Also, terrorism - i.e. torching a researcher's car - is never, ever okay.)
Sorry for being so long winded, but I agree with PZ - animal testing and, by proxy, animal rights is a very important issue, and I think the more rational discourse about it, the better.
This! And I think your "wonder why" was ironic but I really do wonder why.
I'm pretty sure most anti-vivisection activists (probably not all the sympathisers, but the activists) are vegetarians and even vegans, so it's not "We are against animal exploitation when you do it but not when we do". Even if (for the sake of argument) we grant that harm to animals is never justified by human gain, I just can't get my head around why they are going after science first. The horrors of the meat industry are on a much bigger scale, and for much, less benefit than anything standards in medical research would allow.
Sounds noble and all, but something tells me you'll get that prescription filled before you allow yourself to be "culled".
Animal rights is the anti-abortion of the left.
Amanda Marcotte made this point a few years ago, and I had privately expressed this view some years before that.
Not that there are no right wing animal rightists nor left wing anti-abortionists; there are, but you know what I mean.
It was still 64% for the anti-medicine brigade when I voted a few minutes ago.
Just like cosmetics, I only use medicines which are clearly stated not to have been tested on animals.
No, I kid. I say this because I can see why "not tested on animals" is a selling point with cosmetics (which I don't use), and hasn't been attempted to be used as a selling point for medicines.
As for this from a different commenter:
That's because virtually all major disease cures and life-saving breakthroughs were tested on animals (how come anti-testers generally know so little?), from chemotherapy to many of the surgeries used.
Why do you think it costs so much for drugs? Sure, profiteering and the like, but it's the animal testing, and the human testing (which does happen, and ought to make people squirm as much as animal tests do. The "volunteer" bullshit simply ignores economic reality), which cost so much.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I have no problem with people protesting against the use of animals in research, as long as they take the views to the proper conclusions. That is, they voluntarily wear some type of ID tag that essential says "use no medical drug/device/technique derived from animal testing". That way, their wishes can be granted in an emergency situation. Also, they have to be on waiting lists to be called for testing of new drugs/devices/techniques.
I think this part of the article is what pissed me off the most. Vlasak is no better than any of the anti-abortion wingnuts out there. Or terrorists for that matter becuase, that is exactly what the animal rights groups,ELF and its' ilk are.
Matt / #34: I agree 100%, factory farming is a much larger target. However, I don't think that excuses animal testing from attention. Anyone who protests testing but doesn't protest factory farming, or even worse, eats meat, is a fool.
Whenever I buy medicine or cosmetics (shampoo, shower gel and the like - I don't use make-up :P), I always check to make sure it hasn't been tested on animals. That is the 'research' I oppose, I have no problem with research done humanely, for example research into animal behaviour and DNA.
Cakexploder makes a good point:
"Until there is more transparency, I feel like a hard line needs to be taken."
I wanted to say something like this in my previous comment, but couldn't quite express it-- my feeling as a vegetarian is often that I think meat-eaters have a rather callous, cavalier attitude toward animal death/suffering in general. I have a hard time trusting these same folks when they tell me that some sort of animal testing is truly necessary. I can reasonably assume that SOME is, but I'd guess that there is a lot of useless waste and suffering occurring as well. Again, students like the zebrafish/alcohol grad student do quite a bit to confirm this for me. His project sounded about as well thought-out as pulling the wings off flies or burning ants with a magnifying glass.
Dissension! Dissension in the ranks! God-damn freethinking.
I voted yes.
I propose only doing biological research on Fred Phelps.
Agreed. And anyone who uses violent acts to express their opinion on this matter is a sociopath.
Crap! I forgot to sign in! Post #40 is mine.
There's a big difference between dissecting a real body and a computer simulation, even if it's a good one. Maybe it would be ok for high school biology, since most of them really won't use that information past the exam. There's a lot of tactile information that can't be relayed by computers like how tough the mesentary is or the force needed to separate the joints.
I'd rather see a higher proportion vegetarian and vegan menu options in the cafeteria first. It would not only be good for the animals, but would also improve the health and performance of students.
PZ's right, biological and psychological studies really can't be done without the use of animals. In many cases, however, I think the way animals are confined and isolated actually skews the data. Confined animals are stressed, stressed animals don't react the same way behaviorally or physiologically as animals allowed a more natural state.
You do realise that even products whose development didn't use animals almost certainly depend on basic research which did, yes?
PZ! Even a handful of animals are precious! I say let the humans suffer and die unnecessarily! That's the humane way!
There exists some tricky questions when you start to delve into specific circumstances and cases. Cosmetics research, which does not qualify as life saving, has used rabbits to test the eye irritation of proposed shampoo formulas. No one will die if we use the same shampoos as worked last year, but a formula a cosmetics company can patent will increase their profit and market share (given the right advertising).
Life-saving research: cancer, mental illness, aids, new generation of antibiotics, etc ; these are all entirely different matters than cosmetics. If you are the one suffering from a nasty case of flesh eating bacteria you will find that Thumper's life vs. yours becomes a really easy call. I found a really good YouTube video by an atheist science advocate named "Thunderf00t" which sums this up nicely with a cogent, clear explanation of the social evolution of morality. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyd6om8IC4M)
Sadly these nuances in the questions of animal experimentation and the treatment of animals go by the wayside with many people (on both sides).
JD / #45: Not a bad idea. Can we expand it to those crazy armageddon-crazy Christians, too? They're just begging to get to heaven, right? :D
flaq / #46: I wholly agree.
Victor @ #18:
Couldn't have said it better myself.
As someone who works in a nonhuman primate science lab (albeit a very, very tame one), I know first-hand the ethical difficulty of working with these animals.
But sorry. I am a speciesist. While I empathize with and harbor very strong feelings for animals, I am a human being that put's his own life, family, friends, and species before those of other animals.
And yes, the best way to protest is to never visit a doctor and become a vegan.
Would you be willing to sacrifice your own pet to research? I have two dogs, and since I wouldn't be willing to subject them to medical experimentation, I feel it would be hypocritical of me to support this being done to other such animals with similar capacities.
And I think it is extremely problematic ethically when we get to experimentation on apes and monkeys. There is very little that separates homo sapiens from its evolutionary cousins in terms of abilities and capacities, and it seems to me that see an ethical gulf there is to presume something "special" about humans that is more akin to the religious perspective than what we know from biology.
And this is precisely why I as an ethical vegetarian think that the anti-research folks are completely misguided in terms of their strategy (apart from the fact that they also tend to be violent).
C'mon. Animal testing benefits both human animals and others. Biology is about life, not just human beings. Let's not oversimplify the issue.
I should point out, no matter the hysterics of these ninnys, the research done on animals at colleges is done as humane and ethically as possible. I think they should be pressing for prison reform where the conditions are much, much less humane.
It's currently still 60/40 against. To quote Frank Zappa, "Get yer butt out there and vote!"
I fear that my thanks will be buried way down the thread, but thanks anyway:-)
No more lies, no more fear!
p.s. there's also a Pro-Test petition that you can sign up to at:
http://www.amprogress.org/site/c.jrLUK0PDLoF/b.5110163/k.1228/Show_Your…
Enjoy dying of blood poisoning or watching your child die of measles. Every anti-biotic you've ever ingested, every vaccine you've taken or put in your child is thanks to that.
It seems to me that the protests are coming from those who are over thinking the issue. Sure there are dilemmas involved. But the basic dilemma of survival is at the forefront. All of the research being done, in the long run, protects and respects all organic life. To shun the progress made from this research because of our (sometimes misguided) empathetic sensitivities stunts our potential to serve all of life. So yes, in some cases, the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few. That's just cold hard reality.
Were is the option that says I support animal testing however the animals are treated because I like science based medicine?
andrew said: "Personally, as sad as it would be, I would rather myself or a loved one die of a disease " Seriously, who needs enemies if they got friends like you?
On a less cynical note, saying that diseases are "also part of nature's ability to cull the herd and keep things in balance" is one heck of a naturalistic fallacy...
Jeff S, if you don't know enough, then learn from this magnificient blog by an industry insider: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/animal_testing/
(I'd suggest to read all the posts but you could just search for 'animal rights' if you're lazy)
Without animal research medical progress is dead. I'm in great fear of people who condemn animal research enough to be willing to do away with it and sacrifice all of our progress and well-being.. Sure it's condemnable, but there are more important things in life, like, well, the survival of your loved ones and yourself.
To me this threat is as great or greater than religion.
Matt H. said: "Research on tissue then, PZ. Don't research on live animals, these protesters are right; it's inhumane."
"...But if you keep it locked up in a cage and inject it with all manner of drugs, surely you can recognise how evil that is? It is that kind of research I object to."
You're clueless, aren't you? Tell me please, how do you want to test toxicity & safety and efficacy in cell cultures? I'm all ear; so is the pharma industry and the Nobel is yours if you solve that case! Or do you really propose to give full doses (look up microdosing in contrast to that; a pretty neat way to decrease costs and animal testing) of untested drugs to human volunteers i.e. replacing animal testing with manslaughter?
Read the link I posted ^
oldtree, you're wrong. This is not a good point at all. You're simplistic view is very far from reality: Animal testing is a moral dilemma whatever you do, even if you close your eyes and keep shouting "it's evil, pelase make it stop". If you don't perform these tests millions of people will die from diseases which would be otherwise curable. While if you perform them it's the other way round, animals will die.
Fuck. In my opinion anyone who doesn't realise that the well-being of humans is generally (i.e. as a rule of thumb) more important (or as important but definitely *not* less important) than the well-being of animals is a dangerous fellow. I'm scared.
silver said: "It's not pretty, but until we find a way to create very realistic fake animals, then there's nothing we can do."
That's going in the right direction, but what if any system complex enough to be useful would be sentient per definition? I'm sure that need not be the case always, but sometimes... Oh, the moral implications.
and
I'm offended by the callous, blatantly kingdomist attitude being expressed here. Plants are living things too!
Ah, ha ha ha ha haaaa.... Not even a clever or humorous use of the non-sequitur... Never mind the idiotic stereotypical caricatures of science and scientists...
You remind me of my sister's idiot ex-boyfriend. The PETA guy that was hoping Ebola would wipe out humanity... Thank god she dumped that unthinking loser.
I work as administrative staff at a large research university and have had to attend training seminars before that covered the behind-the-scenes aspects of animal testing--the rules, the limitations, the accountability, the paperwork, the deadlines, the justifications, the supervising bodies, on and on. I am fully convinced that these types of studies are as well regulated as is reasonably possible. In spite of all the apocryphal horror stories, it would be extremely difficult to get approval to test for reasons that could not be proven to have no sufficient alternative means of conducting the research.
If anyone objects to the testing of cosmetics on animals because it's not a medical necessity (and frankly I agree on that one, though I understand why the companies would not want to put out products that would burn your skin off), the best way you can protest is to stop buying cosmetic products. If the market demand goes away, the cosmetic companies will have no reason to continue making and testing products. In all honesty, I have no idea how much cosmetics testing actually occurs. Cosmetics do not need to be approved by the FDA to be sold, and the only real limitation on the safety of their contents is the companies' own word that their products are safe. It seems like animal testing would for the most part be a lot more trouble and money than it would be worth for the companies in this case.
BTW, Setting cars on fire is bordering on terrorism. And why was that poll so inane to begin with? 73% said no? Why are people so stupid these days?
Hmmm, not an easy topic to discuss. Personally I am for animal testing, but it's not an absolute. I basically work on a scale of perceived sentience - the more apparently sentient the animal, the less easy I am with experimentation. For example, as far as I'm concerned, the great apes should be treated exactly the same way that we treat human children - ie no experimentation at all thank you very much!
At the other end of the scale, you can do as you wish with plants and single-celled organisms (as an aside, what justification do animal rights protestors give for the wanton killing of plants? Where is the line drawn between animals and plants?)
In between, it all gets very murky. But then, that's what we have ethics committees for, no?
"We're in this business because we have a passion for the organisms we study, not because we're some kind of sick sadists."
Sorry PZ, the truth is already out on that one: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30800
Religion.
Tulse@55:
So, then, you would be willing to sacrifice your (living) grandmother, niece or child for medical reseach then? Because that's what you are working for when you work against animal studies. (Sure, work for humane treatment, no one is contesting that!)
If not, then you are, IMO, being hypocritical.
I work at a med-tech company that is required by law to conduct animal studies before conducting human clinicals.
Would we really have it any other way? Do we as a society value animals more than humans? That is the question under consideration here. If the studies are not done on animals, then the medical studies will be done on human patients (and many therapies will be delayed or made unworkable, resulting in more human suffering and death.)
Suffering is how we gauge our morals. At my company, the animals used for study are treated as well as anyone's pets (probably much better than the vast majority of companion animals) and they are given anesthesia in the exact same ways humans under similar conditions are. They are monitored continuously for stress to ensure they are not suffering (suffering, aside from the moral issue, would skew the research data ...) They feel less pain then virtually any surgical patient.
Yes -- and I support it if the animals are treated well 38% (3178 votes)
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No -- it's inhumane by definition and I don't support it 62% (5172 votes)
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May I also point out that this animal testing is big in the field of. . oh-I-don't-know . . . Veterinary Medicine! There are people out there who are so anti-animal testing that it's actually causing Veterinarian schools in the US to pull back and inadequately teach their student's proper animal care. As I read one account where one school won't even use the preserved animal for dissection but instead a plastic dummy. You can't get the knowledge of variations and differences out of a simulated sack of colored jelly. Think what you will, but I would prefer knowledge over emotional reaction. Especially when it comes to my families health, pets included.
flaq / #63: I can't tell if you're being snarky or not. But, I'm more concerned with sentience than life, so screw the plants. And bacteria, for that matter!
I am against obsolete redundancy testing where the outcome is known and testing is preformed just to satisfy insurance penny pinchers.
IMHO, the argument here is being misframed. It's not a choice between harming animals and harming humans. It's a choice between accepting lab animals as symbiotes with humans or not.
Look at it from the animals point of view. A lab mouse is housed with litter mates, has food, protection from predators, and is significantly less likely to suffer distress or severe pain than a wild mouse. Do you know what rat poison does to an animal? They bleed internally. Not a humane death. And live traps? Most people toss them in the trash when they are full, leaving the animal to die of starvation. Not to mention what a predatory pet will do to a mouse.
So why is life in a lab worse for a mouse than life in a field or house? I don't see that it is. Saying that it's not natural or not free is imposing a human-centric view on the animal: humans care about being free. It's not at all clear to me that mice care. Or have the neural ability to care.
Ha. Ha. Boy, I've never heard that one before.
As soon as you find a broccoli with a nervous system and thus a capacity to feel pain, we can talk.
There does seem to be a extremely misanthropist strain in many of the PETA/anti-research folks, a sentiment that I think is absolutely appalling.
Re: flaq @ #63. This is a serious debate, so I'm not quite sure why you're mocking people who are engaging in it. A key thing to consider is whether animals are suffering as a result of testing. We can reasonably assume that plants (which have no brains and only a very limited ability to sense their environment at all) do not suffer, while we can be much less sure about animals. Most researchers try not to cause the animals they are working with pain, but beyond that they don't seem to put that much care into how the animal is feeling.
Let's face it: until animals can actually tell us how they feel about the way we use them, it is unlikely that most people will be convinced that biological research (or, for that matter, farming animals for meat or other animal-derived products) is wrong.
"So why is life in a lab worse for a mouse than life in a field or house? I don't see that it is."
a quick google search as to why someone would oppose animal testing on mice led me to PETA. they say "To determine the toxic consequences of a single, short-term exposure to a product or chemical, the substance is administered to animals (usually rodents) in extremely high doses via force-feeding, forced inhalation, and/or absorption through the skin. Animals in the highest dose groups may endure severe abdominal pain, diarrhea, convulsions, seizures, paralysis, and bleeding from the nose, mouth, and genitals before they ultimately die"
http://www.peta.org/factsheet/files/FactsheetDisplay.asp?ID=91
News flash for the anti-testing crowd: animal suffering is the standard. Testing is conducted to reduce suffering. There are rules and regulations requiring documentation, accountability, etc. (see #66). Protesting animal research with cosmetics or factory farming is different and, in my opinion much more reasonable- we have more ethical alternatives to some current practices. You can also stop using cosmetics and eating meat. But medical testing is different: it is precisely about reducing death and suffering, which should be taken into account when discussing its ethical implications.
*Gasp*!!
Broccoli are people too!! They Are - They Are - They Are!
I am against obsolete redundancy testing where the outcome is known
So are animal use committees. I just filled out an IACUC form requesting permission to do some (minimally painful) research on mice. One of the questions that took the longest to complete was the question of whether this research had been done before and what steps I had taken to ensure that it was not unnecessary duplication of previous work. No one's spending their time randomly disecting animals to make sure that they haven't grown a new organ system or something.
Rights are a social construct of the society in which they are conceptualized. Take the implied thread of reasoning behind your "inherent rights" philosophy to some sustenance-level society and watch yourself get laughed at by people who think you're totally fucking delusional.
My advice to those who get all whacked over "animal rights" is to get over this "rights" as a product of God/Nature/Whatever construct/delusion you're subscribing too. The first step is to start thinking about where rights come from. Once you've figured out the obvious, Horatio, you get to the next step: what they should be, and then to whom we should apply them.
Not because you loved My Little Pony, fluffy bunnies or even that you're some anti-humanistic, nihilistic, technology-hating Luddite, like my sister's ex-boyfriend. But because you've spent the years necessary to think of a comprehensive philosophy based on reality and not some overwrought understanding of freshmen philosophy, "what is icky," or "bunniez iz zo CUTE!!!"
I have yet to see an animal rights activist refuse to take their insulin (including former PETA brass). It may not be synthesized from animals anymore, but that is where the "cure was discovered". And they even happily used it when it was an animal product. All the evidence I've seen supports the earlier assertion that animal rights is just the anti-abortion of the left. It's only ethical when it's my abortion/required animal-tested medical procedure
tyaddow / #79: "News flash for the anti-religion crowd: God is the standard." I'm willing to discuss benefits from medical testing on animals, but PLEASE don't frame it as "it's the norm, deal." That's so irritating. And for the record, I do avoid companies that do cosmetic-style testing on animals like M&M/Mars and Proctor & Gamble.
One thing that seems overlooked in these debates is that we survive by displacing animals, and by limiting their food supplies, so that many of them must die. Fortunately, they die out of sight of the anti-vivisectionists, so that's all right by most of them.
But if we weren't hogging so much of the land, animals that would die painfully for want of food and habitat, would live. Of course, that's only until the land we now occupy would be taken over by other animals, none of which have the luxury of caring about how they displace and/or kill other animals. Malthus and all that.
Is it the same as factory farms, testing on animals, etc.? No, it is not. However, the notion that somehow animals that we leave alone (or do not displace) would have great lives, instead of most of them dying painfully at the hands of predators, natural disasters, and starvation, is absurd. This is really much more about how certain domesticated animals fare, rather than how animals at large live and die.
So yes, we should not be causing unnecessary pain. But we're always causing pain to the animals who die because we occupy so much of the habitat, just like all successful animals do. Pretending that we're somehow able to rise above the necessity to kill (or set in motion causes which kill) others in order to live is utopian claptrap.
Hence we simply have to balance what we consider to be our duty to treat the domesticated and captive animals against our own felt necessity for living and doing well, which invariably costs other animals their own lives and well-being. Just as success has always exacted high costs from the failures.
There's always something odd, too, about the often bizarre demands that "sentient beings" should be treated as humans are, which demand always fall exclusively upon humans. No one intends to keep the lion from starting to eat the wildebeest while it is still alive. By comparison, lab animals are treated far more humanely, at least by most scientists.
That said, anyone who really thinks their life isn't worth the pain and suffering of currently living animals has an obligation to off themselves with a shotgun, or equally lethal equipment. Only that way will they cease hogging the resources that other animals need to live, at which point some other animal will hog those resources, causing pain and death to other animals.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
jennyxyzzy said "In between, it all gets very murky. But then, that's what we have ethics committees for, no?"
Actually, I don't have a clue what we have ethics committees for. I prefer simple common sense instead. Normally those committees do jackshit to improve the situation (or make it even worse), as demonstrated by Bush, Kass and other Bio-Luddites.
Furthermore they will tend to reflect biased, majority or lobby positions. No, they're not doing any good: common sense does all the good.
Glad I got to cast a vote for NO, as there is no doubt that animal testing is inhumane. Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore. As far as testing concerning human diseases is concerned, better results are likely with human subjects anyway; breed clones and test on those.
Chad, do you really think that PETA is a reliable source? I can't imagine even its most determined supporter calling it unbiased.
my previous comment @71:
Should be: "Do we as a society value other animals more than humans?"
oldtree:
Yes, this is extreme. (Extreme: outside of the normal range by a long way.) Do you think many people will follow you on this path? Please, go to your nearest hospital and ask the patients there if they would prefer to have treatments tested on animals before they are used on them.
Would you be willing to have treatments tried for the first time on a member of your family (or just let them die with palliative care)? If not, you are being hypocritical.
At University (in Canada), before I was allowed to work/observe/test living animals, I was required to take a course on the proper and ethical treatment/handling of the animals.
Also remember, that animals mice/rabbits/rats/pigs, whatever, are bred for that purpose...to be studied. This is not your pet dog or you aunt susie's overweight cat. These are animals bred to be as identical as possible in every way.
I'd hate to think how far we would be behind in medicine without these animals.
Michiel Smit.
" Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore. "
Why don't you guys stop spreading lies, fear, uncertainty and doubt for once? That shit is getting tiresome (and damn it: stop proposing manslaughter instead of animal testing!), it really does remind me of religion.
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/animal_testing/
http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/in_silico/
That's just horrible. I mean it disgusts me beyond all measure. I'm mortified. I'm mortified that there are products or chemicals in Nature that have the ability to make organisms suffer so profusely. It makes me want to gain the knowledge to identify them all so we can avoid their perils.
#63 et al.-
I try not to step on the earth because I don't want to harm any members of the Mineral kingdom.
Glen D @85:
As usual: Very well put.
As an aside to vegans, I hope none of you eat Apples or other orchard fruit from commercial (even organic) orchards. Orchard owners often hire HORRIBLE INHUMANE BEE-ENSLAVING BEEKEEPERS to bring their hive-slaves to PROSTITUTE themselves on the apple blossoms! Apples are exactly as unethical to eat as honey and milk!
No. It's my pet. I paid for it and I own it so I get to choose how it lives it's life. It's a domestic house cat, but more importantly it's my domestic housecat. In return for food, shelter, safety, and access to medicine my cat has a job to do inside my house providing me with company. Sending him off to be researched on would be a violation of my contract with him.
"As far as testing concerning human diseases is concerned, better results are likely with human subjects anyway; breed clones and test on those."
You're for THAT, but testing on animals is inhumane?!
Dianne | April 24, 2009 11:56 AM
Good job, are all labs held to this level of scrutiny?
I was a vegetarian, and then I was diagnosed with diabetes. I now control my blood sugar very well through a low-carb diet (with minimal medication), but that diet includes meat. I don't particularly like meat, and would like to do without it, but I can't argue with the results. I'll return to a vegetarian diet as soon as I feasibly can.
