Vivisection at Berkeley: Protest all life sciences!
Recently, a group of student-organized protesters picketed on-campus and outside the Helen Wills 10th anniversary symposium. The Helen Wills Institute is a neuroscience institute with affiliated labs on the Berkeley campus. Most of the animal protesters wore bandanas over their faces and carried signs like "vivisection kills" and wrote on the sidewalks phrases like "animals die while demons rejoice." I have come to the conclusion that protesting like this is an unhelpful contribution to on-campus activism as well as a distraction from a fruitful animal-research debate.
First, I should tell you a bit about me. I am a graduate student at Berkeley, and I do research in biophysics. I have done scientific work with mice in the past, but I was bothered by it, so I chose to work in enzymology and biophysics instead. I now work with proteins from yeast and E. coli, so I am not coming at this from the perspective of someone whose career is imperiled by animal protesters.
My position is that the animal protesters are coming at this all wrong. In fact, even though they may not see it this way, I would suggest that they have very much in common with right-wing protesters (i.e. anti-abortionists or anti-gay activists). These "stop Cal vivisection" protesters, though they claim to be "anti-vivisection," are actually anti-biology, and therefore anti-research. They appeal to gut-thinking; rather than considering complex issues and forming coherent arguments, they have reduced the issue to one message, which is devoid of careful, intellectual, nuanced arguments. I suspect that most have not been challenged to carefully consider the message that they argue.
It is often said that expert knowledge is "conditionalized," meaning that experts do not simplify knowledge into sets of isolated facts, but rather, experts understand that facts depend heavily on the context of their circumstances. [1] 
Rhetoric that oversimplifies complex issues is therefore indicative of non-expert knowledge. Take for example the poster at left ("Vivisection is murder, Cal has blood on it's [sic] hands"). This type of rhetoric (especially the incorrect punctuation) is very similar to the anti-abortion protesters, and accomplishes about as much.
Sometime during the BOAA's Spring 2007 anti-vivisection campaign, a supporter posted information at indybay.org. In it, there was some supposedly "insider" descriptions of neuroscientists here at Berkeley, and their so-called "deplorable" research. The prominence of the untruths about Yang Dan's lab in particular ought to make any thoughtful person question the entirety of the post. In it, they described the numbers of ferrets and hamsters used in research every year in Yang Dan's lab. The Dan lab has never worked with ferrets or hamsters; and as far as I know, these have never been model species in neuroscience. One can even verify that her lab has never published about these species (i.e. search "ferret AND yang dan [au]" on PubMed). In addition to the oddly incorrect information about species used, the scale of the numbers were rather obvious overestimates for a lab of their size. The willingness to make up facts and promote her lab as somehow "notorious" for animal use is totally bizarre. From my perspective inside the university, these sorts of allegations are impossible to debate, because they've just got their facts so ridiculously wrong.
Also note that in each of the "anti-vivisection" posters, the protesters illustrate "vivisection" as bizarre contraptions constraining awake monkeys. This illustration is also very far removed from any of the labs they are protesting. Because of their expense, non-human primate experiments are among the most rare animal experiments in academia. Based on this 1997 press release, I don't think there are any primate facilities on the UC Berkeley campus. Therefore, the illustration of constrained monkeys is far from representative of animal research at Berkeley. Its constant use suggests a willingness to misinform in order to advance a cause; such a rejection of the intellect is alarming.