I have a pet cat who, if I had not adopted him, might have been sent to a research lab. Because I have Snark, I am sympathetic to the plight of other cats who have the misfortune to be used in research. If I had a disease that required a vet to perform tests on Snark in order to analyze my disease (perhaps we were both exposed to the same germ or toxic substance in our home), I would agree, even knowing that were the tests fatal I would grieve and miss my kitty, if I was convinced doing the tests was absolutely necessary for me to live.
I feel a strong twinge of remorse when I think about animals used in research, especially ones that can experience something analogous to what humans might experience in a similar situation. As soon as good alternatives can be found, I would like animal testing to stop, just like I would like to stop eating meat once I find a good way to do it. Unfortunately, both are necessary right now.
It's important to realize that it's not "human against animal" here. Animal research is, of course, also done to research animal medicine. There are many, many good cats like Snark who have benefited from the sacrifice of a few cats in research. Snark's vet is also a research scientist, and he loves cats, and I know he does all he can to minimize suffering in both his patients and his research subjects.
So I voted Yes on the poll.
one thing i want to point out is that being "for animal research" is just as silly as being "against animal testing". people should look at things on a case by case basis.
animal research doesnt always bring positive scientific results. polio research was hindered by animal testing. and for years the tobacco industry was able to claim that smoking doesnt cause lung cancer, because they forced dogs to smoke and those dogs did not develop cancer.
look at things on a case by case basis.
overall, im really skeptical of any sort of animal testing. i rarely feel that it is necessary.
oh, someone asked why animal rights folks arnt trying to stop fur farming. they are!
and finally, i dont really know why humans should be valued more than animals. it isnt the ability to feel pain. it isnt the ability to feel emotions. what is it? intelligence? if that is the reason, then would it be OK to test on mentally disabled humans?
Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore.
Fine. Can you describe a reliable, proven method for testing the response of metastatic disease to a new therapy in computer models or live tissue (where did you get the tissue anyway? do you mean cell culture, because if so I've got some bad news for you about how it is grown.)
As far as testing concerning human diseases is concerned, better results are likely with human subjects anyway; breed clones and test on those.
Clones? Excuse me, but CLONES? Are you being sarcastic? Quite apart from the little technical detail (we don't know how to clone humans from adult tissue yet), a clone is just a time delayed identical twin. In what universe is it reasonable to use one of two twins for research without their consent?
Animals taste good.
I agree the notion of "natural" or "free" is naive and sentimental. But I also think it's clear that mice are sentient and have the capacity to feel pain.
I'll be honest -- I am extremely conflicted about the issue of medical research. Because I am an atheist, I don't think that humans have souls or are anything other than another species, one related by evolution and cognitive capacity to other species. And because I have long had pets, and been around other animals (my grandparents ironically ran a beef ranch, so I know cows), I am aware of the capacities and personalities that specific animals have, and the obvious mental life they can possess. And given that I would not want my companion animals subjected to research, I really don't see how I can be ethically consistent and support research on organisms that also possess those qualities.
At the same time, I am a strong supporter of science, and realize that medical research has made vast improvements to human lives, including my own. Regardless of what the anti side says, not doing animal research would impact enormously on medical advances.
All of this is why I don't generally actively promote anti-research activism, and instead concentrate on the far larger issue of animal welfare in the agricultural industry. Whatever negatives there may be to medical research, the animals involved are a drop in the bucket compared to the food industry, and I while it may admittedly be moral cowardice on my part, I am generally content to defer the issue of medical research until the larger issue of agricultural animals has been dealt with.
I just can't get my head around why they are going after science first. The horrors of the meat industry are on a much bigger scale, and for much, less benefit than anything standards in medical research would allow.
Matt Heath @#34,
Personally I think it is because the scientists are a much easier target; the meat industry has legions of lawyers and lobbyists (remember how the beef industry went after Oprah a few years ago for airing a segment on mad cow disease?).
If more people were aware of what really goes on in the meat processing hells in this country, a lot more people would become vegetarians (as I did when I could no longer pretend that it wasn't happening because it wasn't right before my eyes).
MosesZD / #82: Nothing you said applies to me, and it's pretty insulting. I'm neither a nihilistic nor a fluffybunnyist (although bunnies are pretty adorable). I think we all just sort of exist, for no particular reason, and to take advantage of an animal is on par with taking advantage of a human, in that it's a bad idea in a Golden Rule-esque way.
You make no sense at all. I thought the whole rationale for why testing on/eating animals is bad while the same on plants/cells is acceptable because they can't feel. Is there any reason to think that clones would not fall into the former category (and thus be bad) rather than the latter?
"Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore."
Not really, no. Unless you have an ton of supercomputers no one else knows about- no.
Apples are exactly as unethical to eat as honey and milk!
Well than honey anyway. In the case of milk there isn't just the "stealing/exploiting" argument, but also the slaughter of male dairy cattle to consider in any cost-benefit analysis.
In the real world, laws against medical experimentation on animals would simply transfer said experimentation to the poor.
So if you're wealthy, it's ok to oppose animal testing.
"Chad, do you really think that PETA is a reliable source? I can't imagine even its most determined supporter calling it unbiased."
dianne,
i never said peta wasnt biased. of course they are. that doesnt mean their information is incorrect. if you look at the page i linked to, you can see they have references.
are all labs held to this level of scrutiny?
All academic labs in the US are. Beyond that I can't say for sure, having no experience with it. I admit to some concern about what happens to animals in the labs of private companies. Factory farms certainly aren't particularly humane. But I doubt that UCLA lets its faculty torture animals. Even assuming that they want to.
"Chad, do you really think that PETA is a reliable source? I can't imagine even its most determined supporter calling it unbiased."
dianne,
i never said peta wasnt biased. of course they are. that doesnt mean their information is incorrect. if you look at the page i linked to, you can see they have references.
Ok as soon as you stop breeding stoopid! Do you not realize that a cloned human being is basically just like a twin? Why bother cloning!? Why not just abduct school children from India! You are a fool, sir or madam!
chad,
"overall, im really skeptical of any sort of animal testing. i rarely feel that it is necessary."
The proposition stands:
So you're volunteering and brave enough to test drugs, which have never made it into any living organism before? Ok, fine. We'll see how that pans out ;)
Alternatively you could devise a way to test drugs without using model organisms:
"I'm all ear; so is the pharma industry and the Nobel is yours if you solve that case!"
"and finally, i dont really know why humans should be valued more than animals. it isnt the ability to feel pain. it isnt the ability to feel emotions. what is it?"
How about a sense of self-preservation which you are apparently missing? (the stark difference in the level of consciousness is jut a nice addition)
People (and most organism I guess) are programmed to value their lives and the lives of genetically similar individuals more. That conept is not so difficult to grasp both from an evolutionary perspective and from a pragmatical POV.
If you don't value your own life how about joining the "Voluntary human extinction movement"? I will go on living and sacrificing as many animals as humanely necessary for the survival of me and my fellow human beings.
Throw out PETA I throw out this: http://petakillsanimals.com/
As someone above stated - PETA is to the left as abortion is to the right. They are nothing but a wing nut political movement.
I think Glen Davidson was pretty nail hitting on comment 85. I pretty much grew out in the woods. I've seen first hand how the animals live in the wild. I am still flabbergasted how people think that animals in the wild is the greatest thing that could ever happen to them. It's not. It's just life. Most animals don't even get past the first quarter of their life. And for those of you who say "well you could just use simulated cells or computer simulations." You are really no different than the people who say "well you could just use adult stem cells or computer simulations." It's a real obvious lack of knowledge.
It's not a matter of processing power. We just do not know enough to run a simulation of the reactions that are tested via animal testing.
What is all this talk about PETA not liking animals... I thought it meant People Eating Tasty Animals. Unfortunately, the PETA (Nutcases) got wind of this and force the original domain owners to change. The new website is People Ethically Eating Tasty Animals. WWW.PEETA.ORG
"Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore. "
As a programmer of simulations, I'd love for more computer models to be used to determine how likely it would be for a given drug to work on a person, and what kind of side-effects we could expect. But in order to program a better computer model, I'm going to need a lot of data.
Where do you think I'm going to get that data? I'll get it from the results of animal testing. And there is NO WAY my model will ever be as complete as real animal testing will be. I can keep improving it, but I'm going to continuously need new test results to do that. Even if my model is being used on a new drug, the next step is to try it out on some animals, to make sure my simulation wasn't missing some important information (Which it almost always will).
Do you people think computers are magic genies? We can't just scan a person and then simulate all potential biological functions.
@#43: "callous, cavalier attitude toward animal death/suffering in general."
AAAAH!! There is a huge difference between death and suffering, namely, EVERYTHING will die, but suffering is not necessary to life/death. I wish that people would stop equating death with suffering. In fact it eliminates the possibility of it...
I agree that AR are the Anti-Choice-ers of the left. I've seen fora where they will talk about how they "watched another animal abuse video last night - it made me cry".
Ugh. If you want to see some crazy talk (biologists are just sadists for a living and science is a big sadism cover-up! Dairy products are poison! Animal research has yielded no results that apply to me! All meat eaters have 5 pounds of undigested meat rotting in their colon! You can get all the nutrients you need from plants! etc. etc.)go to the craigslist vegan forum and ask some questions.
CORRECTION: I should have said a cloned human being would be>/i> because cloning people isn't something we can even do yet.
@107:
Not only that (I agree with you): Computer modeling is much, much cheaper than real testing, which is why it's so popular. I guarantee you that if computer modeling (or any kind of modeling) was working as well as animal studies, there wouldn't be any animal studies. Fact is that computers can only take you so far (not very far at all) and they are bounded by our knowledge. Therefore, for new knowledge, by definition we must use other methods.
The data being gathered by animal studies is too precise for modeling. That's why it's being done.
"I just can't get my head around why they are going after science first. The horrors of the meat industry are on a much bigger scale, and for much, less benefit than anything standards in medical research would allow."
they're not! i would say that the medical industry is the least targeted, other than cosmetic research folks, and maybe vivisectors. even with them though, i think the great majority of animal rights activism centers around vegan diets and lifestyles.
there have been more vandalism against fur farms than medical researchers.
A lot of people treat their pets like part of the family. Humane treatment for their pets may include surgery, cancer treatments, and even drugs to control separation anxiety. Animals may benefit from medical research, and they can't do that research themselves. At some point practicality has to be inserted into the equation.
On the other hand, animal rights activists have done everyone a service by bringing attention to animals used for research. They've gone too far in some cases. Setting someone's car on fire, or misunderstanding animal behavior in general -- no need to cite the details. Everyone can see the difference between protest and education that works and threatening the life of a researcher.
Glen, #85, thanks for saving me the additional typing time.
Fascinating, a Pharyngula thread that is infested by animal rights people ...
Let's not forget some important aspects here.
"more transparency" - is not gonna happen while researchers cars are still being set on fire. It is unnecessary anyway as regulations are already quite strict. At least in the UK where I have had a course on the law in order to get the personal license for experimentation with animals).
Those "animal rights" guys want to ban all research on animals. Not just the cruel or unnecessary or research involving great apes. It could be reasonable to discuss the nature of the current regulation, if it goes far enough etc. But I would refuse to engage with people who are not going to be satisfied with a reasonable compromise. It is important to send a message that those guys are fanatics and that they support terrorism. And that is exactly what pro-test is about. It is not about promoting unnecessary and cruel experiments. Therefore the only reasonable reaction here is to support Pro-Test.
Well no, but (at least the non-idiots on) the animal-rights side of the debate take the asymmetries into account. Their argument boils down to something like "Ethics is about the duties of beings that can reason towards being that can suffer" so what I do a chicken is covered but what a fox does isn't. I, for one, accept as it stands; hurting things that can suffer is a bad thing morally (if you have enough reasoning that morality applies to you). The badness can be counter-balanced by worse things, and so it's sometimes the least bad thing to do. The hardcore animal-rights types take an absolutist (rather than broadly utilitarian) line on the bad of hurting animals, which strikes me as nuts (but I never understand absolutist positions on anything).
Not “for their cure to have been”? Blissful ignorance?
"People (and most organism I guess) are programmed to value their lives and the lives of genetically similar individuals more. That conept is not so difficult to grasp both from an evolutionary perspective and from a pragmatical POV."
ok, so i can understand that arguement, but being a white male, wouldnt that also make me want to keep white males above the rest of society?
maybe i just have silly morals, but i dont want white males to be above the rest of society and i dont really want humans to be considered more important than other animals.
to take advantage of an animal is on par with taking advantage of a human
Words fail. You are a sick, sick puppy.
It's all about context. I'm okay with some animal testing, but it depends on the purpose of the tests, the protocols used, and on the species involved.
I'm the same with meat consumption; I will eat some species and not others, and the way the animal was raised and killed is very important to me.
On both issues, different people draw their 'line of acceptance' in different places.
Ideally, I'd like to eschew both meat and medicine which was developed using non-human animals. However, I like the taste of meat and I like using the most effective treatments for medical problems. I guess I'm just selfishly putting my pleasure and well-being above the lives of other (sometimes sentient) lifeforms.
The thought of my dogs and cats being used for meat or medical research is appalling to me, though. Oh, what a hypocrite I am.
Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore.
This line makes you a denialist, plain and simple.
I'm not one of the "humanity, fuck yeah!" headbangers saying that any suffering to any non-human animal is worth the tiniest chance of helping people, so believe that I am not flaming you flaming's sake. What you typed and I quoted is very false. Animal testing is done only when those (biologists and medical researchers) who know the most about the subject at hand can convince their peers in the ethics committee it is needed. Claiming without support that you know better makes you sound like the Pope.
Stu / #130: Oh, come on. Quote mining? I went on to clarify that right after the comma: "in that it's a bad idea in a Golden Rule-esque way". To further clarify, taking advantage of animals because we're the current dominant species on Earth isn't "right" because I don't agree with using dominance to take advantage of lesser creature.
Okay, this will not work for many people. We want to understand where genes are expressed during the development of the whole organism. And this is dependent on using the whole organism. Tissue cultures, useful as they are for many things, will never be able to fully simulate the environment of the organism. The interactions between tissues and genes in a given micro environment is what makes the real thing unique. I mean, if someone were to make a culture that simulated all this, it would *be* an organism, by definition.
Because of this, we are forced to use things like In Situ hybridization, where embryos are cut into thin slices to better allow visualization of where antisense RNA binds. To do this, we kill mice, and use their bodies. It is, simply put, necessary for a better understanding of life. I am not proud of it, but neither am I ashamed, as you seem to think I should be. Just as I am not ashamed of eating meat that was culled from an animal. I like animals, but whenever our understanding or well-being crosses purposes with their continued existence, I go with humans.
Not really, chad, because "white males" aren't a species.
It's not about being "more important" as though there was some sort of cosmic ranking. All animals (and all living things for that matter) are driven by a desire to keep their species alive. Why should humans be any different?
Chad, in some senses we're equals. In some we aren't, it's quite impossible to deny. IIRC there's really not much if any genetic difference between blacks and whites [other than the minor phenotypical differences]. In fact, there may be more genetic difference between certain black/white tribes/populations.
More often than not lab animals are treated as well as we can treat them without sacrificing human lives (because we were not able to develop life saving drugs). Going one step further would much mean that we are placing animal lives above human lives rather than equality.
XD, so you'd like to use drugs developed without animal testing? You mean, like, nothing? Nothing and herbs: surely makes for a great cancer [insert other serious disease] treatment! It's not selfish to want to survive.
Um no. A fluffy bunny is not an "other", it is an "it".
Do you drive a car?
Smit @87:
"Glad I got to cast a vote for NO, as there is no doubt that animal testing is inhumane. Nowadays, so much can be done with computer models and live tissue, that it is hardly necessary anymore. As far as testing concerning human diseases is concerned, better results are likely with human subjects anyway; breed clones and test on those."
*squints* *poke*
We really don't need straw men here, there are plenty of reasonable people who know what they're talking about.
Also, voted yes, because of three things:
1) I'm alive, thanks due to some very interesting medical professionals and one kinda crazy mechanical engineer.
2) It is my duty to reduce suffering, and while I disagree that the ends justify the means in all cases, that is not what is being discussed here. Animal experimentation & dissection (as well as human volunteers) does the world a wealth of good.
3) As has been stated before, suffering often skews the data we want anyway. No one here is advocating a study based on "let's see how much this hurts". To NOT control suffering as much as possible is not only cruel, but bad science as well.
"ok, so i can understand that arguement, but being a white male, wouldnt that also make me want to keep white males above the rest of society"
That's simple selfishness.
I am not a vegetarian because I don't approve of the arbitrary line at which vegetarians decide that plants, bacteria, and fungi are not alive enough to deserve to not be killed. Also, if it is acceptable for other animals to kill prey, then it must be acceptable for me to do it as well. The fact that I am advanced enough to learn enough to starve myself to death is irrelevant.
Also, I know that the advances we have made using animal subjects have vastly benefitted both humans and animals and, in some cases, the planet as a whole... at least as we know it to be. Would it be better if we could experiment on voluntary subjects? Yes. But, are these oh-so-sensitive-and-caring-souls willing to volunteer to save grandpa from alzheimer's? No. In such form, suck it.
There are profound regulations on scientific experimentation. There are far fewer limitations on for-profit, non-educational use of animals--as others have mentioned, factory farms, puppy mills, etc. Why? Because, to the people in charge, knowledge is superfluous if we can't use our long lives to suck the marrow from every gram of profitable matter within these three dimensions. When these people stop drinking the antiintellectual kool-aid and instead start actually doing something useful about legislating and enforcing real regulations on commercial animal use, I might start listening to them. In the mean time, the 50 some animals per lab have nothing in common with the millions of animals per acre of agricultural space in this country.
Maybe we should start a new animal rights group... one that doesn't glorify sexual exploitation in their ads or jump off the must-eat-recycled-toilet-paper-so-I-don't-kill-anything-ever cliff and seriously works constructively to develop positive regulations and enhance research so that we can get to a place where we cause less harm. In the mean time, I bet Peta calls Terminix, just like everyone else. Oh, but termites aren't animals, right? They're not cute.
I'm surprised this post has generated so much disagreement.
I'm a longtime vegetarian and sometime vegan who also passionately supports animal testing. While that may mean that I hold contradictory opinions or am a hypocrite, I don't really care. In my view the benefits society gains from animal testing outweighs the costs of the animals' suffering because it leads to much less suffering on the part of humans who would otherwise lack medical care they need. Also it's a great way to learn about how organisms tick, and knowledge is valuable in itself.
it may admittedly be moral cowardice on my part, I am generally content to defer the issue of medical research until the larger issue of agricultural animals has been dealt with.
I don't see how this would be moral cowardice on your part. For one thing, you're taking on the more powerful group--the meat industry has far more effective lobbying, more money, and generally more power, than academia. For another, you're addressing the area where the majority of the suffering occurs, both numerically and amount of suffering per animal. There are far fewer regulations on how an agricultural animal is treated than how a lab animal is treated. Feed lots would never go over in a lab, for example. So overall it seems a reasonable practical compromise that is in no way morally cowardly.
Meth is not Measles.
I'm not sure I'm OK with killing a half dozen monkeys a year to benefit people who choose to get strung out on meth.
Don't folks who die from meth addiction qualify for Darwin Awards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_awards
"That's simple selfishness."
isnt testing on animals all about human selfishness? isnt evolution?
Rev. BigDumbChimp / #137: Rabbits are sentient, feel pleasure and pain, etc, so yeah, they are "others" and not "its". I do drive a car, but I'm not sure why that's relevant. I'm sure you have a "Gotcha!" all queued up, though.
Yes, I would prefer it if I could fix any medical problem I develop with a handful of herbs. Who wouldn't! I realise that's not possible, though.
And I do think that it's selfish to want to survive at the expense of others. But I still do so, because I'm selfish.
Since when does that make rabbits on par with humans? And at what point did you get to decide that "the Golden rule" applies to animals?
Cars smash insects and small animals all the time. What about them?
XD @131:Oh, what a hypocrite I am.
Not really. No one truly lives up what they see as ideal moral standards, consistently and uncompromisingly and those that closest are probably dangerous fanatics. Think about wanting to tell the truth, or being against povery, or, well anything; we try but we end up having to compromise, if for no other reason that sometimes any action or inaction we take will entail some immorality.
That we have to behave completely consistently in line with our stated morals or not have them at all is just a debating trick used by people who want to ignore the moral consequence of things completely.
Some apparently similar ideas are more valid though, I think, such as saying "If your morals were really as you claimed, you'd be concerned with X" to someone who seems to be ignoring X. (Just to avoid claims of inconsistency in my reasoning)
Some people have mentioned ethics boards in passing, but I suppose I like being explicit: an animal researcher can't just bop down to Research-Animals-R-Us, pick up some mice, and start "torturing" them. They need the approval of their institution before doing any animal or human research.
These projects are approved by review boards (Institutional Animal Care & Use Committees for animal research and Institutional Review Boards for human research). The IACUC's members have to have specific backgrounds to ensure that they have the relevant knowledge to judge whether animal use is appropriate - i.e. one of the members must be a veterinarian specializing in the type of animal that will be used for the specific project.
IACUCs are required by law in the United States. This was actually a victory for the animal rights movement (specifically PETA), back when they used to advocate for reasonable things.
Life consumes life. There is no way to survive that isn't at the expense of others in some way.
I believe this is the point where I should bring up the fact that Bacon > all.
"Since when does that make rabbits on par with humans? And at what point did you get to decide that "the Golden rule" applies to animals?
Cars smash insects and small animals all the time. What about them?"
Not to put words in another person's mouth, but perhaps cakexploder feels that there is value in attempting to minimize the amount of suffering one causes to other living beings. Minimizing does not mean eliminating, as that is impossible. A person can decide to do their best not to cause pain to other living beings such as rabbits, but that person will be unable to keep themselves from eating spiders in their sleep, for instance. There is no reason to make the perfect the enemy of the good here, except as a rhetorical device.
All animals (and all living things for that matter) are driven by a desire to keep their species alive. Why should humans be any different?
Seriously? You're putting the Social Darwinist style "is = ought" as blatantly as that?
#141
I would say that was reasonable: for any human, eating meat is about deriving pleasure, while animal testing is about alleviating pain.
"I believe this is the point where I should bring up the fact that Bacon > all."
Even as a vegetarian, I must admit that this is a true statement.
I'm going mushroom hunting in a couple of hours and there is a real possibility that I will come home with a deer tick imbedded, I would rather testing be done to develop a cure or vaccine for Lyme's disease than suffer the consequences and no you can't have any mushrooms.
So all in all, I too am pro-test, Pro-test if test is logical.
Anon @ 134 - What sort of qualifications do you have to write off all addiction as a simpler personal failing, ignoring the biological, psychological, and sociological factors that influence addiction?
Prosciutto > Bacon
My stance on animal experimentation is simple: It is a "necessary evil."
By "necessary" I mean that while it is undesirable, we allow it because we will have worse problems if we don't. War is another example of a "necessary evil." So is abortion. It's not that we "want" these things and delight in them (dead animals/babies, YAY!), it's that there is a pressing need for them.
Rev. BigDumbChimp / #147: I get to decide it because it's my own personal point of view. In this situation I'm putting rabbits on par with humans because they have the capacity to suffer like we do. Just because we're bigger doesn't give us an excuse to be jerks about it.
And, like I've already stated a few times, these opinions apply to sentient beings. Insects don't feel pain, so I don't particularly care if I take out a few. I'd like to preserve them for the sake of the overall ecosystem, though. I make every effort to avoid animals, and if I were to kill one accidentally I would feel bad about it just like I would if I killed accidentally in ANY method.
*sniff* - I smell bacon. Did someone say bacon? *sniff* *sniff* *sniff* - there it is. BDC @151. Why oh why man?! Now I'm hungry. But as a heathen atheist, I prefer baby back ribs smothered in baby oil. Mmmmmmmm.
Matt Heath - that symbol at the end of the sentence is a question mark. I would like to know why cakexploder believes humans should be held to different standards than other species.
Nice attempt to poison the well with "Social Darwinism" though.
As a non-life scientist, I'd like to comment on a few of the arguments that I've seen.
1) as to the arguments "I'm willing to be anti-bunny in order to be pro-human" - please demonstrate the inherent value of human life over any other. personally, I've always thought that the line from Aliens, "you don't see them fucking each other over for a percentage," was awfully descriptive of our species. we are the only species capable of what I define as evil, and we seem a bit fond of it at times as well.
2) as to the argument "would you prefer exchanging animal testing for manslaughter" - human subjects have something that animals cannot give: informed consent. that makes humans who provide informed consent fair game, and animals who cannot provide that consent not fair game. now when we are talking about organisms which show no arguable signs of sentience, I get less squeamish. but where sentience is at least arguable, I prefer to err on the side of caution.
3) for the argument "would you like to watch your child die of the measles" - would you like to get word that your cousin died of hypothermia? maybe we should use some of Mengele's data in order to improve cold weather gear and medical treatments. as someone who is at least light-heartedly rooting for a superflu, I do not acknowledge and fail to see proof of any inherent value in any human life. if a human that I have chosen to be attached to suffers and or dies, I will be sad. However, I do not see how harming another innocent (incapable of informed consent is equal to innocent) life is justified in assuaging my feelings.
4) finally, regarding the comment that biologists are up to their ears in regulations and monitoring: that is as it should be. I am not an absolutist on the subject of animal testing, but I do think that you should have to demonstrate the lack of viable alternatives before you take the chance of harming a sentient being. I think that a real need must be demonstrated as well. it's a lot easier for me as a scientist in a field where living organisms are not involved, but I didn't choose biology.
Dammit, Rev! What's with all these food posts? You're making me hungry.
So do you put a human life on par with a non human sentient being's life?
And who said anything about being jerks about it? I don't prefer animal testing out of some need to feel superior or inflict pain. I prefer animal testing because of its efficacy.
Natalie. If it's an actual question, I retract what I wrote. I promise I honestly read as rhetorical question, which made it genuinely seem very Social Darwinism like ("It happens in nature so we can do it to, can't we?") and I wasn't trying to poison the well. My apologies.
Just a word on this whole notion of computer simulations taking the place of experimentation. Having worked with both computational models and animal models, I can honestly tell you that computer simulations cannot replace animal experiments. Just as in physics, biological theory (aka modelling) plays a complimentary role to experiment. Modelling is useless without exerpimental results to compare the output of your model to.
Natalie / #162: Because we're in a different situation than they are. Animals kill because they need to in order to survive. We don't need to. Granted, it follows that animals don't have the knowledge and ability to cure diseases, and we do. Like I said in my very first comment, this is a tricky issue, and I think there are probably situations where a few animal lives can save a ton of human ones, and those situations need to be considered. That doesn't mean all, or most, animal testing is necessary.
To give you an idea of exactly how out of touch with reality they are...consider this.
Animal rights groups have recently threatened Drosophila researchers because they have this insane notion that these guys are torturing flies.
Right now, I have more than 60 insects immersed in alcohol right in front of me. Everybody else in the room is in the same situation.
I'm surrounded by pinned insects which are stored with napthalene to ward off dermisteds.
These guys are nuts, and really have no idea what the research they're protesting is.
I can't speak for anyone else, but my point in bringing up existing regulations is that several people left earlier comments implying or outright stating that researchers do not have to do these things. I think the average non-life scientist isn't aware of the requirements to do animal research - I know I wasn't until I read one of Orac's blog posts about animal testing.
MattH uses soap! Microorganism murderer! When will your animal-centric bigotry end? Why won't anyone think of the microorganisms?!!! Don't we all have a right to life?
Well you could not drive and avoid any accidental killing of any sentient beings such as squirrels, birds and oh rabbits. And while you are at it stop supporting any companies that use motorized transportation for any of their goods. After all these are just products you could do with out and you know for sure some animals are being harmed and killed in either their production or transportation by accident or not.
And it's not like the animals are being used to actually save lives. It's just some produced goods you could do without. It seems pretty selfish to knowingly support the possible accidental killing of any animals, especially for everyday products.
freak - your #3 seems hopelessly confused.
You seem to be saying that a given human life has no value outside of the attachment you grant it through a social relationship. This is weird enough. But then you go on to say that an innocent animal life is valuable. Is the innocent animal life valuable in itself, unlike human life?
To echo Natalie: I'm not sure what the criminal penalties are for conducting animal research without getting IACUC approval. However, I can say for certain that doing so would end a researcher's career. A The results of a protocol that was not IRB approved would not be published in any respectable journal and any researcher who worked without IACUC approval would be ineligible for funding. Forever.
@#148
True. I don't beat myself up about not living up to my ideals, but where food is concerned, I do try. I try to avoid meat which has come from animals which have not been treated like animals (i.e. that have been treated like meat). For instance, I'll buy free-range chicken with a relatively clear conscience, but I'll avoid non-free-range chicken because I know of the conditions they are raised in. It means that I can afford less meat in my diet, but that is, I'm sure, a good thing.
However, that is only possible because of labeling. I would very much like all medicines to be labeled with the animals they have been tested on, and in what way. I realise that this is not practical, though I guess I could look consult the primary research and find out that way.
Would I, though? Probably not.
:-(
Matt Heath, my bad as well - I guess we both jumped to conclusions.
Cakexploder:
I'm quite perplexed about this statement, considering that we're talking about life saving medical research here. How is that not killing other things to survive? Is it just because there are lots of humans or what?
Rev. BigDumbChimp: It depends on the circumstances. If we're talking Sophie's Choice, I'll go with the human. If we're talking about experimenting on an animal when that test isn't terribly necessary, or when there are other methods that may be less efficient but don't require killing animals, leave the animals alone. Efficacy alone isn't a good enough reason for me.
Oh but I'm afraid you are incorrect. And I'd be happy to tell you why right now.
I am a lover of all pork products, especially prosciutto. But bacon is a much more versatile product. Prosciutto is an amazing product, along with Jamon Serrano, Jamon Iberico and some small farm produced American hams but it has a limited usage profile where the mighty bacon has a near limitless possibility of usage. I would never give up either but if I had to pick it would be nicely artisinal made (or made myself) side of bacon any day.
Rev, don't forget the small mammals that die during grain harvesting! Grains are not as vegetarian as most people think.
Define isn't terribly necessary please.
I wonder what those people with terminal diseases or debilitating diseases think about efficacy.
Steven @51. Link for thunderf00t video gave me this "The URL contained a malformed video ID."
Please demonstrate the equality.
#169
The best story I heard was about some animal rights activists who liberated all the mink from a mink-farm in the New Forest national park (UK). The mink then went on to devastate the local wildlife for many miles around.
D'oh!
Cakexploder & Chad, if you want medical research to continue, there must be a point where a drug is first introduced into a living system. That living system is either humans or animals.
Are you volunteering to have an unknown potential medicine injected into you, without having an idea of its toxicity and potential untoward reactions? If not, I see you as hypocrites. Otherwise, start lobbying for programs where humans are the first test subjects for new drugs, with yourself and others with the same morals as the first testees. Put up or shut up, but in either case stop your whining.
Natalie / #176: Did you read the rest of my comment? I was making a whole point there.
Rev. BigDumbChimp: I should also probably not walk anywhere, lest I accidentally trip and fall upon a helpless animal. Heck, I probably shouldn't even go outside, I could get stuck by lightning or fall down a well!
Being vegan is not a black-and-white absolute, it's a constant effort to avoid animal exploitation as much as possible. I drive carefully and eat locally and avoid companies that do animal testing as much as possible. I accept that I sometimes do things that might bring harm to animals, and that's okay! It doesn't mean I can't have an opinion or philosophy. Who's perfect?
So, I should probably focus on work now. Cover for me, animal pals!
When animals can get together in autonomous societies to demand the cessation of animal testing, I'll support it 100%. Up until that point, I am foursquare in favour of animal testing (I like antibiotics and the surgical techniques that have kept me alive), and I think the people who are trying to draw equivalences between humans and animals -- and saying we're no different than they are -- are delusional.
#172
I'd be curious to know what an animal rights activist would do if he/she mortally injured an animal while driving. Would they stop the car, go back and break it's neck (i.e. the right thing to do), or would they just drive on, leaving the animal to die a slow and painful death?
Or do they all ride bikes?
Excuse me while I go and make a bacon sandwich*.
*seriously
Several friends of mine participated in the original Pro-Test rally here in Oxford (I would have done so too, but I was away on an OTC exercise). I fully support the cause.
freak, nice try
add 2)
You do know that informed consent is an illusion? Most people testing drugs don't understand all (if any) risks involved. Phase I testers probably need the money, but if you start to give really dangerous stuff to humans and pay even more money (let's ignore the fact that no company could pay the costs for now) to make up for the risks, you will get more testers, less informed consent: poor people who need the money; greedy people; stupid people; naive people. And a lot of collateral damage.
It's not about conset either way. No one's consent needs to be involved for a choice to be right. Do you ask unconscious people and toddlers for their consent first or do you perform everything necessary as to maximise well-being of the majority? Consent is no prerequisite.
Do you know what would happen to those animals in the wild? They would die a much more miserable way. (read #85 by Glen Davidson)
We can tell from common sense that people WILL die if we test that stuff on humans, while otherwise animals WILL die. Whether any of that happens with or without "informed consent" is of minor importance.
add 3)
Similarly to point 2. Let's forget 'assuaging' and all the hypocritical and unimportant crap for now. If you don't want to test on innocent animals you simply exchange their lives for the lives of innocent humans, whether you do it in the passive or active tense, with or without "informed consent" won't change the fact. Whether you do it in the passive ("they were killed [as in animal testing]") or active ("they 'willingly' choose to die or risk their lives ['informed consent' of those testers]") tense makes no difference.
You couldn't even pay that many human volunteers to perform enough toxicity tests. So what could you do instead? Computer testing? Stop developing drugs? Or develop useless and dangerous drugs? (this time around killing completely innocent people, like your children dying from measles, *without* their consent, who could live if drugs were developed)
Posted by: Natalie | April 24, 2009 1:02 PM
Anon @ 134 - What sort of qualifications do you have to write off all addiction as a simpler personal failing, ignoring the biological, psychological, and sociological factors that influence addiction.
I don't know about Anon, but I have personally been addicted to meth and when I realized it was rotting me from the inside out, I quit.
It wasn't easy but it's an easy call when your farts start smelling like severally putrified flesh.
I didn't need any monkeys to be killed.
No Darwin Award for me.
Doesn't really address my point but that's fine, I'll get to in shortly.
Yes and if it came across like I was trying to suggest you shouldn't have an opinion then I'm sorry, that is not my intent. My intent is to try and show some places I find some issues with it.
For example, I understand how vegans work (to some extent). I lived with a couple vegetarians that turned vegan and I remain good friends with them to this day (along with a bunch of other vegans and veggies.. a product of me following the dead for many years I guess), so I don't have a problem with them. It is when they start saying thing that just don't follow logic that gets me.
Above you say "I accept that I sometimes do things that might bring harm to animals, and that's okay". Fine, that is a reasonable way to look at it. However, you are okay with your accidental harming of animals but have a problem with testing on animals that could and does save lives every single day. And you have a problem with using efficacy as a reason when there are people that have been waiting for some help to lessen or end their suffering for their entire lives and animal testing can and does lead to that in many many cases.
TO me that is a bit hypocritical, selfish and incongruousness way of looking at it.
And that is ok. I am all of the above descriptions in many things that I do. But when they are pointed out to me I try to be as open to the possibility as possible (and find myself not being so at times as well).
Let me rephrase something.
I don't claim to understand how vegans work. That is a stupid way to phrase what I meant.
I am familiar with many of the arguments of vegans and how some live according to what they believe.
I in no way want to come across like I am the all knowing meat eater who has a grasp on all vegans.
That is stupid.
and sometimes I am stupid. It happens.
We're all monkeys!
@#160
Actually insects can feel pain. Drosophila larva recoil and curl upon being pricked with a needle. Some mutants do not react indicating they have a mutation in a sensory nerve.
So where really can you draw the line?
Here's the challenge: would you support this kind of testing on orphaned human children who were cognitively equivalent to monkeys? Suppose the children have some kind of mental deficiency that makes them cognitively equivalent to monkeys. Suppose also that they are expected to live the for as long as monkeys are expected to live, etc, etc. In other words, suppose that the *only* difference between the monkeys and the children were a difference in species. Would you then support this kind of testing on the children? If not, but you would support this kind of testing on animals, then it seems that you think *species* alone is a morally relevant difference. But is *species* any more morally relevant than, say, *race*? If so, why?
These are not rhetorical questions. I really want to know what people think about them. (And please, no squirly answers like: there is no mental deficiency that makes human children cognitively equivalent to monkeys. Yeah, ok, maybe. But suppose there were. What then?)
RBDC @ 192, you're obviously self-correcting, as well.
You are the scientific method.
OKAY ONE MORE.
Rev. BigDumbChimp / #191: When it comes to animal testing, my basic philosophy is that more transparency would be helpful, because not all tests and situations are equal. There are undoubtedly situations where animal testing is the only option, and the result has substantial benefit to the human race, and I don't think I can argue with that. That doesn't mean there aren't other tests that could be avoided. I feel testing should be judged on a case-by-case basis - and while I know there are advisory boards and strict guidelines, I'm pretty sure my personal beliefs on the subject are significantly more strict. Hence, the issue at hand.
Ending this on a positive note, I'm glad we can both agree that we are both hypocrites and are both open to hearing about and discussing points of view that are different from our own. At least we're not religious, eh? :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eM1-fl_Nu3o
How can you support this kind of monkey torture!?
I am so glad that these all of those brave researchers stood up to Pro-test. Why should we have our lives threatened while we work to save their (AR people) lives?
A few notes from a real-life animal researcher:
1) To the best of my knowledge no one uses shelter animals for scientific research anymore. We don't want them. They might have diseases, and more to the point, they're an outbred population, so we don't know anything about their genetics. This makes the results much less meaningful. So, Numb3rs, Fringe, thanks for showing that AR terrorists are crazy, but really, no one uses dogs, or cats if they can avoid it. Also, no lab is going to have 1 of a dozen species. That's just dumb.
2) I don't think people understand the power of an IACUC. That committee can end your research in a heartbeat, and you're out on the street without a job. They want 4 mice to a cage rather than 5? You shift ass to move those mice right this nanosecond. You want to add a new treatment to your protocol? Say, a very slightly different variant of the virus you are currently using? You damn well better do a full literature search and prove that it is necessary, and that no one else has done this. There is no repeating experiments.
3) Vivisection: I do not think that word means what you think it means. No body is cutting open live, awake animals. That's just sadistic. There is dissection, on a dead animal, or surgery.
4) Don't like animal research? I'll have all your vaccinations back, thanks. You give one example of a vaccine that wasn't great in animal testing and I can give you 5 that were only discovered by working in animals.
5) My work is in HIV vaccines and mice. To all the people who suggest that we only use tissue culture (no as animal free as you think!) I will tell you of an early HIV vaccine. It worked very well on cells, but when tried in non-human primates it gave some subjects HIV. Would you rather they have used non-human primates, or people?
As for why no one protests factory farms, well, ranchers often carry guns to protect their herds, and facotry farms are far from the public eye, so there's no one to show off to at the chicken farm. Also, livestock isn't cute. And of course there's the fact that researchers will try to argue and convince you that they are not evil (eternal optimists, as we see here), where many farm workers plain don't care.
While I abhor violence, and it enrages me when ALF people fire-bomb researchers, let this be warning: if you threaten the lives of me or my mice, I will defend myself with a fire extinguisher. Stay the hell away from my babies.
You mean primates. You're only a monkey if you're a Happy Monkey.
This is the first time I have been on the other side of a poll on Pharyngula. I absolutely DO NOT support animal testing. It is inhumane for the most part, and even if it is humane, we still have no right to perform tests on creatures. If we performed similar tests on humans with consent, or the inhumane even WITH consent, we would get in serious trouble. Animals have right too. Their intelligences may be "inferior" (a very subjective term), but they are still sentient and are by no means to be killed , pain or no pain. Not only that, drug tests performed even on our "closest biological relatives" are still quite inaccurate.
You mean primates. You're only a monkey if you're a Happy Monkey. I've seen the case made that it makes sense to call apes (such as ourselves) "monkeys". We are more closely related to old-world monkeys than new-world monkeys are after all.
Mack: I'm interested in hearing more about this, whether it's just an instinctual reaction or if insects are actually aware of the situation at hand. Do you happen to have any links to more info?
Bobwama, are you on a list to be a testee in place of a rat for the initial dosing of a new drug? That is what gives you the real moral superiority. If not, it makes you immoral.
Here is an example of a perfectly ethical animal experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ7J7UjsRqg&feature=PlayList&p=CE0073CB3…
Alex & Heath, PZ just posted a video explaining why yes, we are monkeys. The reason is traditional taxonomy is not as good at meaningfully explaining relationships as cladistics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6TEDuDD3Zs
Posted by: Jeffrey Goins | April 24, 2009 1:49 PM
We're all monkeys!
I was going to mention this.
Just last week PZ posted a vid of some fast talking scientist making this exact point.
Glad not to have Measles and I'm OK with animal testing for vaccines ,but meth.???
"Speed Kills" has been around since the 60's. It's a choice ,and one that can earn you a Darwin Award unless you smarten up.
Who gets to make that decision? Animal rights groups or actual scientists who can show the benefit of the testing?
Right and while your beliefs have merit in that they are your beliefs they hold no more weight scientifically than someone else.
How about instead of testing on animals, we test on all the violent criminals we have in prison instead? They're not paying back their debt to society by sitting in their cells all day, shanking their fellow inmates with plastic knives or hiding drugs up their bum. This would be a good use for them.
JustaTech wins for most informed and well-written post in this thread. One free internet for you.
Cakexploder,
It was presented at a talk I went to. I'll look for the reference for you, but it might be a bit because I'm busy at work.
I think the British used similar logic to justify colonialism...
I'd certainly want to be able to do the former (and hope to overcome my inherent squeamishness). Heck, I'd hope that if I were truly "mortally injured", someone would do the same for me.
As a pet lover who has been present when several of his gravely ill pets have been euthanized, I think I get a pass on this one.
Bobwama: Not only that, drug tests performed even on our "closest biological relatives" are still quite inaccurate.
No. I'm sorry to repeat myself, having addressed this to someone else, but no. You cannot have this argument. Unless you have good reason to claim you know better about what is needed to tell us about a particular subject than the consensus of scientists working full time on that subject (hint I doubt you do), you can not have this argument. Assuming you know more than the experts is not OK when Jenny McCarthy does it and it's not OK when you do it. The test won't be infallible but they only happen when the people that know what they are talking believe they are the most accurate thing available. You have to bite the bullet that life-saving knowledge will go undiscovered because of what you are supporting.
@Cakesploder #160: "Insects don't feel pain, so I don't particularly care if I take out a few. "
So would you approve of me sedating a cow before killing it instantly, as long as there's no pain involved? Just asking.
This line of reasoning would not hold up if it were framed as a classic struggle of life and death. If it came down to you and a lion in the wilderness. Let's see your definition of living in harmony then.
@ #195
That's an interesting thought puzzle, and it doesn't have a simple answer. I think we can make a broad statement that almost everyone would agree that the idea of experimenting on your monkey-humans is abhorrent. I think that this is because we recognize that there is something that makes a human a human over and above cognitive ability, and it's hard to pinpoint what that something is. Obviously a human is a human based on it's descent, but that doesn't seem quite good enough, does it?
Why not you? Anything less is hypocritical.
@Bobwama (#201)
Ergo, we must all become vegetarians, because if we ate humans - even with consent - the way we eat other animals, we would get in serious trouble. For that is called "cannibalism," and is in fact frowned upon in most societies.
Why? I've done the same exact thing with my pets. Did so with my 12 year old Black Lab just this past October. But that doesn't really change what was asked especially considering you have an emotional tie to your pets, but not necessarily to some random squirrel or bird or rabbit.
Cakexploder,
I found the reference quicker than I thought. It actually is gene for an ion channel, but the point still stands. The gene is called painless. I added the reference info in case I mess up the link.
Tracey et al. Cell. 2003 Apr 18;113(2):261-73.
Go to http://dx.doi.org/ and insert the following:
doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(03)00272-1
@ 215
The problem with the animal rights movement IS the idea that animals have rights. Now, I'm a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian because I think I have a moral obligation to reduce the amount of suffering that I cause in the world, whether that is in regards to other people, to animals, to insects, whatever. But I see this as a moral obligation that I have because I am superior to animals - I am a thinking being with the ability to make moral choices. Because I take this approach, I don't really see a problem with animal testing at all, and in fact I am strongly in favor of it. But once you start handing out rights to animals, you are prevented by that from making utilitarian choices about things like animal testing.
Psst! All us primates are busting out
tonight at 11:30. Pass it on.
win!
@cakexplder # 203 : "Mack: I'm interested in hearing more about this, whether it's just an instinctual reaction or if insects are actually aware of the situation at hand. Do you happen to have any links to more info?"
What? I thought pain WAS "just" an instinctual reaction. Pretty sure that everything that insects do is just instinctual.
I just learned last year that among vegans there is a debate as to whether or not it's ok to eat honey. Because you're stealing from the bees. There's also the "you're stealing eggs from chickens" thing that I've heard . Well, those chickens are stealing shelter, food and protection from predators from my in laws! Damn thieving chickens!
PZ, I must say that you are not doing nearly enough to build a concise and reasonable position on this topic.
Arguments such as "The study of Biology relies on these tests.", or "We, scientists, have good intentions." are utterly unconvincing. I support animal experimentation, but I would not accept such arguments in any circumstance. I would prefer the crude honesty of acknowledging that to the scientists involved in animal research, the value of the information extracted from these studies outweighs the value of the lost lives.
Being a vociferous supporter of rational thought, It is your duty to clarify the underlying foundations of your position on visceral issue to your profession.
koan0215, thanks for the thoughtful response! I agree, it really doesn't seem like enough.
Just to let some people know how things are done in the UK ...
If I inject tumor cells into a mouse and that mouse develops a tumor, then there are very specific rules about how big these tumors are allowed to grow. The handlers of the mice are trained to recognize the species specific signs for pain (changes in behavior, fur, weight etc.). If the mice show any signs of suffering (the animals have to be inspected quite regularly or you loose your license) then the experiment has to me terminated (without any pain).