Before continuing, let's consider the word "vivisection." To nearly all professional scientists, this is a word that summons images of pseudo-science like phrenology, alchemy, and the like. Etymologically, '''vivisection''' refers to the practice of operating on living organisms for the purpose of scientific research. The term is not generally used by present-day scientists, and at least one professional scientific society claims that animal rights advocates attempt to use the word to recast the terms of the discourse on animal research to favor their position. [2] According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, the word "vivisection" is used chiefly by opponents of animal research. [3]
The use of the word "vivisection" is carefully crafted as an archaic and scary sounding word to insinuate that wrongdoing has occurred, so use of the word is always a simple linguistic way to accuse a researcher of animal abuse. The truth is that animals are used in many types of research, including social science research, and that every possible care is taken to avoid pain in the animals. Nobody wants his or her animal to feel pain or stress because this pain can easily bias experimental results, so there is already a motivation for the scientist to avoid pain in their animals. Trained scientists never use the word "vivisection," and in the rare occasion of demonstrable abuse, those researchers are often scorned in the scientific community. To imply that Berkeley is guilty of "vivisection" implies that abuse has occurred; this is something that the protesters have never demonstrated. The truth is, they simply do not want animal research at all.
Biomedical research is cumulative. What we have learned about physiology using animals has been enormous, and there still is much to learn. For instance, an understanding of hormones came through the use of dogs [4]; literally every breakthrough that came after that in endocrinology drew on the knowledge provided from the original animal studies. Because scientists always build on the work of those who came before them, limiting foundational research would have far-reaching effects. For example, eliminating animal research would cease virtually all research about biology that occurs above the cellular level. There would simply be no more studies in organ development, immunology, aging, and so on.
Without animal research, we could continue to have an excellent understanding of cell biology and biochemistry, but we would have no means to investigate higher-order biology like stem cell differentiation, neural plasticity, and cancer. But these are the remaining frontiers in biomedical research! Without animal research, our understanding of biology would remain stuck refining 20th century hypotheses, rather than forging ahead to answer 21st century questions.
What would have happened if all animal research had stopped in the year 1900? Animal research directly led to the following cures or treatments since the beginning of the twentieth century:
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This is only a partial list. [5] [6] If animal research had been stopped 100 years ago, many of these treatments simply would not exist today. Animal protesters who want to stop animal research have concluded that the personal and social benefits of previous and future treatments are not worth the use of animals in research. These protesters will still receive medical care which was earned by the sacrifice of animals, and they still continue to argue that medical treatments and techniques can be developed without the use of animals. I maintain that this is ethically dubious; one cannot condemn a source of medical knowledge and still take advantage of that knowledge. The only ethically consistent position for an animal research protester is to deny most modern medical care for conditions like asthma, diabetes, vaccines, antibiotics and organ transplants to themselves and their children. To take advantage of these treatments is to reap the rewards of animal research.
The skeptic should reasonably question my assertion that biology requires animal work. After all, there are a number of in vitro techniques which do not require animals, and computational algorithms are getting better all the time. For example, insulin and glucagon kinetics can be modeled effectively using pharmacodynamic models. Similarly, in vitro techniques like monoclonal antibody production with hybridoma cell lines have enjoyed widespread adoption and drastically reduced the numbers of animals used for antibody production. In fact, monoclonal antibodies are far superior for certain applications. So I think it's reasonable to ask: can in vitro and computational techniques can entirely make up for animal work?
We should start out with a general dichotomy emphasized to students throughout graduate school. Theoretical and experimental approaches are two very different approaches. Theoretical approaches include mathematical or computational modeling; these approaches often seek to formalize in mathematical terms the dynamics of some system. Theory is not necessarily reality! Experimental approaches, on the other hand, seek actual measured quantities or observed qualities, and are often the final word on the reality of a theoretical model. Put simply, a theoretical model must be validated by comparing it to experimental data, and the model must make correct predictions of things unknown in order to be useful. With that in mind, it should be clear that mathematical or computational models in biology are conjecture, and remain so until their predictions can be validated by comparison to the living system. Because we need living systems to verify theoretical models, computational approaches cannot currently replace experiments with animals.