Only in very special cases when the benefit for humans is very big and the chances of success are very high and if there is really no other way will you see experiments that demand more suffering than this (I don't think this really ever happens in cancer research but quite possibly in other fields).
If you perform surgery on an animal they have to be anesthetized and if they show very strong signs of pain after waking up, then the experiment has to be terminated.
As a meat-eater myself I cannot see how this approach is any way more immoral or worse than eating meat.
I am sure there are many lunatics out there who think that they could convince the whole world to go vegetarian, but does any rational person take them seriously ?
@221
Precisely.
The moral choice of performing these types of tests benefits all organisms in the end. A beast will kill for itself. Performing tests in the effort of curtailing, curing, or eradicating suffering and disease for groups of creatures is a completely different story. Trying to apply the concept of equal rights in that scenario is like trying to apply the concept of kindness to an apple.
"Trying to apply the concept of equal rights in that scenario is like trying to apply the concept of kindness to an apple."
This is the best summary of Peter Singer I've ever read :D
He has done so. No animal testing, no biological/medical progress. Period. What part of that don't you understand?
I have a question to all you "animal testing is inhumane" people. Is it still inhumane if the testing is in favor to the animals, such as veterinary care or bringing back animals on the verge of extinction or animals struggling with bacterial and viral infections? What I'm getting from most of you is "DON'T DO IT, YOU'RE BEING SELFISH!" Is it still selfish for people who are working specifically towards the good of animals who can be benefited by these results?
I'd also want to point out something that has been brought up before. You are concerned enough about domesticated animals to stop eating meat, okay we got that. Are you going to stop taking medicine and vaccines that were derived from animals or animal testing? Are you also concerned enough with wild animals that you pledge never to have children that would take up more of of the animals natural resources?
I agree with flag (#10) but I would change it slightly.
"It's inhumane by definition but I still support it as long as the research is actually important"
This is not exactly a black and white issue where all animal research is justifiable and provides us with tangible medical benefits or vice-versa.
To anyone who says they refuse medical treatments tested on animals (virtually all useful medicine), would you refuse on behalf of your child? And how does this make you any better then those religious crazies who refuse western medicine and treat their diabetic child with acupuncuture or faith healing? I think you are the immoral ones. No question.
I deplore the need for animal testing, I like animals and agree it's sad. That doesn't mean the alternative is any better.
GODWIN yay! I'm not the one going around saying I'd never use drugs that were tested on animals. By the way, you sanctimonious windbag, do you think for a second that we don't use all that research that was gotten from various experiments on people in the past? Let's forget about the Nazis for a second and think about the research conducted right here in the US on human beings in mental instituitions, poor minority communities, schoolchildren. I don't condone it, but then I also don't go around saying I'd rather people die than see the benifit from it.
So smart people should be allowed to kill the stupid?
Perhaps I misunderstood the purport of the question -- I thought it was asking whether I was a naive egocentric "animal lover" who didn't want to personally be involved in killing animals. I have no problem killing animals under the appropriate circumstances -- when they are needlessly and irreparably suffering, when they threaten the life of someone, etc. Of course, I would include "people" in that definition of "animal"...
I think the South used a similar argument, but regarding different entities. As has been argued here in a different context, it's not an argument to say something isn't true because you don't like the consequences it produces. Argue the claim, not the consequence.
For what it's worth, I think "rights" talk isn't necessarily all that helpful, but largely because I think the notion of "rights" in general is problematic philosophically. I think it's simpler instead to reason from what qualities we think people have that are morally relevant, and see if animals also possess those. For example, apes are very similar to humans in terms of the cognitive abilities, and in many ways are more capable than, say, a severely mentally delayed human. So I think we should not do to apes what we wouldn't do to the mentally retarded.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM | April 24, 2009 2:40 PM
It is your duty to clarify the underlying foundations of your position on visceral issue to your profession.
He has done so. No animal testing, no biological/medical progress. Period. What part of that don't you understand?
It's just not that simple...
Do you really think we should be killing monkeys to to benefit people dumb enough to do meth when everyone knows that "Speed Kills"
And you bring a stupid emotional laden example up to a rational debate? I would rather test it on you as a lower form of sentient life. But then, since you wouldn't volunteer/give informed consent being the craven coward you are, there must be some other method. So it's either you or the monkeys. Make up your mind and live with the consequences.
Wha? That is not what I was implying. How did you get there? Just skimming?
God lord this issue makes we want to tear my hair out.
I've been a vegetarian for over a decade and only use cosmetics/cleaners/etc. that have a *Not Tested on Animals* label but I use modern medicines and I can't begin to imagine the number of human lives saved by medical testing on non-humans. It's a question of sacrificing the few for the many in the case of animal testing, but I believe the critters in question should be treated with as much respect as possible.
Apes I can't quite make up my mind on. The mental prowess and capability for emotions, i.e. suffering and fear, that these animals exhibit make testing on them akin to testing on human children.
As much as I despise animal testing, as i despise any act of abuse, it is currently a necessary evil.
Have to say though, I'm pleased that your readers aren't a bunch of yammer-heads PZ. Loving the dissent.
Now you are sounding as if that's the only research animal testing you have ever seen done. Wow, you should watch that because that sounds amazingly stupid. People get addicted to lots of different things. Do you drink coffee, Alcohol, Smoke cigarettes, eat sweets? You say it's not that simple so don't simplify it.
Boy am I disappointed. There's a world of difference between being "pro-test" and "pro-vivisection"! I am completely disgusted that you would use "anti-vivisectionist" as some sort of condescending insult.
It's just not that simple...
Do you really think we should be killing monkeys to to benefit people dumb enough to do meth when everyone knows that "Speed Kills"
I hope the irony of that statement was deliberate.
Not any more than stupid people should be allowed to kill the smart. Is the lion stupid or smart for wanting to eat you? Is the human stupid or smart for running away? Is the human stupid or smart for killing the lion that wants to kill him? I submit the human is both smart and moral for seeking cures as ethically and compassionately as possible using whatever means, without betraying our humanity or our station as the curators of the planet.
If we find a way to help solve addiction...
100% yes
But I echo people above me. Please, if you are going to argue for one side try to not sound like a gigantic dumb ass when doing it. There are plenty of arguments what have reasonable backing on non the testing side, yours is not one of them.
A few notes from a real-life animal researcher:
1) To the best of my knowledge no one uses shelter animals for scientific research anymore.
Very, very happy to hear that. I was naive in my comment above, I admit it. Thank you (and others) for clarifying.
speaking of sounding like a dumb ass typois galore above
"There are plenty of arguments that have reasonable backing on the non testing side, yours is not one of them."
sheesh
Alex, in response to "Animals have right too. Their intelligences may be "inferior"...", you wrote:
I thought you were essentially making a "might makes right" (or "smart makes right") argument. Was that not the case? If not, perhaps you can clarify your point.
Bobwama: "This is the first time I have been on the other side of a poll on Pharyngula."
About the first time for me, too.
At 240
The story was about J. David Jentsch,...who jacks monkeys up on meth and then kills a few.
And claims no suffering ...Meth is a corrosive chemical that rots you from the inside out.
It's like killing monkeys to try and figure out why people do fatally stupid things.
They are being selected via their stupidity to die.
the very definition of a Darwin Award.
#235:
For me, the morally relevant qualities are the ability both to conceive of and carry out medical research, and to make ethical decisions about the appropriateness of such research. We have those abilities; animals do not. Therefore the burden is on us to make the necessary decisions and carry out the research deemed ethically acceptable. The fact that animals are incapable of giving informed consent does not absolve us of our obligation to advance medical and veterinary science; quite the opposite: we must do it because they can't.
@ 235
Please don't use hyperbolic analogies as argumentation. It's a cheap way to score a point and really doesn't do anything to move the debate forward. No ones is arguing that the smart should be able to kill the stupid (between humans) or that Jim Crow laws have anything to do with any of this. This type of argument is no different from blaming the holocaust on Darwin.
I don't think that I was arguing the consequence, but let's leave that aside. As to arguing the claim, well that's a good idea, especially since I'm always open to the possibility that I'm wrong!
Here's the thing. I don't find doctrines of right problematic at all when it comes to humans. In point of fact I'm not sure you do either, given that when you say that we should look for morally relevant qualities, it seems to me that what you are looking for is a basis for rights-extension. I'm doing the same thing when I talk about why I think humans, as a species, are superior to animals rights-wise. You want to extend those rights to apes, it seems, because you see morally relevant qualities in apes that are similar to those of disabled humans. I would say that the average ape does not have the same moral quality as the average human, and looking at outliers of humans isn't helpful. This is not to say that we should treat disabled humans like apes when it comes to rights, but that we shouldn't treat apes like they have the right of disabled humans. Why? Partly because species is a useful brightline here, and partly because I don't really think that comparison holds much water. That said, when it comes to deliberately causing suffering to any living being, one has to approach that problem from a strictly utilitarian point of view, or you end up not being able to say anything of use.
That last sentence should have said "when it comes to deliberately causing suffering to any non-human living being...
As PZ as often mentions, these polls are unscientific. Let's hope noone in LA takes the PZ-er's poll conquest as "real".
Torture is torture... I don't agree to human torture nor animal torture. It causes extreme pain, IMO it is not necessary.
If you make such a distinction between animals and humans, you approach religious beliefs... god(s) gave human dominion, god(s) made man smarter, man is the "chosen" and mighty, man is "sentient" and animals are not... this shows how much religion sneaks into even atheists lives.
By luck and mutations and evolution, whatever, we are here at the top of our food chain but we have no supernatural pre-destination to cause such horrible suffering to animals. And in fact, we have obtained something called "empathy" - instead of ignoring that with "Me-human, me top, me can torture animals" we could actually use that empathy we've inherited.
If superior aliens ever reach Earth and start torturing humans for their benefit, I'll be out there with my picket sign "No human experimentation!".
I'm offended by the callous, blatantly kingdomist attitude being expressed here. Plants are living things too!
You're not the only one. Boulder Vegetable Rights Association
This is one issue I really can't decide on. If we have to do these horrible things in order to save millions of lives I guess we have to do them but it's still cutting up living animals, it's still horrific. I accept that maybe I'm being naive about this but it strikes me as being like war, if it's necessary for the greater good then it's necessary but it's such a horrible thing in and of itself I just can't let myself get behind it.
testing on monkeys to cure addiction? Seriously, I can't believe anyone would support that. Addicts have only themselves to blame, and there is absolutely no justification whatsoever for cruel tests on animals to help people who are too stupid to help themselves. It just stuns me that rational people would be ok with that.
Someone else suggested prison reform would be a more worthwhile cause than animal rights, which gave me a great idea: we test new drugs on murderers and child molesters, instead of animals! Problem solved!
I guess I'm not much of a humanist...
And neither do the profoundly mentally retarded or those with other cognitive disabilities. I don't think that forward planning is a good criterion on which to determine moral worth.
I wasn't being hyperbolic, I was genuinely trying to understand the principle behind the argument.
Again, I was trying to get at the ethical principle being advocated.
As I said, I think rights talk introduces all sorts of extraneous issues (including what grounds the notion of "rights"). I think it is simpler to look at how we treat people, and then see if there are principles we can extract that might also apply to non-human organisms.
So far you haven't provided an argument.
And you still haven't provided an argument. If Neanderthals were still around, would we be justified in treating them as we do apes, since they were different species? What about Homo floresiensis? What about intelligent aliens, such as Star Trek's Mr. Spock -- should we be able to conduct medical experiments on him just because he is not (fully) human?
And on the flip side of this argument, anti-abortionists argue that fertilized eggs are humans (the same species as you), so does that mean that abortion should be illegal?
"Species" is a lousy criterion -- it is arbitrary, and it no more tells us what the underlying ethical criteria are than, say, skin colour. Note that one might very well come up with criteria that map onto our notion of species, but "species" itself tells us nothing.
Thought experiment: As the first through the door at the drug testing centre, you are offered one of two experiments as a first human volunteer. One drug has been tested on a few dozen mice and/or rats, four dogs and two monkeys and found to have no toxic effect at 1000x the dose you will receive, but many rodents (and possibly a few other mammals) died to get to that point. The other has passed a rigorous simulation in the best computer programmes available, but no animals suffered in the development process.
I choose the first and vote to lock up anyone who suggests the second option.
Sorry for being f*****g crude, but they're only fucking rats (or dogs, gerbils, fruit flies). Yes, it's nasty and unpleasant to think about, but so is septic shock, SARS, HIV, schizophrenia, stroke, cancer, congestive heart failure, Parkinson's disease, etc, etc
I have noticed that those against animal testing are not lining themselves up to take the place of their beloved animals for the first round of live drug testing. Make up your minds folks, it either goes into you or an animal. I have trouble with those who evade the responsiblity on this by saying it goes into another human than me.
Torture is torture... I don't agree to human torture nor animal torture. It causes extreme pain, IMO it is not necessary.
However, you obviously have no problem with straw man torture.
Make up your minds folks, it either goes into you or an animal.
In other words, take this pill or the monkey gets it?
(Sorry, couldn't resist)
I propose only doing biological research on Fred Phelps.
Or perhaps Bybee and Yoo:
"The Long-term Physiological Effects of Repeated Waterboarding on Far-right Nutjobs"
I'm currently seeking funding.
All in the name of science, don'tcha know.
There are plenty of humans who have less of a claim to 'person-hood' than some of the animals being tested on.
Use them.
Is there some intrinsic property that makes a human somehow excused from the decision? I'd assume testing on humans would result in much more useful data.
Wherever people draw their lines, there is certainly an issue to consider with testing on other apes about weighing up possible suffering. An adult chimpanzee is far more intelligent than a newborn human baby in every way. A baby has even less ability to anticipate suffering, and one can only assume (and assumption is the only thing you can do in these cases) suffers less as a result of its lesser intelligence. So really if we are prepared to perform tests on chimpanzees, shouldn't we also be prepared to take newborn babies out of orphanages and perform tests on them? Why do we so much favour biological evolution as a measure of possible suffering over memetic evolution and ordinary brain development? Probably partly because of an innate loyalty to the babies of our own species. But also because those lines are so much easier to draw with the memetic and brain developmental link between us and babies so easy to see while the evolutionary link between us and other animals so buried under millions of years? How many people are ready to consider the rational judgement of morality and throw off the 'yuck' innate morality installed for our species growth but not to maximize the total happiness of our species, let alone all sentience? The objection that if we don't draw the lines somewhere we could be testing all humans is refuted by the fact that if people could anticipate that they could be tested upon, it would easily reduce happiness to such a degree that it would not be worth the research. Anticipation has a lot to do with morality. I am undecided on where the lines should be drawn, but I think this is an interesting case in which many people are having it both ways when that is morally unjust.
http://notalwaysright.com/its-okay-lets-find-some-toddlers/1779
@ 257
It could be that I am a terrible writer, but I think it's more likely that you are being willfully obtuse. I've made a fairly consistent argument from post to post here.
First off, you say you have a problem with rights talk, but you are the one who laid out moral qualities as a standard for how we should behave toward other beings. I see no difference whatsoever between that claim and as you put it "what grounds the notion of rights". If you want a standard of rights it's there before your eyes.
Now, I said earlier that I base my idea of rights here on agency with regards to ethical dilemmas. Humans can reason ethically, animals cannot. This is one standard. I'm perfectly willing to entertain the idea that I am wrong to use it, but that's what I go by. Now, a person could argue that there could exist a disabled person who can't reason morally. Ok, sure. Maybe Neandertals didn't either. But I don't care, you see, because I'm not at all interested in outliers from the mean of a species. The average ape is bad at moral reasoning. The average human is good at it. I haven't a clue about Neandertals but they're dead now so they really don't matter at all. Species is a coherent and understandable brightline, so it's useful. And I care alot about useful.
What I do not care about are time-wasting flights of fancy about fertilized eggs or Jim Crow.
I voted "I don't know." I don't think the vast majority of people here don't really know what's going on here either. So far it looks like a giant slew of ad-homs with rainbow of red herrings over head. The ethics of this issue are not easy. Stop berating each other as if they are.
I would first submit that the core issue is as to whether or not these animals are aware of their own existence. I say this because it is the conscious choice to live that makes ethics relevant. If you don't want to live, there's no reason to worry about constructs based around keeping your self or others alive. If will were to manifest instantaneously, a will not to live would remove you from the relevancy of ethics instantaneously. So then, with this in mind, here are the issues I have with the arguments presented:
Fallacy #1: "It's okay because of the advances that come out of it."
Fallacy Type: Appeal to consequences
Analysis: This asserts that the will of an individual should be overcome without consent, in order to benefit others. By this rational, autistic children lacking theory of mind are up for organ harvest. For some reason, we do not use autistic children for their organs. Why?
Fallacy #2: "We don't know that they aren't aware/able to perceive pain."
Fallacy Type: Argumentum ad Ignorantium
Analysis: Come on people, we know this one. This is just reversing the burden of proof. I'm personally ashamed by any atheist using this creationist-brand argument. Lets all prove that God doesn't exist now, shall we?
Fallacy #3: "We do worse things to animals already."
Fallacy Type: Tu Quoque, argumentum ad populum, special pleading, it depends on how you want to phrase it.
Analysis: This argument says that because something already violates an idea, something else of lesser consequence is permissible as well. "When you think about it, stealing a guys car isn't that bad. You could've given him surprise butsex!"
Fallacy #4: "How would you like it if some one used your dog for these experiments."
Fallacy Type: Appeal to emotion
Analysis: Seriously, do I need to give one? Ok, I'll try. "I happen to feel warm and fuzzy when I perform non-consentual abortions with a shop vac, so what I'm doing is right." or perhaps more accurately, "I am angered when cars disrespect the roads I love by driving on them. How would you like it if I ran you over?"
Fallacy #5: "Animals killing each other is natural, so it's okay."
Fallacy type: Appeal to nature (special pleading), Tu Quoque, argumentum ad populum, etc.
Analysis: This is much like the, "We're already doing worse" argument. Nightshade occurs naturally. This does not make it a good source of food. People kill each other out of a combination of their natural instincts and emotions some times. This does not make it an ethical behavior.
Fallacy #6: "PETA is hypocritical, so nobody has a point"
Fallacy type: Ad hom, kookishness.
Analysis: I can't believe I'm explaining this one. I'll be upholding Godwin's law to emphasize my point here. The point one argues is not invalidated by their actions. It does not matter if you are at Aushwitz in the 40's, waist deep in dead Jews; if you say that killing innocent people is wrong, your argument still stands on its own merits. Now going one further and saying that because some one is German (anti-test) that they must be Nazi's (PETA members), and that this invalidates their argument is pure stupidity.
Now, lets try again people. This time, we'll try to do a little better than recycling fallacies found at church youth groups on a Wednesday night.
-FST
@264
That's a good post. You say "maximize happiness", and I tend to go with "reducing suffering" but it amounts to something very similar. Here's my dilemma - I see animal testing having real results in reducing human suffering (through medical advances) at the expense of some suffering by animals. I want to rank human suffering as more important than animal suffering and I think you don't, but consider this: The total suffering that is reduced by the medical advances is likely greater than the increased suffering in some animals that are tested, right?
FST, are you on a list to be the first testee of a new potentially wonder drug in place of animals? Why or why not?
FST, that's the biggest bag of lame, flaming strawmen I've seen in quite a while. Congratulations.
It's simple: finding cures for debilitating diseases > the death of a few animals. Especially if suffering is minimized.
One of the very few instances when I disagree with PZ. Inflicting pain is inhumane, regardless of who's on the receiving side. Getting a punch in the face hurts no matter what species you belong to. And lab animals do get 'punched in the face'; I know it first hand, being a bio-scientist myself. We always talk about how borders between species are not as clear-cut as we once thought; yet, when it comes to this issue, we too easily adopt the "us vs them" stance.
very much in the wish it wasnt needed but unfortunately given a choice between humanely treated animals and no research and i dont think i have met anyone who is favour of animal testing who isnt.
the argument of "if you are against animal testing then dont use drugs" is a bit unfair i think since, at least in the UK, they have to be tested on animals.
on the other hand the claims about computer modelling are strange since it shows a very high faith in whoever sets up that model getting the parameters right and all the paths, sure i could once you give me really good requirements but in advance for something as complex as a human body?
A question for anyone on either side of the debate: What does a mouse want out of life?
Note to Nerd of Redhead...
I've long been a fan of your comments here..
Maybe you mistook my point.
I have no problem with Dr. Jentschs' work with schizophrenia, but hard drugs are very dangerous waters ,and it's always been "Swim at your own risk"
No need to kill monkeys for people who choose to do hard drugs IMO.
I thought FST's post was pretty funny, especially the surprise butsex part. And telling everybody here that we are like a church youth group! OW brother that hurts!
@268: "The total suffering that is reduced by the medical advances is likely greater than the increased suffering in some animals that are tested, right?"
Not necessarily, but then again it's hard to quantify suffering. I think you'd want some data before you'd make the claim, and I also think it'd be better to play it safe. The ethical guidelines for animal testing are kind of a joke.
Not saying I'm against animal testing as a whole, but there are plenty of instances in which I am (and not just cosmetic). Just because there's a benefit to come from something doesn't mean that it always outweighs the cost.
Addicts have only themselves to blame ...
Fuck you. Did you grow up surrounded by the hopeless, alienated nihilism that is all too often a symptom of chronic poverty? Judgemental ass.
test new drugs on murderers and child molesters, instead of animals! Problem solved!
Because nobody, ever, gets wrongfully convicted of those crimes. And committing them relegates one to sub-human status, with no chance of rehabilitation or reprieve. Authoritarian scumbag.
I guess I'm not much of a humanist...
No shit. If these inane comments reflect your true opinions, you are profoundly anti-humanist. I say we test drugs on you.
I'm trying to engage honestly. Perhaps I'm just being dense.
What I'm trying to avoid are foundational arguments about the origin of ethics. I'm proposing that, instead, we take it as given that, for whatever reason, we believe we have ethical obligations to humans, and then figure out why that it, what the underlying principles are that we use, and see if those are also applicable to non-humans.
Not all humans can reason ethically.
But it is precisely at those edge cases that one determines the underlying principles involved in ethical reasoning. You seem to be saying "Being able to reason morally is important, except when I say it isn't." That's not much of a principle.
Again, you're missing the point of the examples I've used. They are indeed hypothetical, but that's often the way we figure out how to do ethics.
But without a principle, "species" is no more coherent and understandable than, say, "skin colour", or "encephalization", or "chordate".
If superior aliens ever reach Earth and start torturing humans for their benefit, I'll be out there with my picket sign "No human experimentation!".
So if the aliens showed up tomorrow looking for humans to volunteer as test subjects I assume that your answer would be "no."
But what if we take the scenario a little further...Too bad about that "no" because the aliens are experimenting on us. We call their laboratory "earth." One day they get really careless and leave their spaceship where you can get at it.
You can figure out how to get the thing to take off and go somewhere and can probably get it to land again, but you have no chance whatsoever of being able to get the navigation equipment to work. Therefore, if you leave, you won't be coming back. There MAY be "wild" humans out there somewhere or maybe humans (and all earth type living organisms) are some sort of transgenics that can't survive in the "wild". There may be food out there that you can eat. Or not. There are certainly dangers you don't understand and you will have no instruction on how to deal with them. Do you go?