Regarding in vitro techniques, many of these methods have hidden costs of animal usage. Take, for example, the monoclonal antibodies mentioned above. For this approach, an animal serves as the initial source of immune B-cells. One of these cells is fused with a mouse tumor cell line to create a hybridoma capable of making only one type of antibody. Thereafter, no animals need be used; simply take care of the hybridoma cell line and the researcher has an antibody-making factory. An animal is nevertheless required for this technique every time a new hybridoma cell line is created. Similarly, for this and every other cell line, tissue culture media is needed. This requires the use of serum. A continuous supply of serum must be isolated from animals for continuing a given cell line. Furthermore, other in vitro techniques that have no obvious animal usage are littered with proteins isolated from animals. For example, actin and creatine kinase are often isolated from rabbit muscle. Tubulin, whose interaction with the anti-tumor drug Taxol was shown to give rise to anti-tumor properties, is often acquired from cows. So much basic biochemistry where in vitro techniques are used simply require the use of animals. Nearly every single biologist, whether biochemist, cell biologist, or developmental biologist, uses products derived from animals in order to perform modern research. This is why I claim that those who want to unilaterally end animal use are opposed to biological research generally.
I sympathize very much with the idea that humans should be patrons of the natural world and minimize suffering in all species. I personally do not like animal research and I don't think I could do it again. But these latest campaign organized by BOAA, IDA and other groups smacks of anti-intellectualism and groupthink. The unquestioning evangelical zeal of the BOAA and these protesters makes for a rather intellectually lazy addition to the activist student body here at Berkeley.
Berkeley really is one of the best places in the world for humane care of animals. To me, the choice to protest animal usage here is just weird. Out of all the places that might deserve animal protesters, the choice of Berkeley doesn't make sense to me at all. The protesters have not carefully stated their position other than anger at animal research in general, but that is not a sufficiently nuanced position to entice many supporters, other than on MySpace.
I would suggest that it would be much smarter to campaign for greater openness with animal protocols and animal care committee meetings. Not only would this display a mature understanding of the procedures, people and process of animal use, it also makes sense. Protesting with bandanas and posters doesn't work for this issue, because the rhetoric is too simple for the situation. Does one really think that protesting is the only way to improve things? If one wants only to protest, the current tactic seems sufficient. But if one really wants to make a difference and ensure good oversight to prevent actual torture of animals, the protesters should think a little bit more about the means to an end. Get active, read up from reputable (non-extremist) sources and try to make a difference with decision-makers, not just intimidate the already powerless graduate students.
For the protesters, it's important to understand the way the rest of the world sees their methods. Protesters are very likely seeing this issue through the one-dimensional perspective of speciesism. They have come to the conclusion that humans have no innate right to use these animals; this argument has some merit, but needs further explanation. Do the rights of animals outweigh the need of the disabled for medical treatment? What about the medical care of neonates or the elderly? Are the protesters really ready to sacrifice their own quality of medical care to avoid direct benefit from the animals whose sacrifices gave rise to medical treatments? These questions require a much more nuanced, contextualized approach, and I hope that the BOAA and others give this some serious thought. At the very least, there should be responses to these questions, instead of just more protests and bandanas.
UPDATE: (2007-09-24) I can't find a breakdown of animals at Berkeley, but I do see that a more recent press release mentions primate care. So there may be some non-human primates on campus after all. If the commenter below is correct, then they make up less than 0.03% of laboratory animals on the campus, which doesn't change my point that the "vivisection" posters are unrepresentative.
UPDATE: (2008-05-27) Since writing this article, Yang Dan has been selected to be an HHMI Investigator. HHMI is the nation's largest non-profit medical research institute, and it funds only top-quality research in biology. (It's also extremely mainstream; consider that it supports almost all the science programming on PBS!) This should help put to rest the libelous rumors from "stop Cal vivisection."