Yet another scenario: Aliens for Ethical Treatment of Humans (AETH) comes to earth to "save" some humans. They pick you and your family up and release you into your native environment. Unfortunately, their understanding of your native environment is a bit weak and they just dump you in a small spaceship in the middle of nowhere (say, outside the galaxy) with no information on where to go next or even how to operate the ship. Do you thank them?
There is no need for people to suffer unnecessarily if killing a monkey or two will help tens of thousands of humans. What they did to get there is irrelevant. That is my humble opinion.
Well said, FST. This has been, by far, one of the most silly discussions I have ever seen on this blog. Please realize everyone that just as it can be wildly frustrating to see people speak ignorantly of science, so too can it be wildly frustrating to see people speak ignorantly about ethics. There are difficult issues here, and we might all do well to exercise a bit more modesty before we trample the ideas of others.
@267
Excellent post.
While some research on animals may be necessary, the fact is that a lot of pointless cruelty is inflicted on animals in the name of science.
So, I decided to anti-pharyngulate this time and vote 'No' on this simplistic poll.
Yes because autistic children are exactly the same as animals.
Did you don Evil Kenievil's rocket powered cycle to make that leap?
What does "wrong by definition" even mean?
Wrong (adj.):
1. Incorrect.
2. Something that is not morally permissible.
3. Testing on animals.
This poll is so obviously skewed towards "yes". Oh wait, "yes" has less votes. Some people are not very smart.
Yes because autistic children are exactly the same as animals.
Are you saying that an autistic child is not an animal? Must be a plant then.
@Nerd of Redhead (#269)
I've considered signing up for less invasive/dangerous tests. I would advocate testing on animals or humans that are going to be killed as punishment. I believe in the death penalty for humans and animals under certain circumstances, which is not completely in line with how it is treated under the law.
@Stu (#270)
Yes, sure, but lets be fair about it. Use people too! If they're dumb enough and weak enough, why not? Wouldn't it help humanity to cull the week ones out? What differentiates the worth of an animal life to the worth of a human life?
Sieg Heil!
-FST
As unlikely as this comment is to be read, I have several things I want to say.
1. I live down the street from a man who does animal research at UCLA. I know this because animal rights protesters have been to his home about once a month since I moved here. They have also fire bombed two cars they thought belonged to him. Alas, they got the neighbors cars instead. For some reason she (the neighbor) feels terrorized.
2. I use medications, as do family members, that were tested on animals, and thank goodness for that. These are drugs that have given my sister and her husband additional years as productive individuals.
3. I have been (no longer am) a vegetarian, though I still eat products that are made to replace meat products. That is a health choice to lower my cholesterol, and yet I still require meds (animal tested I hope) to get my cholesterol to reasonable levels.
While I feel for the animals that are used for testing, I also feel for the millions of men, women, and children (as well as animals) that benefit from that testing. And until I can see something better that can do the job, I can live with that. But I tend to loose sympathy with animal rights activists when they blow up my neighbors cars and scare they adults and children in my neighborhood. Rather self defeating don't ya think?
@268
It is logical:"The good of the many outweighs the needs of the few"
Waves at Godwin
@278
Yeah now we are talking at each other and not crossways.
This is hard, complicated stuff, and I really shouldn't denigrate your example of an autistic who can't reason morally. Let's address it.
As I said way up thread, I am a vegetarian. I'm a vegetarian because I believe that I have an obligation to reduce the amount of suffering in the world that I am responsible for. I taken as a given that for any thinking feeling being (and that definitely includes animals) suffering is a bad thing.
However I don't think humans and animals are equivalent (I don't think you do either given what you say about apes in comparison to humans and in comparison to other animals. There is a clear hierarchy in the way you are thinking about different beings as well. Correct me if I'm wrong, though.) Like I said, I was thinking that the easiest way to deal with the dilemma of animal testing is this: humans reason morally, animals don't, therefore humans are superior in their conscious lives and their suffering means more than animals. I use species as a line to separate humans from animals using this rubric strictly out of convenience. You say this isn't any kind of principle. I'm forced to admit it isn't! It's merely convenient.
Now I do think species is better than say "skin color" because it's comprehensive (of course skin color wouldn't matter if moral reasoning were the standard but let's put that aside. but of course, "chordate" is too comprehensive as it includes beings with no moral reasoning. But what to do with humans without moral reasoning. Why are they accorded special status. That's a toughy. Somebody else did pose a thought experiment upthread about kids with the cognitive abilities of monkeys and whether or not it would be a good thing to experiment on them. Obviously not! But why not? I'm not sure I have a good answer, which is why I fall back on species...
What's your answer?
Humm. Good point.
Non-human animal.
@283
Nobody has differentiated between the worth of humans and animals yet. THIS is what I'm asking for. Without a rational reason to treat them differently, it's just special pleading.
-FST
CJO - so you really think curing meth addicts -- who made the choice to start doing hard drugs or any of the manifold disgusting things humans do to themselves -- is worth torturing and killing monkeys, who have no choice in the matter whatsoever? Really? Why are humans so special to you?
@290
Does it make it more permissible to use a person with severe brain damage causing a financial burden on society, rather than an alert monkey? I would tend to agree with this line of thought, if so. But still, why would it be right to experiment on anything that desires to live? Doesn't this breech the foundations of our own ethics?
There is no need for people to suffer unnecessarily if killing a monkey or two will help tens of thousands of humans. What they did to get there is irrelevant. That is my humble opinion.
There are probably a hundred thousand suffering in Cali alone,and a million nation wide, but having lived around addicts (people I've loved) I'm thinking a medicine that would make it easy to kick,might also make it more likely for them to start using again.
The folks I've known that have successfully kicked and stayed clean often cite the Hell of kicking as a powerful reason to not start using again.
I'm all for the ethnical treatment of animals.
I like my animals in Italian food, Chinese food, Mexican food, French food, Indian food,...
Very ethnical, if you ask me.
As unlikely as this comment is to be read, I have several things I want to say.
1. I live down the street from a man who does animal research at UCLA. I know this because animal rights protesters have been to his home about once a month since I moved here. They have also fire bombed two cars they thought belonged to him. Alas, they got the neighbors cars instead. For some reason she (the neighbor) feels terrorized.
2. I use medications, as do family members, that were tested on animals, and thank goodness for that. These are drugs that have given my sister and her husband additional years as productive individuals.
3. I have been (no longer am) a vegetarian, though I still eat products that are made to replace meat products. That is a health choice to lower my cholesterol, and yet I still require meds (animal tested I hope) to get my cholesterol to reasonable levels.
While I feel for the animals that are used for testing, I also feel for the millions of men, women, and children (as well as animals) that benefit from that testing. And until I can see something better that can do the job, I can live with that. But I tend to loose sympathy with animal rights activists when they blow up my neighbors cars and scare they adults and children in my neighborhood. Rather self defeating don't ya think?
Poll Pharyngulated, for sure.
Yes -- 73% (19098 votes)
No -- 27% (7008 votes)
Not sure <1% (51 votes)
Total Votes: 26157
Nobody has differentiated between the worth of humans and animals yet. THIS is what I'm asking for.
No non-human animal uses the internet. As far as I know at least. Therefore, humans are inferior.
More seriously, virtually all humans can pass the mirror test, indicating that they (we) are self-aware. Some chimpanzees, elephants, and dolphins can pass the mirror test, but not all or, as far as I can tell, even most. This is not quite black and white, but it's a difference in gray areas of 99% absorption of light versus 2%.
But what, you might ask, about people who can't pass the mirror test? Medical testing is only allowed on them in very special circumstances since they are considered a vulnerable population (and realistically, drug testing in a severely debilitated person would be pretty unreliable anyway.)
However, the relative of a person who has lost so much brain function as to be no longer self aware would not be criticized for withdrawing all but comfort care from that person. (Unless of course the person is Terry Schiavo...but that was a special case. Of right wing insanity.) If they have lost all brain function then they can be disconnected from life support without the consent of the family (though it's considered rude at best to do so unless the family is clearly refusing for secondary gain.)
So humans without self-awareness, who have permanently lost the neurologic basis of self-awareness, are considered "lesser" (as in less alive) compared to humans that have self-awareness. So considering mice, which never pass the mirror test, to be more important than a person with no cortical function would be speciesist indeed--against our species.
Well, yes, but that's rather narrow. Might doesn't necessarily make right. And why is right/wrong even entering the picture at that basic level? Is it wrong for the lion to go hungry and probably kill something else? Is it right for the human to have deprived the lion of a tasty snack so it can feed its cubs?
The decision to engage with animal testing not only involves necessity, it involves ethics and morals. Killing an animal to eat in order to stay alive is pure necessity. Necessity, ethics, and morals need to be looked at as components in the decision to use living animals as test-beds for treatments and cures that could alleviate the suffering of millions (humans and non-humans) for now, and future generations.
@ FST in 294
"Does it make it more permissible to use a person with severe brain damage causing a financial burden on society, rather than an alert monkey"
Absolutely not! I'm just not sure as to why not. I know that experimenting on a fully functioning human is worse than experimenting on a fully functioning monkey, but the disabled are bit of a gap in my reasoning, as pointed out by the other commenter. That's why I would end up using species difference as a stop-gap, because I don't want to experiment on disabled humans.
As to why any experimentation is okay -
Animal experimentation reduces a lot of human suffering at the cost of some animal suffering. Because humans reason morally, their suffering is more important, "more valuable," than the suffering of animals who do not reason morally. Thus there is more utility in experimentation than not, if utility here means the reduction of as much suffering as possible.
@PhilJMoon (#297)
It depends on whether or not you're a pacifist, I suppose. If animals are to humans as scientists are to the handycapped, then testing on animals is much the same as testing on humans through the basis intellectual elitism. So then, if you thought some one was using humans for testing without consent, with full government permission, what would you see as ethical?
-FST
Dianne # 273
Let the mouse live it's life, and it will show you.
I am definitely not pro-test if it means killing or injuring or causing pain so that a cosmetic can be developed.
It all depends on what the science is for.
If ways to reduce animal testing have not been thoroughly studied, they should be.
#267
Fallacy No. 1 is not a fallacy, and bears no relation to your description. In your description, you also assume that the simple calculation of benefits gained minus injury caused is made in a vacuum. It isn't, there are onlookers with opinions. The revulsion of the onlookers (parents?) makes experimentation on the rat rather than autistic child by far the choice of maximum benefit to the greater good.
I don't have the stamina to read through the 298 comments, but let me nevertheless add a 299th.
First, I would say, internet polls should be completely ignored. Scientists, especially, should completely ignore them. Don't Pharyngulate an internet poll; ignore the stupid thing.
Second, biomedical research on animals includes much careful, useful research, as well as a bunch of crap. It would be wrong to rule out animal research completely, but it is also wrong for animal researchers to design and attempt to analyze their studies without any thought about whether animal numbers might be reasonably reduced (or completely eliminated).
One should say neither "Animal research is bad" nor "Animal research is good". There is much of each.
Finally, in considering research on both animals and humans, it is important to *balance* risk/suffering vs. benefit. Researchers need to be careful and considerate, but don't eliminate the potential benefit by mucking things up with endless useless paperwork.
As I hope you understand, I'm ambivalent.
#292:
How about this: humans have voices, votes, and lawyers; animals don't. Humans can participate in the debate and influence the decision-making. Therefore it's wise to postpone human testing until the outcome is likely to be favorable, since unfavorable human outcomes can impair your ability to do further research to a degree that unfavorable animal outcomes generally do not.
This may or may not be an ethical reason to treat humans differently, but it's surely a rational, practical reason to do so while the ethics are being sorted out.
Let the mouse live it's life, and it will show you.
Its. There is no apostrophe in "its" in that context.
Have you ever watched a mouse going about its business? I have. My impression is that they want food, shelter, company, and freedom from pain and distress. All of which can be, should be, and are provided in any reputable lab.
WTF? Comments that follow PZ's posts are often exemplars of reason and in-depth knowledge. But in this thread we have a bunch of comments based purely on emotion of the "Oh no, I could never do that" ilk.
Glen Davidson @85 posts a reasonable review of the issues and this has no discernible effect on the emotional commenters.
JustaTech @199 posts the view from a person who is doing for all of us what we cannot do for ourselves. We're reaping the benefits, but no, we'd never do what JustaTech does to mice and rabbits. Please.
I take my children to be vaccinated. Few things are worse than seeing a toddler look at you accusingly for letting a doctor torture them. Yep, I didn't just hurt the kids, I paid someone else to hurt them. It was the least bad thing I could do to reap a proven good.
Comments regarding an injured animal being dispatched brought out the squeamishness factor. Not sure you could do it? If not, you're cruel. You're not what you claim to be -- not the merciful and loving human extending equal rights to animals, but just a cowardly idiot.
ELECTED TO KILL
A Mother/Daughter Poem
I move in for the kill,
the mouse blinks.
Sun glints off the axe,
a god-spear of light.
Eighty million years
since mouse and woman shared
a common ancestor.
There's a resemblance in the face.
My neighbor set sticky traps for spiders,
but caught Mus musculus—
near neighbor to Homo sapiens
on the phylogenetic tree.
I'm elected for mercy killing.
Yes, I'm the kind of woman
who owns an axe, and sharpens it too.
My daughter, Manhattanite, and
we assume, civilized,
has to kill bare-handed.
Herded to Connecticut,
Goldman Sachs assistants assist.
Small gray birds, not invited
to confer about money,
tattoo a drive of crushed stone.
Car-crippled, twig legs askance,
wing dragging beyond hope,
heart ticking away, one bird
must die or embarrass business.
She is elected, my girl, to kill.
A bird in hand is worth
however long it takes to wring its neck—
a longer time than you might think
as all the way round it goes
to prove that small is strong
and delicate a disguise.
We the chosen women,
sharing quality-of-mercy genes,
forget again what we look like,
what planet we ride, where our bodies end
and the ones to be killed begin.
----Lynna Howard
it is also wrong for animal researchers to design and attempt to analyze their studies without any thought about whether animal numbers might be reasonably reduced (or completely eliminated).
Mainstream academia agrees with you. Any reputable IACUC will demand that protocols minimize the number of animals used as well as the amount of suffering an individual animal may be exposed to before approving the protocol. A justification of the use of animals and explanation of why a non-animal alternative is not being used is also required.
so you really think curing meth addicts -- who made the choice to start doing hard drugs or any of the manifold disgusting things humans do to themselves -- is worth torturing and killing monkeys, who have no choice in the matter whatsoever? Really?
Yes, jackass, I really think that drug addiction is a public health problem that should be addressed with the full complement of available medical resources, like any other public health issue, whether judgemental authoritarian assholes think it's "disgusting," or depraved, or any other term of opprobrium used to avoid thinking.
Why are humans so special to you?
And they used to tell me there were no stupid questions.
Why won't you admit how special humans are to you?
This is one those polls that I wish we had left alone. I value an honest opinion on this touchy subject... Doesn't anyone see the irony in the fact that it is usually the religious person's mantra to conclude the earth was made for humans alone,
#292
What's wrong with special pleading?
We choose what an animal is worth. We can, we do, taking into account the arguments, opinions and 'special pleadings' of those around us. Sometimes this breaks down (Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Yugoslavia) and gets directed at people too, when those 'special pleadings' etc appear reduced in value. There are no boundaries between humans and animals other than those we create for whatever reasons we want.
To me those boundaries are 90% clear and 100% special pleading. I wouldn't experiment on a Neanderthal or a Chimpanzee (probably), but rats are fair game. I would expect that the rat would have an alternative 'special pleading' - if it had enough neurons.
"Yes -- and I support it if the animals are treated well 74% (20230 votes"
Where is the "Animal suffering is irrelevant" poll option?
#253 Torture is torture... I don't agree to human torture nor animal torture. It causes extreme pain, IMO it is not necessary.
---
#260 However, you obviously have no problem with straw man torture.
----
Good distraction (since we're throwing around argument classifications). Nowhere did PZ say he was for experimentation limited to non-torture. In fact he commented that anti-vivisectionists used reprehensible tactics, *implying* (but not truly saying, so I could be wrong) that all vivisection is fine with him.
Medical experimentation includes torture AS MUCH as medical experimentation does *not* include torture. So in your eyes PZ's argument must be a straw man too. PZ states a position of the kindly, non-sadistic experimentation as if THAT is what the LA groups are arguing against and then proceeds to make his case. Oh those horrible protesters! All against un-sadistic biologists who are up to their ears in abuse regulations. My guess is that the LA group is arguing against experimentation because of the torture involved not because someone bleeds bunnies (or squids) ears once in a while (could be wrong).
But whatever, this is all just discussion. I am against torture; medical experimentation includes torture; if there were a way to limit it to non-torture I'd be happy to side with experiments. So far I haven't seen it.
@BDC - 289
You've got a case of amphiboly there. The statement didn't apend to the previous paragraph. I end many of my posts that way ;)
@koano - 301
Oh I agree that it's more ethical to use animals than people. This does not make it ethically correct, though. It's better to only kill one human instead of five. It's better to kill a kitten than a person. If ther were suddenly no more animals to experiment on, would it be acceptible to use less valuable people for research?
I appreciate your honesty in saying that you aren't sure why a semi-concious mentaly inferior human that detracts from society is worth more than a monkey. At the same time, I have to say that this is inductive reasoning. Much as scientists ask what they conclude from the evidence provided, so should we. To take conjecture and then only find data to support it is more like creationism.
@JB - 305
#1 is most definitely a fallacy. In and of its self, a thing is ethical because its outcome is desirable. Further examination is needed. It is not ethical to kill just because it feels good. Now you're bringing up other people's emotions and reactions. You are appealing to popularity and emotion by doing so.
wtf
seriously
That's on par with Pete Rooke's argument by shitty analogy.
@317
If you're just going to fling crap at me, I'm not going to bother addressing you. There's nothing to talk about when you reply this way. Tell me why I'm wrong. Fling crap at me while you explain why I'm wrong if you like; just don't waste my time completely.
-FST
I would. I'd even agree to experiment on a newborn baby. If there was such a scourge running rampant at highly accelerated infection rates that jeopardized an entire species of chimp, and the only way to find a cure is to to that, then do it. Chimps, baby humans, whatever. It's certainly case by case though. And I would only trust the final decision to the most qualified and demonstrably ethical and compassionate persons known.
I am sadly late to the party. As an infectious disease researcher, I find this issue very close to my heart. Dianne at #310 is bang-on.
What the anti-animal experimentation activists neatly and conveniently choose to ignore is that the researchers do not really catch hold of any animal and perform experiments on them. The protocols - written in great detail - have to pass through the institutional Animal Care and Use committee, and the experiments can be done only when they are approved. It is not a blanket approval either; every single deviation, however small, needs to be addressed in advance. The protocols require detailed detailed justification of the number of animals to be used (both why and why this many), and also exhort the researcher to refine the experiments, using non-animal alternatives wherever possible.
Somehow, I have this impression - I may be wrong - that the opposition to animal experimentation is often motivated by a misdirected sense of wrong-and-right, oversimplification of the issues involved, and an exaggerated sense of the importance of human agency as the "protector" of "lesser" beings, appropriately fueled by profound ignorance and religious convictions.
Err, mice definitely have cortical function, so why are you equating that with passing the mirror test?
[because] ?
I think this contradicts your claim of a fallacy.
True, a female spider would argue that you need food as well.
Yes - and you are arguing that these have no value in the total sum of benefits.
I know it's already been written in the first comments but seems to have not reached any audience. I just want to point out that a not so insignificant part of animal research also helps animals. Therefore, it is not only a question of "human superiority". The question becomes : is it ethical to use a few animals to save a bunch of other ones. Obviously, someone will ask "who decides" which ones deserve to die in order to save the other ones. But that would be a misguided one, I think. But the "use humans to save humans" falls short since you could say "use dogs to save dogs". But the cure could be applied to other species afterward. Would it be alright not to use the knowledge acquired ?
I'll stay with the present method of getting drugs from the test tube through clinical testing until somebody shows a complete alternative plan, that could be accepted by the FDA and its European and Japanese equivalents.
Tell me where you can make this connection, and how you even propose that from #297.
Are animals to humans as scientists are to the handicapped?
Explain to me the validity of that comparison I relation to not only #297 but to the rest of the world.
If I've misunderstood you then I'll apologize, if not I'm really really curious where the scientists are to handicapped part comes in as a direct correlation to the animals to humans part.
Just a thought, on threads where there seem to be multiple anonymous posters, maybe you could make the name anonymous1, anonymous2, etc. so that there can be differentiation between the anonymouses and still maintain anonymity. My two cents there.
Karl Broman @ 306
The problem is when the polls are used by others. PZ pharyngulates the polls to show how pointless they are. When everyone else ignores them too then yeah they should be ignored on Pharyngula. But until then, there are still idiots who believe internet polls, so pharyngulating still has a use.
As to the topic of the thread. I have to admit that I haven't studied the information on this subject enough to be completely comfortable making conclusions. But looking at some of the posts by people who actually do animal research, it seems that much of the animal rights movement is involved in some heated battle with a field of strawmen. Of course excess suffering is bad. Of course animals shouldn't be tortured. The problem being of course, they aren't really tortured by scientists and medical researchers. There seems to be rather in depth standards regulating animal research. And Glen at 85 makes several good points about suffering in the laboratory versus suffering in the wild.
So, I'm willing to be swayed, given a good enough argument, but based on what I can see, I'm more than happy to vote yes on this poll. And I'm more than happy with animal testing within the tight restrictions that are imposed on scientists and medical researchers.
Posted by: CJO | April 24, 2009 5:19 PM at #311
The meth you've been doing is rotting your brain.
Instead of waiting for medical research to provide you an easy way out ,
why don't you find the courage to quit now.
Got it JackAss.
@FST in 316
You say "At the same time, I have to say that this is inductive reasoning"
I don't think that most ethics are done inductively. That would be...hard. As for matching data to a conclusion, well, I'm working off of deduction so there ain't no data to speak of. I don't want to conclude from my deductions that it's ok to experiment on disabled humans. My common sense rebels at the idea. And I definitely will tailor my reasoning around my common sense.
Use humans.
You could just scream "I'm an ignorant fuckhead" and you would have accomplished the same thing.
Here is a good place to start.
@322
I made an editing mistake. It was supposed to read that something is NOT ethical solely because it is desirable. That should get the first bit out of the way.
A female spider munching on its mate probably doesn't apply here. I severely doubt that a spider is aware of its own existence. Lets go with predators, perhaps? I find what predators do unethical, but I don't think humans can stop it without killing even more animals from the interference. We don't have the knowledge yet. I can also think of better uses of our time.
I don't think doing what people find pleasing is a good motive either. I would sooner raise the issue, allow for informed debate, and force people to think about it. I'm sure it's much more comfortable to believe in Norse gods with an eternity of daily combat and feasting ahead of you. It would probably be easier to get through life in North America feigning some sort of Abrahamic theism. But we don't do this, because it does not benefit the whole of humanity in the long term.
-FST
As 100% pro-science and animal testing as I am, you won't see me bagging on animal rights protesters either. Yes we have all kinds of regulations to ensure testing is humane, but those regulations are there because of the activists' concerns and the hell they raise over the issue. They haven't stopped animal testing, we're still doing plenty of it, but we do it more ethically because of them.
Protests fine. People like Rodney Coronado and the groups that support him, not fine.
General response, but looking at this quote from Karl Broman @306:
"Second, biomedical research on animals includes much careful, useful research, as well as a bunch of crap. It would be wrong to rule out animal research completely, but it is also wrong for animal researchers to design and attempt to analyze their studies without any thought about whether animal numbers might be reasonably reduced (or completely eliminated)."
Every research project that 1) receives federal funding through NIH and 2) involves the use of live vertebrate animals must include in its grant proposal a specific justification explaining why only animals, not tissue cultures or computer modeling, will do. They must justify the number of animals they are expected to use. Any experiment that causes discomfort or distress to an animal also must justify the need for such distress. Every grant must be reviewed by the institution's Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) on which some nonscientists serve. There are specific rules for animal care and welfare, and compliance with them is monitored constantly by animal research and veterinary staff. Mistreating or neglecting animals can and does lead to a shutdown of the research project involved. I've personally seen projects shut down because of mouse cage overcrowding, careless C02 euthanasia, or failure to check on animals often enough.
No pet store, puppy mill, feedlot, zoo, school, healthcare company, family farm or pet owner has anything like the level of animal welfare scrutiny that research science deals with every day. I've seen far more vicious and neglectful abuse of animals in pet stores and by pet owners than I've seen in decades of work as a research tech. It seems we save our moral outrage for the one field that dares to stand up and publish the details of its use of animals. Everything else is out of sight, out of mind.
@BDC - 325
I'm not stating it as an absolute conclusion. I'm asking for people to differentiate; I want that comparison analyzed. Why is it ethically permisible to treat animals poorly, simply because of their intelect (presuming that the animal in question is self-aware)? How would it be different than treating a person unethically simply because they are of a lower intellect than some one else? I probably should've expanded my comparison a little; it was short enough to look like I was attempting some sort of formal syllogism. I wasn't.
@koano - 328
Most of the world is religious. I have a feeling many of them just take their book of choice, then find data to support the conclusions. This never ceases to scare the crap out of me. I find common sense can be a source of dishonesty with my self; it skips to the conclusion without examining the facts thoroughly. I like to at least get my conclusions right as to how things should work rationally, even if I end up living as a hypocrite at times.
When you are ill, do you use the drugs prescribed by your doctor? Because those drugs were tested for side effects etc. on various animals before being tested in humans.
Some people are saying that to be consistent an animal rights person must not use any drugs or treatments that were tested on animals. The people saying this are not themselves consistent.
The Nazi doctor Sigmund Rascher contributed significantly to modern medicine's understanding of hypothermia: http://www.jlaw.com/Articles/NaziMedEx.html
I will presume that you, the reader, are not a horrible person and so you do not believe that Rascher should have murdered Holocaust victims to study hypothermia. But his studies have entered the medical literature through Hayward and others. If you are ever treated for hypothermia then you are benefiting from the Rascher's torture.
Have you written down, had notarized, and informed your loved ones and regular doctors of your wishes to never be treated for hypothermia? If not, then it is hypocritical of you to tell animal rights people that they should not accept treatments or drugs involved with animal testing that was done in the past and cannot be undone.
In the last 15 years, the United States government has conducted dangerous phase 1 drug trials on orphaned infants and children who cannot consent to potentially fatal experiments: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/apr/04/usa.highereducation
If you ever contract HIV, will you decline any treatment with AZT/azdiothymidine/zidovudine, or any of the other drugs that were forced upon these orphans during the dangerous phase 1 testing phase? Will you choose instead to face the heightened risk of death? If not, then it is hypocritical of you to tell animal rights people that they should not accept treatments or drugs that were tested on animals.
Pfizer has agreed upon an multi-million dollar out-of-court settlement, generally a tacit admission of guilt, in the case of nonconsentual experimentation of the menengitis drug Trovan on Nigerian children in 1996: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7982236.stm
http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=theitha…
This antibiotic Trovan/trovafloxacin/alatrofloxacin is prescribed for many other infections besides meningitis. If a doctor ever recommends it as your best possible treatment, will you turn it down in favor of another less effective drug that was not tested nonconsentually on Nigerian children? If not, then it is hypocritical of you to tell animal rights people that they should not accept treatments or drugs that were tested on animals.
Rarely spoken, but known throughout the medical community, is the fact that many or most basic surgery techniques in use today were developed before the Nuremberg Code, and as such were the result of nonconsensual experiments on prisoners, homeless people, and minority communities, experiments which are now recognized as crimes against humanity.
It is possible to work and advocate for the future abolition of unethical practices while utilizing drugs and techniques that were developed unethically. However inconsistent this may be for animal rights people, it is no more inconsistent than any of you who have ever had surgery while disapproving of crimes against humanity.
Even though I am a huge animal lover, I don't feel there is anything morally reprehensible about testing on animals. Though I do support severe punishments for those that unnecessarily cause pain/harm to them, especially so in a research environment. Unfortunately, there is no better solution than animal testing at this time.
Slightly off topic, but a lot of the people that whine about this are the same people think 'meat is murder and dairy is rape'. While modern industrial farming may be a bit depressing, I don't think hurting the moo cows is a reasonable cause to stop eating meat or drinking milk.
Ah, we stupid scientists - killing animals with joy, pleasure and without consideration just to settle our own curiosity about the world! Shame on us!
@336 with that post - are you serious? Put that at a URL, post a synopsis here, and link to that full blown article you just published. There's a lot of material here by more concise posters that makes reading this blog enjoyable, not a chore. Just sayin'.
Obviously you know nothing about addiction. Addiction often comes down to mental health problems, which can' t be treated until the addiction is dealt with.
I don't understand how someone can take a moral stand on animal welfare and then suggest torturing criminals and leaving addicts to die. Your sick.
PZ, I'm inclined to take you at your word that you don't derive sadistic pleasure from hurting or killing animals.
But I'm just taking you at your word. The only evidence I have is to the contrary. I'm afraid my trust is purely sentimental. You have no actual credibility in this matter:
We know that you eat meat. Not because you have to, but because you like to. So you have admitted to paying other people to kill animals for your pleasure.
If you will pay other people to kill animals for your pleasure, it is not unthinkable that you yourself would kill research animals for pleasure.
Or maybe not you. I don't want to believe that about you. But the same logic holds for any other "pro-test" scientist who eats meat. We have every reason to distrust you. All the evidence of your action speaks against your word.
FST-
Why is it ethically permisible to treat animals poorly?
It is not. Animal abuse is contemptible. Animal testing is not treating animals poorly. As has been pointed out to you. Several times. You miserable, boring, asinine little whiner. Troll indeed.
ARP, where should the first use of an unknown drug be? In animals or you (I'm making it personal to get an honest answer)? You don't have to like animal testing (I don't), just see the necessity of it.
@342
You're presupposing that suffering is necessary to treat something poorly. Would you call it decency to kill some one before their nervous system could react to the stimulus? Why are animals different?
-FST
Was that a moron trying to sockpuppet as me? Or was that supposed to be a response to me, or what?
Anyway, I can quit the meth any time I want. SIWOTI syndrome, on the other hand, it's gonna take more than torturing a few fluffy bunnies to crack that nut.
Yes, because have a heart bypass is just like a crime against humanity.
My main enemy in this world is, of course, Doctors Without Borders, as they seek to commit surgery and other medical treatment upon hapless victims. The brutes!
Oh, right, the "rationale" behind this is that some crimes against humanity supplied knowledge for surgery. What a dickhead! No one is developing surgery today by utilizing ongoing crimes against humanity, while stupid fucks like you use the latest medicines developed in the ongoing practice of testing on animals.
One is hypocrisy, the other is simply using knowledge without prejudice (or are you the kind of moron who thinks that "Darwinism" is wrong because it has been misused by various people throughout the years?). The fact that you don't know the difference indicates that you are intellectually and/or morally bankrupt.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
In a person who can meaningfully consent. If I were dying anyway and said experimental drug offered me even a small chance to live, then I would consent. But I would not presume to force other people to receive the treatment without their consent, for the same reason I would not force the treatment on other animals.
Or rather, you don't have to beg the question.
To koano215@173: I did not simply make the argument that human life has no value outside relationship and attachment. I am questioning the assumed greater value of human life over other sentient life.
To GruesomeRob@182: The assumption that human life is of greater value is central to the proposition that experimenting on animals is ethically positive. It is the primary assumption. It is not encumbent on me, who merely questions the assumption, to prove otherwise. A proposition was put forward, I have queried the basis for a part of it. "you prove otherwise" is on the same level of "prove to me that there is no god." I would expect better on this board.
To Kismet@189: Informed consent is absolutely critical to the argument. If consent is not completely informed in the manner you describe, it is still informed infinitely more than animal lack of consent would be. The information only has to go as far as "we do not know completely, exactly, or for certain what this medication/treatment/experiment might do to you. Do you understand that there might be risks that we cannot or have not foreseen? Do you accept these risks?" At that point, the consent is informed enough to make all the difference in the situation. You cannot get any kind of consent from a bonobo. It does not have the intellectual capacity to comprehend risk, potential reward versus potential harm. Appealing to emotion by bringing up children is a red herring as the assumption is that a parent determining a medical course of action is doing so in the interest of the child.
Performing an experiment on a laboratory animal is done in the interest of other parties. These are not equal situations and your argument is therefore irrelevant.
The argument that the animal will die a more horrible death in nature than in the laboratory is also irrelevant. Just because nature is amoral does not give us the right to be immoral, which is what I am arguing animal experimentation may be.
And just because more people might die if we don't experiment on animals than if we do is not an argument. Again, no one has addressed for me the assumption that human life inherently is more valuable than other sentient life. If it is so very valuable, why aren't more people volunteering to be experimented upon to preserve it? This is not an excuse, it is an argument that the ends justify the means.
As I expected, a hypocritical dodge.
If you will pay other people to kill animals for your pleasure, it is not unthinkable that you yourself would kill research animals for pleasure.
Sure! It's not like he'd be fired on the spot for it and would go to jail or anything.
*facepalm*
Just because someone disagrees with the methods of medical research, does not me that they are anti-medicine. I think that that is a gross mis-characterization of the protester's argument.
I didn't read all of the other comments, so I apologize if I repeat anything already said.
I think this is one of the first times I haven't agreed with you 100%. Idealistically I'm against a number (but not all) forms of animal testing, but I don't think it makes sense to ban most of them. As long as proper ethical reviews are taking place, thats what I'm most concerned about.
However, even though a lot of people have to go through lots of efforts to prove they are using animals responsibly, there are still waaaay to many places that are breaking these rules, and not getting shut down till after years of citations, or till a radical fridge group breaks in and takes video. I'm against these group's because of their often terroristesq- tactics, but they keep consistently bringing things to light that the people who are suppose to be monitoring these facilities keep missing.
Also, I'm completely against chimpanzees and other endangered species for biomedical testing in the US. We (and Gabon) are the only countries in the world that use (non-human) great apes for biomedical testing. How are we doing that you may wonder, when it is illegal everywhere else? Well, chimpanzees are classified as endangoured when they are located in anywhere else in the world. However, the moment they enter or are born in the US, they are only considered threatened, and thus allowable to use for biomedical testing.
They are the only critter that has this special endangered status contingency, and that's because the people who vote on it are almost all in biomed.
That is a SERIOUS breech in ethics.
So, while I may not always agree with people's use of primates like macaques and other critters, I still feel it's within the scientific and legal bounds, and would only contest to those not following the rules. However, I feel there is something intrinsically wrong with using endangered species (and keeping them in conditions that don't meet their social enrichment needs, only one piece of enrichment minimum required folks, which can include something like a bench) in order to help an over populated species.
Also, we wasted millions of tax dollars on AIDS research with chimpanzees, who have never actually acquired full blown AIDS in a lab setting, ever. A lot of that 1.7% or so difference between chimpanzees and humans lies in the immune system (and very little in the brain actually, which was surprising to me), so they aren't always good models for humans. However, they do tend to be more susceptible to our respiratory diseases then we are, so...?
A misinterpretation so outrageous that it's probably deliberate.
Not surgery so much now, nope. Experimental drugs like trovafloxacin, these days. But carry on.
Both are hypocrisy. And both are using knowledge without prejudice. The world is not so tidy as you would have it.
I'm not claiming that animal rights people taking drugs tested on animals is not hypocrisy. I'm claiming that it's the same banal hypocrisy that every human lives with. In the best of times, we only make do the best we can, and no one ever lives up to their best potential.
I make the compromise that I'm a better advocate for animal rights alive, than dead.
Why not use christians as test animals? They are a closer genetic fit to humans than the majority of the other animals. They won't get sick or die unless the christian god-idea wants them to. So it would be a win win win all the way around.
If you're so bored that you can't even be bothered to explain your insults, maybe you'd prefer another thread.
I see a number of people here don't support cosmetic testing on animals, while supporting medical testing.
While I agree that cosmetic testing doesn't have the same moral support as medical testing, there isn't any way you can research cosmetics without animal testing. Failure to do so will kill people.
Post WWII Japan had a ban on cosmetics that had been tested on animals. Then a face powder came out that blocked the pores in the skin - permanently. It killed a number of people.
Prior to the 20th century, a lot of cosmetics were made of nasty stuff - up to and including arsenic. Animal testing was brought in to find safe alternatives for humans.
When you see a cosmetic that advertises "not tested on animals", what they mean is that they are the same as another product (possibly no longer on the market, and possibly from the same company) that was tested on animals. No major cosmetic company is going to risk being sued by putting out a product that they don't know, from extensive animal testing, is safe to use.
If you don't want animal testing for cosmetics, the only option is to ban the introduction of new product. Where do you draw the line, though? Do shampoo and toothpaste count as cosmetics? What about a pore cleanser that prevents acne? Or makeup used by burn victims to hide their scars?
Why are animals different?
Because they, ehm, ARE different. Are you saying that gerbils should be allowed to vote? Fruit flies should be allowed to carry arms?
Timtim, there must be a way to get the information needed. Like for new drugs, toxicity, pharmacology, probable dosage, and hints of efficacy prior are usually in seen in animal studies prior to phase 1 (human dosage) clinicals. This information must come from either human or animal studies, and it weeds out a large number of drug candidates. The question I have been proposing all day is are the people opposing using animals willing to lay their health on the line to see that these studies are carried out. To a (wo)man, they all dodged the question. Until there are ethical human trials that can be conducted at this stage, the animal testing must continue. Dislike for an option does not equal the need to do away with it. That just gives you an opportunity to invent and patent something that will allow the animal testing to go away.
You haven't told me why you don't kill yourself, since your existence comes at the expense of other animals, resources being limited.
I mentioned that issue previously, but you're too stupid, lazy, or dishonest to get to reading and responding. But then why would you, since it would show what a hypocritical fool you are?
I have never encountered any of you moralistic fascists who would deal honestly with the fact that, like any other animal, your continued existence means pain and death to other animals.
So the issue isn't whether or not we have "greater moral worth," the issue is actually whether or not we have equal moral worth to the animals, so that we have the right to live at the expense of other animals, as we generally allow that they do. I make the judgment that we do, which could be argued to be "wrong," but at the very least I'm not the raging hypocrite that you are. Nor do I run into the immediate problem of saying that other animals do have the right to live at other animals' expense, while supposing that humans do not.
As usual with passive-aggressive thugs whose real purpose is to control other humans, you avoid the issues that expose your desire for intellectually-deficient but self-righteous power over other human beings.
[Oh, and thanks to those who spoke well of my earlier long post.]
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
How could we ever know for sure if he was doing experiments just for research, or if he also gained pleasure by inflicting pain?
Some people get involved in law enforcement, prison security, or the armed forces, because it's a legitimate job that allows them to hurt and/or kill people. It's so common that every cop and every soldier knows one of these sadists in their own acquaintance. Why would animal research be any different?
OT: I've been wondering what is the reason you post that URL with all your posts Glen Davidson?
Back on topic, sort of, it is interesting reading this thread without having a set idea in my head about the subject first. I had normally just not had to deal with it. There aren't a lot of animal rights protesters that I can see at my university here in Texas, and being in Texas I'm not really surrounded by vegans or vegetarians that I can tell, so I've learned a lot about both sides of this I think.
There is a lot to be said for treating animals well; although, getting into handing out rights seems to cause troubles. However, it seems that a lot of the anti-test side is based on ideas that have little grounding in reality. I'ld chalk that up to the fact that many of the people arguing against testing seem to be rather extreme. From the posts about testing from the people who actually do the testing and have real actionable knowledge about it, it seems that at least for scientific and medical purposes, it is an extremely regulated job with lots of checks in order to protect the animal from needless suffering, and as Glen D at 85 highlighted, it might even been less suffering than these animals would experience in the wild.
I'ld side with the people who say that as soon as there is a real alternative to animal testing, we should switch. But how it is now, it seems to me that much more good comes from testing, and much of what the anti-testers are complaining about seems to already be covered by review boards and laws. Maybe animal studies used to be as horrible as is being presented, but that isn't the case now, and you can complain about it all you want, but that doesn't change what is actually happening now.
Currently, only the human animal has the capability of willfully saving or destroying any or all animals (and things). With this great power comes great responsibility, great peril, and potentially great reward.
IMO, that's why.
So are you arguing that we should do away with enforcing laws because allowing people power over others can attract unsavory types? I don't hear that one every day. If that's not your point, you might want to be clearer.
@JennyT:
If you clicked the link, you'd see it's Mr. Davidson's website. Or at least, his name is on the copyright notice.
@Glen Davidson:
Your posts are much appreciated. Every time I've been almost driven to the point of needing to post to point out the stupid, you've saved me the effort.
If you were honest, you would note that I "shifted," in the next quote you used, to the real representation.
The "deliberate misrepresentation" was me jeering at your inability to deal properly with the issues. But you don't mind being dishonest yet again, unless you're genuinely too stupid to understand what I did there.
Oh, so you're wrong, but you play the self-righteous martyr nonetheless. Typical lack of honesty.
Deliberate misquote, then the same mindless tripe from you that I have come to expect.
You even admitted "not so much" with surgery, but you persist with your disanalogy, blithering stupidly on where you have nothing intelligent to say.
And, moron, I'm not the one with a tidy world. I know that it's messy, and that people like you fail utterly to deal with its messiness honestly. This is an evolved, fairly Malthusian world, which you fail to address in any honest fashion whatsoever.
It's self-righteous pricks like you who live in perpetual hypocrisy. You project your inability to deal with the world by pretending that apples are oranges, thus claiming that we are also you, with your unlivable morality (really an attempt to gain moral control over the rest of us, in predatory fashion).
More like, you wish to live at the expense of others, and you use your hypocritical moral stance to do so. And you have to lie about us in order to claim that your hypocrisy doesn't nullify your "arguments."
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Alex: Humans are not the only animals who willfully save or destroy things...? chimpanzees and other critters have been shown to go out and selectively kill other chimpanzees, dolphins will go out and mob sharks to save non-dolphins, etc.
Even so, that point alone doesn't make humans any more intrinsically valuable then another living being.
Animal testing does hurt another being to help other beings. Yes, its not the pinnacle of morality, but it's the best we can do right now.
@ Stu - 357
Children aren't allowed to vote either. There's a difference between sentience and theory of mind. I doubt fruit flies are self aware.
I'm out of this, probably at least until tomorrow. I think most everything worthwhile has been said, and I am wearied by dealing with the same ignorance/dishonesty of the issue that moral one-upmanship has produced.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
Yes, I understand, it's all done very carefully.
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/doctors+psychologists+helped+torture+d…
That is not what was written in my post. Re-read. Do you actually think someone would post such nonsense such as humans are the only animals who willfully save or destroy things? Are you daft?
Hint: all
I was responding to PZ's assertion that he does not take sadistic pleasure from hurting animals. I only pointed out that we cannot know this, and his meat-eating is evidence to the contrary.
Whether or not some researchers are statistically likely to be sadists has no bearing on whether or not animal research is necessary or not, just like whether or not prison guards are likely to be sadists has no bearing on whether or not prisons are necessary. It does have implications for screening people, and it does mean we can't simply rely on trust like PZ asks us to, but that's it.
Animal research is unnecessary, but that's not what I was saying in the bit you quoted.
please demonstrate the inherent value of human life over any other
What's this stupid crap about "inherent"? My friends don't have inherent value over strangers, but I would save the former rather than the latter if I had to choose. And I would generally save either group rather than some animal, although I might save a cute kitten before I would save, say, Dick Cheney.
Animal research is unnecessary,
Describe non-animal alternatives for the following:
1. Modelling of the effects of a therapeutic approach on metastatic disease.
2. Evaluation of the significance of a particular gene on an organism (i.e. how do you do knock out or transgenic experiments without a mouse).
3. Efficacy of a drug in an organism.
Just the first three situations in which I'd say that animal testing was necessary. I'm sure others can come up with other examples. (And quite honestly if you do have a real alternative, I'd love to know about it. Animal work is expensive and cumbersome.)
Part of the problem is that there are morons who believe scientists torture and kill animals for fun. I've got an idea: a draft for the "animal rights" people - there's a mob I'd gladly send to Iraq. Some of these loonies are so bad they want to force everyone else to stop eating animal flesh.
Animal research is unnecessary
Neither are houses, clothing, or fire.
"Currently, only the human animal has the capability of willfully saving or destroying any or all animals (and things)"
I'm not daft (at least not that I'm aware of), your use of "or" was interpreted wrongly on my part. I assume you are referring to a species level then? Not everyone in the science feild is a native English speaker, and technically how I interpreted your sentence makes sense within the framework of English.
When a communication error occurs, calling the person daft or incompetent off the bat generally isn't the most effective method of repair, nor is it very civil.
I'm really surprised at how rude a lot of the tones are in the comment sections on this site. Won't effect my readership, but it sure doesn't foster participation in intelligent discussion between scientific professionals. (Or informed laymen in some cases.)
I only pointed out that we cannot know this
We can't know much of anything, but we make rational inferences as to the probability that various claims are true.
and his meat-eating is evidence to the contrary
Only if he chooses to eat it while alive.
And this is why physicists are better than biologists. Ha ha. Don't mistake my joke, I'm very disturbed and disappointed.
We have extended human lifespan many-fold. What sacrifices will we make to get a couple more months? Some are perhaps ethical. Many are not. I am annoyed to see that all forms of animal testing are being considered equal. We are capable of such cruelty. To see PZ seemingly come out in favour of geeze god VIVISECTION... I sure hope he's trying to get a rise or prove a point or something.
You want to have more rats to a cage? We can talk, maybe if we adjust sanitary standards it can be done. You want to work your animals an extra hour every day? Okay but let's talk about their sleeping conditions. Reasonable people can work things out.
You want free license to take apart a suffering creature bit by bit just to see how it works? To treat animals like they were nothing more than a soil sample? No! I'm so disgusted I can't even form arguments. I can't imagine having to.
I see the "torture for medical intelligence" argument coming up a lot. If we don't torture, people will die! (Sound familiar?) Most animals are maimed and killed not in a quest to better humanity, or to extend our lives, or anything noble. They are killed for money. Noble goals do not make money. Figuring out exactly how many humans a year will be killed by a given level of an additive for a new domestic floor cleaner, that makes money. You have to know that to make a cost/benefit analysis. Throw more dogs on!
I am also getting pretty tired of this poll crashing thing. I get it, PZ. You have a lot of readers. A LOT! And boy, do we ever love you! We love you so much, we'll click on any stupid-ass thing you tell us to. And boy, you love making us do that. Please, stop it. We're not your toy. It's insulting.
There's no indication from you of how this follows at all from what I said. You need to calm down.
It's a fact that dangerous drugs are being tested in modern times, within the last 15 years, on people without their consent. It's a fact that this is a violation of the Nuremberg Code and a crime against humanity. It's all documented in my first comment.
Aww, are you going to complain that I edited out your cuss words? You can go to your room if you want to cuss until you calm down. I'm not obligated to repeat it.
So are you writing up your medical directives as we speak to preclude any use of trovafloxacin in the event of your unconsciousness? I thought not.
I'm honest enough to acknowledge that the naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy, and might does not make right.
Calm down. You're going to end up in a libertarian survivalist cult if you don't get a handle on that aimless anger.
More non sequiturs. I'm not lying about anyone. Just pointing out that you're a hypocrite too. And of course hypocrisy doesn't nullify anyone's arguments. Like FST said, "It does not matter if you are at Aushwitz in the 40's, waist deep in dead Jews; if you say that killing innocent people is wrong, your argument still stands on its own merits."
I'm a hypocrite, you're a hypocrite, so is everyone here. Big huge deal. So where do we go from there? Hopefully we try to minimize our contradictions.
I'm not sure I can appreciate the attitude that doesn't stand in awe with the knowledge that the capacity to save all things, or indeed destroy all things (at least here on Earth) lies only with the Human animal. That is what sets the Human animal apart from all other animals on Earth. That fact, is not a trivial one, and must be met with great respect.
If the Human species becomes threatened by some random act, no other animal on Earth has the capacity to save us. The reverse is not true.
False. He has animals killed for his pleasure. That's what meat eating is.
#379 was mine. Don't know why it says Anonymous.
Indeed. There are a lot of animal researchers in the world, and there are a lot of sadists in the world. So the groups are going to overlap somewhat.
To Glen Davidson@359: Let me use small words (hey, if you can be arrogant and condescending without reason, I can do it with reason) - I don't kill myself, peabrain, because a) I am not arguing that human life has no value, I am questioning the assumption that human life has more intrinsic or inherent value that other sentient life. Before you make snide comments about intellectual deficiency and a lust for power, try taking a reading comprehension course. I am aware that my continued existence may (you have no idea what my actual "animal" footprint may or may not be) cause pain and or death to other sentient creatures. That does not excuse any attempt on my part or yours to increase the suffering. I am not a moralist, I am simply someone who questions things before jumping to a convenient conclusion.
To Alex@362: You argue that our greater power comes with greater responsibility. I agree. How does this lead to our right to experiment on other species for our benefit?
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/doctors+psychologists+helped+torture+d…
Right, of course, instances of intentionally causing people to suffer so as to coerce desired behavior is evidence that test animals are intentionally made to suffer, by the law of petitio principii.
Volunteers. And if that means no knock-out genes, too bad. There is plenty of amazing research that could be performed with homeless people against their will, research that probably can't be done otherwise. Also, too bad. We make do without it.
Sorry, it's actually a fallacy of affirmation of the consequent (although circular reasoning is lurking): Care is taken with torture victims. Care is taken with test animals. Therefore test animals are torture victims.
This is my rather long winded and indirect contribution to Pro-Test: Friendship, grief, anarchy, fine dining, and random gunfire.
Nerdbeard,
I'm sure PZ will give your concern as much consideration as it deserves.
You might consider not reading the poll crashing posts, for your ease of mind.
What, you didn't know that some experiments deliberately cause pain?
What do you think stress testing is?
Not even the "pro-test" scientists are dishonestly claiming that animals are never deliberately hurt. They just argue that these types of experiments are relatively rare (they are) and necessary (they aren't).
You overanalyzed it.
The point was that just because health specialists are involved in careful monitoring doesn't mean that torture isn't going on.
There is plenty of amazing research that could be performed with homeless people against their will, research that probably can't be done otherwise.
Such examples are not rhetorically effective because your audience doesn't make the moral equivalence between the homeless and test animals that you do, and neither does society. You have the same problem that the anti-abortion folks do, who also take a position based on a moral equivalence that others don't share.
So far you have shown nothing, as would be expected from ignorant loudmouths. To show your solidarity, you need to volunteer first for the unknown drug that, like most antineoplasts, is cytotoxic, but its real toxicity isn't known due to your unwillingness for animal studies. Time for you to put up or shut up. That is called putting your mouth where your money (or body) is.
"Personally, as sad as it would be, I would rather myself or a loved one die of a disease -- which is also part of nature's ability to cull the herd and keep things in balance -- than to learn that their cure was discovered through animal testing."
That is THE stupidest comment I have ever seen on this blog, and thats saying something. You're essentially rejecting modern medicine in its entirety. I assume you also refuse, antibiotics, painkillers(even aspirin), vaccines and so on. I wish you luck and I'm sure your desire to be culled will soon be realized, the herd appreciates your sacrifice.
Rhetorically ineffective, perhaps. Logically sound, still. Just because something would give us great results doesn't mean we should do it.
Those who think homeless people should be protected from harm but animals should not are just relying on gut feeling and tradition: "my daddy ate animals, so I do too."
The reasons why homeless people should be protected -- they feel and prefer to avoid pain, and prefer to live -- apply also to most research and food animals.
ARP, however you wish to treat a class of people, we must treat you that way. It's called the golden rule.
Sorry, no. You don't have the right to force animals to be participants in research. So you don't have the right to demand it of me. You need to get this obsession with dominance out of your head. Maybe your spouse cowers when you yell, but I won't.
Like I said, I'd volunteer if I were otherwise dying and the drug offered a chance of saving my life. Plenty of other people would too. We do have a right to work with people who consent. That's what consent means.
John #388, I have no illusions that he'll even read it. If he does, I hope he has a twinge of guilt about using us to stroke himself with.
Then you have no right to tell us animal research is bad. Your logic bites you in the ass.
Whatever that has to do with anything.
Cthulhu fhtagn?
Sorry, wrong again. You're not very good at logic.
Telling someone that they're not allowed to hurt others is completely different from telling someone that they have to give "consent" to experimentation whether they like it or not.
What, you didn't know that some experiments deliberately cause pain?
That's not relevant. If those experiments were eliminated, your complaint would remain.
You overanalyzed it.
My analysis precisely captures your reasoning.
The point was that just because health specialists are involved in careful monitoring doesn't mean that torture isn't going on.
You're lying or stupid, as that's an obvious strawman. The comment that you responded to had nothing to do with monitoring, but rather was about ethical screening of experiments. If you wanted to be intelligent, rather than so stupid, about it, you would instead point to John Yoo et. al. providing counsel that the actions were legal.
ARP, you have no moral priority compared to anyone else, but you are pretending you do. I'm calling your hypocrisy. Time to play the guinea pig or let the pros play with the guinea pig. That is what comes for making up your mind and then living with the consequences.
It's of course perfectly relevant to the quote of Natalie's that I provided.
I appreciate the advice. That's relevant too. But the test screening and the torture monitoring have similar purposes, to ensure that things do not "go too far." I think your advice supplements rather the supplants my point.
That's pretty funny considering my first comment was about how we're all hypocrites. I'm so offended.
Such threats! You're saying you're going to hurt someone, and if I wouldn't let you hurt an animal, then you would hurt me instead in retaliation.
You really have to break out of this mindset where you assume that violence is always justified. Neither violence against me nor violence against animals is your automatic prerogative.
It really is possible to work with volunteers who can meaningfully consent.
Wow, you are an asshole, and quite pontificatingly proud of it, aren't you? You're also an idiot. And an ideologue.
Sadism, since you obviously don't have a clue, is the derivation of pleasure as a result of inflicting pain or watching pain inflicted on others. Eating meat, killed hundreds, if not thousands of miles away in some factory slaughterhouse, out of sight and mind does not avail PZ the opportunity to observe the slaughter and, thus, enjoy said sadistic pleasures.
Further, having slaughtered my own animals raised for the table, I can tell you that it's not a lot of fun. And there is a crap load of upset and/or guilt if the process goes wrong and the animal does suffer.
I think the whole thing is just you projecting your deviant, shameful self onto others. Like those anti-gay crusaders that end up getting caught trolling for sex in a gay bar.
ARP, your behavior, or lack thereof, is telling us in definite terms why your inane plan wouldn't work. You are a hypocrite, and expect somebody else to do your dirty work. The same as every other person out there who doesn't like animal testing. Then animal testing would still be required since the data has to be there.
By the way, how can one give informed consent if the toxicity of a new drug isn't known?
PZ, I'm sure a lot of us would like to know your position on animal rights. Are you a vegetarian?
Rhetorically ineffective, perhaps. Logically sound, still.
It's not logically sound unless the equivalence has been established. Sheesh.
Just because something would give us great results doesn't mean we should do it.
Silly strawman. It does mean we should do it if the overall evaluation is net positive. And that depends upon one's ethical valuations.
Those who think homeless people should be protected from harm but animals should not are just relying on gut feeling and tradition: "my daddy ate animals, so I do too."
Of course "gut feeling" has a whole lot to do with it, and "tradition" is a subset of the memes that transmit moral judgments.
The reasons why homeless people should be protected -- they feel and prefer to avoid pain, and prefer to live -- apply also to most research and food animals.
See, now that sort of argument is rhetorically effective; as I said, you first must establish moral equivalence. However, even for those who don't challenge those commonalities, they are not generally sufficient. Moral valuation has a lot to do with empathy, and homeless people are a lot more like us, in numerous ways, than test animals.
Wow, small world. I made one of the Pro-Test banners at work (a So. Cal. print shop) that appears in the video (1:06 into the vid, white banner that starts "UCLA Pro-Test..."), and here I find out about how it was ultimately used through PZ who is on the other side of the country.
How funny...
I worked as a grad assitant in a university neuroscience lab in Michigan about 15 years ago. We were doing work on Parkinson's Disease and using the usual lab rats. I constantly got reamed by my advisor because I put the animals under too much anesthesia and got crappy results off the oscilliscope. The rats were in obvious pain, struggling in the mount. We used rats like throw-aways, deviating from procedures on a regular basis when someone had a "good idea". I guess maybe we got approval for "exploratory" research, some kind of blanket approval??? I don't know. I was there a year, never knew anything about IACUC, never saw anyone representing them. I quit my PhD for this reason, I could not square with what was happening in the lab, it was everything that wasn't supposed to be happening. So I KNOW that needless pain has happened and not all university labs are run so tight as some people on this site seem to believe. I am extremely relieved to hear that the IACUC actually exists and actually does something.
I don't think that makes them hypocrites. The main thrust of their argument is that the animals don't have a choice over whether they are experimented on, but humans can volunteer for a drug trial.
For transparency, I am in favour of animal testing (so long as it's not on cosmetics), as I see it as a necessary evil. I see that it doesn't violate the "principle of double effect", which is an obligatory rule for me.
Is-ought fallacy.
That's an epically stupid thing to say. So clearly vegetarians are hypocrites for eating anything at all. They should just starve to death is what you seem to be saying.
Who said this was acceptable? Animals also rape, cannibalize, live in their own excrement etc etc. They don't know any better. You're also committing the is-ought fallacy too.
To those of you who insist that there is no moral difference between the lives of humans and the lives of animals, I invite you to stop eating. Completely. And don't give me any of that vegan/vegetarian hypocritical cop-out. Every acre of farmland used to grow those plants you eat is an acre of animal habitat destroyed. And even if you go back to pure gathering from the pristine wilds (no hunting), every calorie you put into your mouth is a calorie that some animal somewhere also needed but won't get because YOU STOLE IT FROM THEM.
I also invite you to stop breathing, for the same reason. Every oxygen molecule you combust for your own selfish metabolic needs is an oxygen molecule that some animal somewhere also needed but won't get now, thanks to you.
You'll have to stop drinking, too, because fresh water is becoming ever so scarce these days and humans have used up our fair quota several centuries ago. (And thanks to our relatively unique need to sweat we've been unfair fresh water hogs from pretty much our entire existence as a lineage)
And don't live in a house. How many owls and squirrels and wood lice and tree frogs lost their homes when their trees were felled to make the wood that was used to build your house? Can't live in a cave, either, because animals need to use them, and they got there first, didn't they?
There are 6 billion humans on this planet, and only 6000 sperm whales. Clearly, by the law of supply and demand, the rare (and sentient) sperm whale must be worth at least 1 million humans.
Given how often meat-eaters like to joke about the suffering of food animals, it's not at all obvious that this isn't sadism.
So your point is that eating meat isn't like killing for fun, more like killing in order to play with the dead body for fun. Not strictly sadism, as you say.
But at the end of the day, the animal has been killed to serve your pleasure. The result is the same.
Nah. Be clear. I'm not saying that PZ or any other particular researcher necessarily is a sadist. Just that it's inevitable that some are, because there are so many. And so we can't simply trust every researcher's word, any more than we can trust every cop's word. We know some cops do what they do because they enjoy causing pain. There's no reason to assume any other group is immune to this problem.
As I said, I am not so much pro animal testing as it may be the only way to get the needed data. There is a great need for methods to replace animal tests, so there is good opportunity for innovation in this area.
For example, endotoxins can cause a persons temperature to spike, especially from contaminants in injectable drugs. The original way to check for the temperature spike was to inject rabbits under the skin, and check their temperature later. Needless to say the data was noisy and inconsistent, as some rabbits temperature would spike just from handling, and others never reacted. The along came a test using an enzyme, the LAL test. This allowed for endotoxin testing in vitro instead of in vivo. It took a few studies to show the equivalency, and now the FDA prefers the LAL data. I would like to see such options replace as much of the animal testing as possible. But, there is still going to be the first time a drug is used in vivo.
False equivalency. Really embarrassed for you. You're normally much smarter than to fall into such a stupid line of argumentation.
I'll spare writing-out the equally idiotic false-equivalency chain that culminates with us giving rights to bacteria as they are "living creatures" too...
I'm glad I drink.
It means when they avail themselves to modern medicine they are, in fact, hypocrites. That's what's being pointed out.
Not my dirty work. As I've said multiple times now, as you keep dishonestly ignoring, I would volunteer for a test that might save my life. That's me doing my own dirty work.
"You might die from this. We don't know how likely it is you'll survive. You'll also probably die from what's currently killing you."
See, an adult has the right to take unknown risks with their own life. We do it every day. So researchers can take the risk of killing someone with that person's consent. The difference is that like a child, the animal cannot consent.
I'm embarrassed for you, Moses. http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-consequences.html is a fallacy regardless of any equivalency.
I see what you did there: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/red-herring.html
Or any animal rights activist isn't a terrorist. There are just so many and we know that some are.
Are you?
Again ARP, either live with the responsible adult consequences of your decision, which means you must volunteer to be a testee since you must tell us no animal testing, or give up on telling other people that animal testing is unnecessary. One or the other.
It's of course perfectly relevant to the quote of Natalie's that I provided.
Then you should have simply pointed that out in response to her -- that ethical screening isn't so ethical (in your view) if it allows experiments where animals are intentionally made to suffer ... rather than irrelevantly going off about monitoring of human torture -- which is primarily done for legal cover, both to keep it inside the boundaries defined by those torture memos and to reduce the likelihood of death of the victim, which would expose the perpetrator to the death penalty under U.S. law.
Here's some more advice: while tangling with that belligerent buffoon Nerd may feel satisfying in the sense of shooting fish in a barrel (and there are many people who have no qualms about that, not just because their daddies didn't -- something you need to come to grips with), it's also much like rolling around with pigs in the mud.
Nerd, I think ARP argues animal experimentation is fine provided said animal is a human one and consents, but wrong otherwise.
A very idealistic view.
You could start killing people to harvest their organs, and a dozen other lives or more could be saved for each victim killed. That would certainly be a net positive. Nevertheless, I'd say we shouldn't do it, because the victim's right to live shouldn't be violated.
These are precisely the reasonings of white supremacists, homophobes, and misogynists.
Moral valuation also has a lot to do with whether or not you just washed your hands, or whether a grad student recently sprayed fart spray in the trash can next to you.
Doesn't mean that it should. Doesn't mean that "I don't feel much empathy for a rat" should be admitted as an argument.
So idealistic it won't work. That is my point. Either those opposed to animal testing need to volunteer as testees, or animals must be tested. One or the other. ARP needs to make up his/her mind and live with consequences. Now he/she is simply avoiding them by saying others can do it.
Again, Nerd, you're just assuming that you have the automatic prerogative to commit violence against someone, and that if you can't do it against an animal, then you get to do it to me.
Get over your assumption that you automatically have the right to hurt someone.
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-consequences.html is a fallacy regardless of any equivalency.
Saying that something isn't true because it has bad consequences is fallacy; saying that it isn't desirable is not -- in fact, that's a tautology. The original point was about "handing out rights" and the consequences that would ensue. As framed, it is a choice of action, not a matter of truth. And even if it were a matter of truth, your point would not go against MosesZD, who quite properly addressed the false equivalence entailed by Tulse's explicit substitution of "different entities" in an argument.
While ARP has never come right out and denied that he frequently engages in acts of sexual deviance, he has also not denied it. Of course, even if he did deny it, that does not constitute evidence that he actually doesn't.
Hey, let's just keep flinging that mud around!
ARP is still missing the point. But what else is new. The tap dancing reminds me of Heddle. And ARP, that isn't a compliment.
I'm all for replacing animal testing, but until a good alternative is in place, that isn't happening. And people like ARP aren't working on the alternatives, but just pontificating like blowhards and hypocrites.
While ARP has never come right out and denied that he frequently engages in acts of sexual deviance, he has also not denied it.
Indeed, we can't know that he doesn't, and the fact that he has a penis is evidence that he does.
I'm aware tradition isn't every single meat-eater's reason. But it is the default for the vast majority who've never really thought it through. And it seems to be the default for several here who like to pretend that they're thinking about it. (#17 for example)
Pigs are way more interesting. And fun.
You could start killing people to harvest their organs, and a dozen other lives or more could be saved for each victim killed. That would certainly be a net positive. Nevertheless, I'd say we shouldn't do it, because the victim's right to live shouldn't be violated.
Then it wouldn't be a net positive because violating the victim's right to live is too great a negative.
Sheesh, I'm tired of debating with stupid people. I think I'll go back and see if Sastra had anything more to say about naturalism.
It's Friday night, and all that mud has messed up my computer. I meant to say "...never come right out and admitted that..."
This is what was called "sexual deviancy":
Nice homophobia, Pharyngulites!
P.S. While we put a high positive value on saving people, and a similar high negative value on passively letting them die, we put a much higher negative value on actively killing people -- therefore, no organ harvesting, and no throwing people off the bridge in order to hit the train switch that saves oodles of people. See the work of Marc Hauser, referenced more than once above.
Nice homophobia, Pharyngulites!
There's no homophobia there at all, fool, only hypocrisyphobia.
If that's how we're going to count it, then the animal's right not to be killed comes in too.
Which is sort of what I was trying to say.
Quite obviously false. When one is looking for an example of "sexual deviancy" and anything involving consensual gay sex is brought up, that's deeply ingrained homophobia.
Nope, you haven't show moral equivalency, just alleged it. As we said, hypocrite.
Also wrong. You have very poor reading skills. "The reasons why homeless people should be protected -- they feel and prefer to avoid pain, and prefer to live -- apply also to most research and food animals."
I said it first. Would you prefer if I just renamed myself "hypocrite like you" so we can get it out in the open?
I'm aware tradition isn't every single meat-eater's reason. But it is the default for the vast majority who've never really thought it through.
This is incredibly stupid. First, the default is to eat meat because people either don't have qualms about the slaughter of those animals or they mentally compartmentalize so that they can avoid associating the two. Second, I wasn't talking about eating meat, I was talking about shooting fish in a barrel. Many people have no qualms about that because they simply don't give fish moral worth -- and pointing out that fish "prefer to live" isn't enough for them to do so. You will continue to say incredibly stupid things as long as you have so little understanding of the nature of moral judgments.
And it seems to be the default for several here who like to pretend that they're thinking about it. (#17 for example)
#17 is not an example of tradition, it's an employment of a naturalistic fallacy as justification for moral devaluation of the animals we consume. Sheesh.
Sheesh. What else do you think tradition is?
Oh jeez. Now this is stupid. It's a figure of speech. Let it go, man.
All right, you guys are getting boring.
I need to go smash my dick in a door jamb.
Also wrong. You have very poor reading skills. "The reasons why homeless people should be protected -- they feel and prefer to avoid pain, and prefer to live -- apply also to most research and food animals."
Sigh. You claim that homeless people and animals are morally equivalent because they both have these attributes, but you have not shown it ... and you cannot. All you can do is present such points and hope that people conclude that they entail moral equivalence. But moral judgments are internal and cannot themselves be transferred by logical demonstration.
ARP:
It's a specific practice of long standing, and you're splitting the already-split hairs.
So, do you personally think animal experimentation a net positive, or not?
(Noting that it's already known you think it's wrong.)
Much have been said about using animals in experiments for the benefit of human kind. It is also said that scientists are inhumane because the animals do not volunteer themselves. Well said, no. Cattles, pigs, chickens etc did not volunteer to be slaughtered or to be food on your table. The fact is that in vitro experiments, i.e. using cells in petri dishes are alternatives to animals. However, a whole animal including human differs from the cells isolated from them. It is like saying [ hope I am not wrong ]' the whole is not the sum of the parts. Isolated cells from heart, kidney etc. are used all the time. But, there are no interactions among them in a petri dish like they do in a whole heart. The same is true that isolated organs do not interact with other organs as in a whole animal. Therefore, it is necessary to use whole animal as part of the study. It is like LegoBlock. No one single approach can give us the answers. There is another point. If the animals are not treated humanely, they will not be normal. Therefore, the results are misleading. So, animals have to be treated well in a humane manner to have workable results.
Sheesh. What else do you think tradition is?
Not a naturalistic fallacy, fool. "It's ok to eat fish because it's natural to do so" is a naturalistic fallacy. "I eat fish because my daddy did" is not.
Oh jeez. Now this is stupid. It's a figure of speech. Let it go, man.
*I* used the figure of speech, and *I* intentionally referred to its literal meaning in my parenthetical, you idiot.
I think it is a failure of reasoning when you start imagining that animals have or can have rights. Equating the existence of an animal with the life of a human being denigrates the human being.
As has been said before, the ELF is the left wing equivalent of the anti-abortionist crowd.
Quite obviously false. When one is looking for an example of "sexual deviancy" and anything involving consensual gay sex is brought up, that's deeply ingrained homophobia.
You're such an intellectually dishonest idiot. When people point to examples of anti-gay politicians getting caught in a "wide stance", it's as often as not gays doing the pointing. MosesZD referred to a well known example of homophobia ("anti-gay") grounded in a person's shame (that's the word he used) about their own sexuality. A criticism of being ashamed about an attribute is not a criticism of the attribute.
Whether or not ARP does indeed engage in (generic) acts of sexual deviancy, he certainly does not engage in acts of mindreading. I was unaware that the term "sexual deviancy" was directly homologous with homosexuality. I'd actually initially typed in "pedophelia," and decided that would be particularly nasty. So, yeah, good "homophobia" catch there.
tmaxPA,
I fail to see how animal rights are any less a human construct than human rights, and don't we already have animal cruelty laws implicitly acknowledging the existence of such?
I think it is a failure of reasoning when you start imagining that animals have or can have rights.
There's no rational basis for that claim -- it displays a failure of reasoning.
Equating the existence of an animal with the life of a human being denigrates the human being.
Non sequitur. Animals can be granted rights without creating equivalences. We grant animals the right not to suffer needlessly (where need is a matter of human societal goals, not logical necessity).
As has been said before, the ELF is the left wing equivalent of the anti-abortionist crowd.
There's some truth to that, but it is again a non sequitur. One can imagine granting rights to animals without terrorizing scientists.
I've seen you make a lot of intelligent comments, tmaxPA, but these aren't among them.
The fact is that in vitro experiments, i.e. using cells in petri dishes are extremely limited alternatives to animals.
fixed.
Whether or not ARP does indeed engage in (generic) acts of sexual deviancy, he certainly does not engage in acts of mindreading. I was unaware that the term "sexual deviancy" was directly homologous with homosexuality.
Do try to follow along. ARP referred to MosesZD offering anti-gay crusaders trolling gay bars as an example of sexual deviancy in #405; it didn't have anything to do with your #428.
it didn't have anything to do with your #428.
Sorry, that's not quite true, but the point stands; see #434.
Yeah, well. I'm still divided on this. I know all about the importance of animal experimentation. I really, really do. And I know that there's mondo regulation in place (finally). Sometimes those regulations aren't followed. The large university near me, for example, that got busted paying $10-$20 apiece for dogs to experiment on. Except they were buying the dogs from guys that were stealing them from peoples' yards. Nothing like finding out Fluffy was alive and conscious when she was eviserated.
Or Monash University doing they're particularly lovely experiements on live, conscious bunnies. In some cases, for students who weren't going on for a degree where you'd think that sort of thing was necessary. And in spite of having a CD available with a movie of the whole procedure that contained every thing a student would need to know for a test. There was enough outcry from those of us who do rabbit rescue (and from the shadow Minister of Agriculture) that they're not doing it this year. Finally.
So, yeah, I'm still on the fence about this.
If that's how we're going to count it, then the animal's right not to be killed comes in too.
But people don't generally give the right of an animal not to be killed the same high negative value as the right of a human not to be killed; in fact, they give that a much lower value (depending on the animal; as I said, it's a function of empathy) than saving a human, so when we "count it", animals lose.
You seem to be a moral absolutist/solipsist who just can't imagine that other people assign different moral weights than you do, despite the overwhelming evidence.
vegans and animal rights protesters...pssh.
A. Humans have canine teeth. Can you guess why?
B. Next time you need help and you don't like animal research, be sure to tell the ER people that if the research into your lifesaving help involved "any of gawd's little critters, I ain't havin' it", and while your life fades, feel good about it.
"Red of tooth and claw" means more than just being a lion stalking dinner. If you don't like it, just go ahead and slit your wrists and let the flies and bacteria have at you...they're coming to get you eventually, anyway.
We ended up top predator for a reason- we're predators. Deal with it.
And, btw, I voted "yes" and we were at 82% for Homo Sapiens, thank you very much.
vegans and animal rights protesters...pssh.
A. Humans have canine teeth. Can you guess why?
B. Next time you need help and you don't like animal research, be sure to tell the ER people that if the research into your lifesaving help involved "any of gawd's little critters, I ain't havin' it", and while your life fades, feel good about it.
"Red of tooth and claw" means more than just being a lion stalking dinner. If you don't like it, just go ahead and slit your wrists and let the flies and bacteria have at you...they're coming to get you eventually, anyway.
We ended up top predator for a reason- we're predators. Deal with it.
And, btw, I voted "yes" and we were at 82% for Homo Sapiens, thank you very much.
I'm still on the fence about this.
Where "this" entails "kill[ing] biological research dead", as PZ wrote? Or do you want to argue that it wouldn't have that effect?
If you're objecting to regulations not always being followed ... well, it sounds like you already know what to do about that.
I just noticed...
450 plus comments already.
Little point in adding more commentary, but I would note that there is a lot of animal experimentation that has nothing to do with medical science, but a lot to do with how we understand how animals themselves function, the (potential) threats they face within their environments, how environmental toxins react with them, and even how removing numbers of one species affects others.
Seriously, there is a metric fuck-ton of research on animals that primarily serves to benefit our knowledge of how animals themselves function and interact. Much of that knowledge is directly used to create and support various conservation programs.
so, it's hardly completely, and perhaps not even mostly, that we do invasive research on animals strictly to benefit ourselves.
Keep that in mind as you garner interest in making it more and more difficult to research animals, because the rules that apply to medical research inevitably become applied to ALL animal research of any kind.
Doubt that? If so, I would suggest a visit to any biology dept. of any major university (especially in California), and ask them how animal rights activism has changed the rules for how they conduct their research on animals in the field as well as the lab.
Ending animal research would be bad for everyone, including all the animals.
Humans have canine teeth. Can you guess why?
Naturalistic fallacy.
"Red of tooth and claw" means more than just being a lion stalking dinner. If you don't like it, just go ahead and slit your wrists and let the flies and bacteria have at you...they're coming to get you eventually, anyway.
Gee, I guess we should banish all of civilization.
Ah, True Believers™, they always think they make better points than they do.
A. Humans have canine teeth. Can you guess why?
Because our non-human and human ancestors had them? We actually have fairly reduced canines really.
Also, there are plenty of other primates that have much bigger canines, such as gorillas, that don't eat meat at all. Hell, chimpanzees have bigger canines then us, and meat, nuts and insects only comprises of less the 5% of their diet. We eat such a significant portion of meat compared to other primates who have much larger canines, that it's unlikely that us possessing canines like we do has a phylogenetic origin in meat eating. Mostly it's used in male-male competition in other primates.
So, while I think eating meat is fine, your point really doesn't work.
Sorry, that's not quite true, but the point stands; see #434.
Considering that he was quoting the other message to define what he wanted my reference to "sexual deviance" to mean, and that he started his message (#434) by quoting the entire first paragraph of my original message, I think I'm entitled to make some clarification about what did or didn't mean by the term that kicked off the whole "sexual deviance" thread that started up at that point.
These are precisely the reasonings of white supremacists, homophobes, and misogynists.
And this is precisely the air they breathe and the water they drink. So much for such fallacies of affirmation of the consequent.
Doesn't mean that [empathy] should [determine moral valuations].
Now that is a fallacy of appeal to consequences.
Doesn't mean that "I don't feel much empathy for a rat" should be admitted as an argument.
Sigh. If lack of empathy shouldn't admitted as an argument, then either should empathy. You claim that, as with homeless people, we shouldn't kill animals because they prefer to live. But why is that an argument? why should we care? Without empathy, you've got absolutely nothing.
I think I'm entitled to make some clarification about what did or didn't mean by the term that kicked off the whole "sexual deviance" thread that started up at that point.
I think you're full of crap and you know it. ARP wrote This is what was called "sexual deviancy" and then quoted an explicit reference to trolling gay bars and called that homophobia. The claim that he was mindreading you is just plain stupid.
Actually, what my post should say is a RECENT phylogenetic origin for meat eating. It's prob reasonable to say that the original selection for canines in mammals is related to efficent processing of meat. However, saying that since we have canines it means we are naturally suppose to eat meat isn't accurate, since the trait in our recent phylogeny isn't often associated with that function.
Dianne # 308
Yes there is. It's the 22nd character in the line.
Lucky rats. Jentsch's monkeys should be so lucky.
So what do the animal rights absolutists like ARP think about bedbugs, lice, and tapeworms? Maybe only conscious animals have these rights, but good luck drawing that line. And if so, can we experiment on and eat sleeping animals? Or even people, especially if they are in comas? Is it just "tradition" that keeps us from eating people that are brain dead? After all, they don't "feel and prefer to avoid pain, and prefer to live" .
Really. Go back and read #434. What is the first thing he quotes? Guess what? It mentions "sexual deviance", which he then goes on to "clarify" using the second quote. He wouldn't have quoted that one if I hadn't made the reference to sexual deviance in the message that he first quotes.
My subsequent message was a not-too-clear way of saying that my reference to sexual deviance in the first quote of #434 had nothing to do with the message he quoted below it.
As for my "claim" that he was mindreading me, I was stating that he clearly was not reading my mind because, as I stated above, my comment about sexual deviance was meant to be vague and non-descript, not related to the comment about trolling gay bars. Mea culpa, I guess, for being too vague.
I also just noticed that I omitted a pronoun in #465. It ought to read "...clarification about what I did or didn't mean...". Kind of left it open for possible misinterpretation that I was clarifying what ARP meant. Which I wasn't.
FST in #286 "'ve considered signing up for less invasive/dangerous tests."
Bzzzt - not what you were asked. You should sign up for any testing. Volunteer for an untested drug, which could be very dangerous. The invasive/dangerous aspect is meaningless for the ethics.
Re - using autistics, etc for drug testing - using anything that wasn't bred in controlled conditions seems incredibly stupid. Autistics and others that are "lesser" (to use the term from another post, not my own views) is using people with unusual biologies (general term for the entire body - neurology, metabolism, etc). How can you be sure that the effects of the drug are not due to their neurology, perhaps, and will be different with people without their structures? (I know, piss-poor way of saying it, but it's late for me). What kind of control group can you have with people with disabilities? Add in things like the amount of people who are needed for human trials, which would need to be multiplied in the early stages of drug testing...and the generation time....human beings as test subjects (except for the last stages) is highly impractical.
Which ignores the ethics issues of manslaughter (side question - how come, as far as I've seen, you can't murder an animal or plant? Maybe the anti-humananity people like PETA should be trying to change the laws instead of break them like terrorists).
I skimmed the last 200-odd posts, but did anyone bring up the issue that "rights" are not inherent to anything, but are things that we have decided are important? Our rights of freedom, pursuit of happiness, etc - all are things that we have decided are worth defending and want everyone to have. There is no Book of Rights where it is an absolute that any creature has any inherent rights, us included. We just picked ones that we thought important, derived from experience, philosophy, etc. I lost the site where this point was argued quite eloquently (the idea that animals do not have inherent rights, but are given to them by humans - we just draw the lines at different places).
Well, I think ARP made the most sense with the fewest insults. I may vote "No." I think we should at least have the same restrictions as the rest of the civilized world. However, anyone who blows anyone else's car up should go to jail.
Wow, 474 comments. In case it has not already been mentioned, there was an article in either Skeptic or Skeptical Inquirer, wild ass guess about a year ago give or take, about this subject. Interestingly, the authors argued against animal research, and argued that most of is it unnecessary. Anyhow, considering the publication, I thought some here might want to find it and read it.
"The tactics of the anti-vivisectionists are also reprehensible and deserving of condemnation."
PZ, as much as I love your blog, you have as much of a tendency to vilify those who you disagree with as do many of the religious folk you often skewer. In fact, it seems to me you routinely do the same to religious people, grouping them all together as intolerant morons with pitchforks.
There is really no need whatsoever to group all "anti-vivisectionists" together, I'm quite sure many of us are peaceful and don't go around blowing up peoples cars. Yet I have a feeling you'll use that one isolated incident many times before the year is over to make vilify all people concerned with animal rights as extremists.
Richard Smith, it seems I overestimated you.
did anyone bring up the issue that "rights" are not inherent to anything, but are things that we have decided are important?
Yes.
Ah, this will be fun.
For you see, I have been vegan for many years. I even used to be employed by PETA. No, really. And yes, Ingrid Newkirk is everything you imagine and then some. The phones were tapped, which is nice. I also used to hang with a bunch of folk from SHAC. As a result of this, CCTV footage of me is most likely in a UK government file somewhere. They're in jail now.
I, on the other hand, walk the streets a free man. This is probably because I'm sufficiently rational have woken up and figured out that the usual arguments of AR figureheads - including the likes of Jerry Vlasak and Gary Francione - are riddled with logical fallacies. And logical fallacies make my pitiful undernourished vegan frame hurt.
My approach to my lifestyle is simple. I am vegan because I want to be. I eschew animal products because that is what makes me feel comfortable, but attempting to impose my lifestyle on others is a no-no for me. Curiously, I have actually been the catalyst for quite a few people adopting veganism as a result, simply because they expected me to be the stereotypical vegan, but thought they'd give some of my weird food or clothing or cosmetics a try on account of me being, essentially, a regular guy. I find that "Y'know, seasoned properly, tofu can taste pretty damn good" works better than "There is a moral imperative to eat tofu LOL VLASAK". Tell me, kids... how many people have you directly turned on to veganism with your more caustic approach?
Do I like the idea of animal testing? No. I'd much rather it didn't happen at all. It doesn't sit right with me. But, the reality is, it is prevalent at the moment. If some wealthy vegan philanthropist wants to pump a whole ton of cash into funding research into alternatives then I'm all for that. However, the fact that this can't happen RIGHT NOW DAMMIT isn't going to make me placard myself up and start protesting.
In short, animal testing, IMO, is a shitty reality. Maybe it'll go away, maybe it won't. I'm just grateful that there is so much opportunity for me to live as non-exploitative a lifestyle as I possibly can, be it explotation of humans or other species. Other things that suck include retarded sloganeering, intimidation, liberating animals without properly thinking through where the fuck they're going to go once they're out of the lab, and violence against non-human OR human animals.
Well, this was a deliciously poorly written screed, but I've not slept too much. I expect that the thread will continue to unfold in a tediously predictable manner. In closing, I am vegan, and you can go vegan too if you like. I'm not going to be an asshole if you don't.
ARP, I'm still undecided on the issue but you have my respect for sticking it out for so long trying to make a logical argument against the waves of personal insults and heretic shunning/mutual masturbation here.
I still don't think the issue is quite as black and white as you're making it though. If there is some animal research going on that could save human lives then it could be argued that the research is necessary. Certainly not pleasant or desired but necessary. If we do the testing many sentient creatures will die horrific painful deaths, if we don't do the testing many sentient creatures will die horrific painful deaths. Our backs are forced against the wall by circumstance.
It's as if some masked supervillian dropped two of your best friends from a great height and you only had time to save one of them from splatting onto the cold hard ground below. It sounds supremely Assholeian but in such difficult situations you might have to start asking yourself questions like, 'Which of these two people would get the most out of life if allowed to live it?'.
Don't get me wrong. This isn't necessarily a line of thinking I support. I see your objections and probably agree with them to an extent. 'What right do we have to kill one sentient creature to save another?' 'What gives us the right to judge which creature has to die and which gets to live'.
'Hey piggy, that guy over there needs your heart to live so we're just gonna take it'.
'but I need my heart to live'.
'Yeah well, sucks for you'.
But at the same time you have to realise how ridiculously horrible it would be to have to say.
'Sorry Mr. Jones, we could let you live forty or so more years if we took that pig's heart but hey, it's the pig's heart. We can't just take it however much we want you to see your kids grow up, it's not that pig's fault you got heart disease now is it? '.
Much like a legit massage there's no happy ending, however much you might want it.
"I`m for it, so long as the animals aren't abused"
Unless you know how to get a letter of consent from a non-human animal, experimenting on them in any form is abuse.
If you experiment on animals, the suffering of the animal is your responsibility. On the other hand, you're not responsible for the suffering of schizophernics, since you didn't inflict it on them. What you have is the certain sueffring of an animal(human or otherwise) vs the vauge possibility of a cure for a disease among humans.
There shouldn't be any dancing around the subject. Killing intelligent and self-conscious primates is morally wrong. Whether or not research (i.e., our self interest) justifies that is a totally different issue.
For those of you against animal research (like Lotharloo), you have a few choices, either we do humane research (meaning we require more anesthesia on animals than we actually require on human beings... I know because I did brain research in Eric Kandel's lab at Columbia) or YOUR child or grandparent, or even you, dies unnecessarily and painfully in total agony without medical research... your choice.
Yee haw, I finally found sumthin' I can agree on wit mr.myers! crazy lib-tards (librals) care more about trees and animals than people! Me, I say keep them monkeys in cages cus who cares if they suffer!
@LRA:
Read my comment again. I never said anything regarding medical research on animals.
There are two issues here, one is easier to address and the other one not. The easy issue is that killing intelligent and self-conscious animals is immoral.
The tough issue is whether our self-interest justifies that.
For instance, I assume both sides agree that if there is a reliable alternative to animal testing it must be taken. In other words, everyone agrees with the value of the research and the problems regarding tests on animals; one side simply believes self-interest does not justify harming animals and the other side believes the benefits of the research out-weights the harm done.
I'm with you on this one, PZ.
A lot of people have got either the wrong ideas of how limited animal testing is and the scale of it is insignificant compared to industry, etc,.
the answer to all this is easy. the reason it is ok to test on animals and not on humans is because humans have SOULS and animals were given to us to use in anyway we see fit.
=]
Tempted as I am to read through all 400 comments that have been made since I last looked in on this post I really think I ought to get out into my much neglected garden.
What I will sugggest is that while you are voting in the LA Times pole why not make a more meaningful contribution by signing the Pro-Test petition at:
http://www.amprogress.org/site/c.jrLUK0PDLoF/b.5110163/k.1CA0/ProTest_P…
Me, I'm against medical testing on animals. Not so much for the animals' sake, but you really do get better results testing human medicine on human subjects.
Of course, the problem is where to get them?
The prison system seems an obvious choice. Why let them rot in a cell or simply execute them when you can do something useful with 'em?
Of course, you're gonna look pretty bad when it turns out some guy who died in agony from the side-effects of some experimental treatment was wrongfully convicted. Maybe leave that one 'till forensic science really is as advanced as it is on TV, eh?
Or maybe figure out a way to get willing subjects. Plenty of people are willing to sacrifice their lives for religion. There's gotta be some way to get people to do it for science. Maybe the research companies could give huge payouts to the families like those Islamic militant organizations do for suicide bombers.
Still, I guess until somebody can accomplish the herculean task of getting all the necessary legislation through, I guess the monkeys really are our best option.
It's good to see that I'm not the only person who's fallen afoul of "nothing's sacred" and his caustic, abrasive, self-righteous, arrogant manner. (He referred to me as "morally depraved and not particularly bright" on another thread.)
Nothing's sacred: I thought I had poor social skills. Till I encountered you. Seriously, is it really that hard not to rant, rave and curse at everyone who ever dares to disagree with you on anything? Get a grip.
486 comments, and no-one's said it aready... well, maybe once in here.
I'm against the great majority of animal experimentation.
Do we need to use mice to test gene expression? No. Do we need to drill into their brains to test their sense of balance? No.
Do we need to test certain cancers on them? Maybe. If the experiments are carefully designed, we'll get a maximum of information with a minimum (relatively) of suffering.
Less experiments means better science, because it forces the researchers to think very carefully about the questions they're asking by harming animals.
You can be anti-testing while recognising that a minimum of it justified.
I am a chimpanzee researcher working in the DR Congo, where we are unfortunately documenting an emerging slaughter of chimpanzees for the busmeat market(see www.wasmoethwildlife.org - 'Trading chimpanzees for Baubles' 3 volume ebook). It strikes me as enormously hypocritical that we expect Africans to avoid destroying wildlife and selling chimpanzee babies when we ourselves engage in what can only be described as torture of chimpanzees in the name of science. If you doubt this, please see the following link:
http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animals_in_research_news/underc…
Please watch the film, difficult though it is.
I respectfully disagree with PZ that oversight and restrictions are protecting chimpanzees and monkeys in research laboratories from such horrific abuse.
We would not treat our most ahrdened criminals in such a manner!
All the best,
Cleve Hicks
Walton whines:
And your point is? If you abandoned your morally repugnant politico-economic ideology, perhaps he'd take a kinder view of you. As long as you adhere to your hateful, selfish views towards society, don't complain when people comment disdainfully on them and you.
Where have I expressed "hateful" views towards anyone? I don't hate anyone in particular. You're the one who keeps attacking libertarians personally.
And as to being "selfish" - selfishness is not necessarily a bad thing. Kids' playground morality does not work in the real world.
But I am NOT going to be drawn into discussing libertarianism, since I will then be accused of "hijacking another thread" (and it will conveniently be forgotten that you were the one who brought it up).
Same here. I've never been comfortable with the idea of experimenting on animals. I don't eat them because I don't feel a need to. I've been a vegetarian for over 30 years and I'd say I'm pretty healthy as a result.
However, when my kids are sick they get medicine that would not exist if not for animal experimentation. I accept the need for it and I support it, even though I feel a little guilty doing so. All I ask of practitioners is that they go out of their way to avoid any more suffering to animals than is absolutely necessary.
That's the difference between people like me and supporters of the ALF. They don't seem to be able to think through the logical consequences of their position. I suspect most would turn out to be hypocrites if their kids' lives were threatened by serious illness.
So please keep up the good work you guys!
How stupid. You have terrible social skills, Walton. ns does not - he knows exactly what he's doing and could behave differently if he so chose. But far more significantly, your arguments are rubbish, and his aren't, whether I agree with him on any particular issue or not.
(By the way, since you acknowledged on a recent thread that you know you come across as more sure of your opinions than you actually are, you should work on expressing them with a modicum of intellectual humility. Recognizing the problem is just the first step. Recognizing the problem and repeatedly apologizing for it over a long period of time while doing nothing to remedy the situation isn't even a step - it's a dodge used to avoid confronting the real need to practice genuine intellectual humility.)
If reduction in suffering is your goal then you should be in favor of animal testing. The medicines developed have reduced the suffering and death of millions of animals.
Walton "Why's Everybody Always Pickin' on Me" Misogynist asks,
Right here: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/04/psss_libertarians_go_pester_…
So it's better that children should die, rather than a well-to-do merchant should lose a loaf of bread.
That's your contempt for poor people. I know you don't feel a red-hot burning rage against them, but you're confusing this absence of rage for an absence of hatred. Not so. Your hatred of poor people is cold contempt.
A video just for Walton.
I propose a challenge for Pharyngula commenters. The goal is to coax the most horrible words out of Walton.
I believe I am currently winning with my submission at #498, but I would be absolutely delighted to see someone else take the lead.
Eating/killing or even torture of one creature by another is the normal part of natural process called evolution. See all that parasitoid insects, like Ichneumonidae or Tachinidae - You don't tell me that they are "evil" (in what sense?), don't You? So You cannot say that biologists studying nature are "evil". People HAVE RIGHT to use other creatures for their purpose, just like lions, eagles, pikes, tarantulas, rattlesnakes, jaguars and cormorants have such right.
However, we should not break our empathy too deeply - because we will do damage to ourselves - mainly our minds and our societes. Thus, we should use experiments on animals very carefully and avoid unnecessary suffering or confront importance of expected results against expected suffering and number of sacrificed individuals.