Comments
To cause pain and suffering (or to deny basic rights such as autonomy, right to bodily integrity, etc) to one species in order to alleviate suffering for another species is speciesism. What more explanation do you want? It wasn't long ago that there was still unethical human experimentation going on in the US with test subject chosen because they were poor and black. They were denied effective medical treatment and lied to resulting ultimately in many deaths and infected family members. Today society acknowledges the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis as a racist disaster for medical ethics. The researchers in this study somehow felt entitled to endanger these people lives. If they had valued human lives regardless of race they would have treated them with known effective treatments.
The current researchers at UC Berkeley also place little value on animal lives as shown by their actions because once again they have no right to hold another being captive or to act in anyway except in respect to the beings autonomy and best interest.
BOAA did not post the info on Indybay. Nor did Stop Cal Vivisection. Please do not associate all these ideas with BOAA as they often try to take a moderate position.
It is regrettable that some information may have been incorrect but it was assuredly unintentional. Much information was not from my original research. I recognize this mistake but stand firm by the position that use of even a single animal regardless of whether it is a cat or ferret is wrong. So I withdraw the claim that Yang Dan murders ferrets but from the current information I have I believe the description of the cat experiments to be accurate. Of course if the vivisectors themselves would be more forthcoming with all relevant information things would be easier.
The graduate students are not powerless, they are the animal researches of tomorrow (and today) they have to option to steer their education in a direction that does not use animal models or to quite the labs that many are already working in. In fact asking graduate students to change seems more promising that demanding a professor who is highly invested in their career and must pay for their hillside house quit their job.
It seems that this comes down to a basic difference in world view and values. Their are those that belive there is some great ethical or moral divid between animals and humans and their are those that beleive that all sentient life has an interest in and the right to autonomy and freedom from suffering and that the petty (or not so petty) desires of humans can not justify the theft of their lives.
Posted by: freedom for all life | September 23, 2007 1:07 AM
ferrets have been used in vision experiments as referenced here http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/98legacy/03_26_98a.html
There are currently at least 9 primates used at UC Berkeley two know primate researches are Jack Gallant & Jeff Winer, they both have papers on pubmed about their uses of primates
Gallant even describe that in one at least one experiment the monkeys are awake and aware
Many activist choose signs with primates on them because they feel that speciesist may be more likely to identify with a being so closely related to us. Fruit flies are an often used species with ability to feel pain and suffer but not many activist campaign for "fly rights" because no one seems to care about cats much less flies. The millions of flies used in genetic and drug research deserve freedom from human encroachment and deserve to live out their natural (if very short) life.
Their was also a small sign with a Zebra finch undergoing invasive brain recording (f theunissen's research) and a chick undergoing the same (c wildsoet's research)
As for polio...
"Pathologists discovered the polio virus in human intestines as early as 1912, which suggested it might enter humans through the digestive track. Meanwhile researchers successfully infected animals with polio. This "triumph" wound up postponing the development of an efficacious vaccine by decades. As it turned out, our close relatives the monkeys contracted polio nasally (not through the digestive system), and the virus moved directly from the nose to the brain. Incredibly, the scientists working on the vaccine chose to ignore the human digestive data in favor of the monkey data!
The pro-animal experimenters are not incorrect when they claim that a polio vaccine was derived from animal experiments because in 1934, a polio vaccine manufactured from monkey tissue was released. What they fail to mention is that it resulted in twelve people being paralyzed and six deaths. In 1937, animal experiments led scientists to spray zinc sulfate and picric acid alum into children's noses, reasoning that if the human transmission route was via the nasal mucosa as it was in monkeys, this would kill the virus in the nose. The only result was that some children permanently lost their sense of smell. In 1941, thirty years after the original animal experiments, Dr. Albert Sabin worked with autopsy findings to demonstrate that the human nasal mucosa did not have virus. What he did find was that the virus was confined to the gastrointestinal tract, as had been determined nearly thirty years prior. Years later, Dr. Sabin recalled the folly of the monkey models for polio:
Paralytic polio could be dealt with only by preventing the irreversible destruction of the large number of motor nerve cells, and the work on prevention was long delayed by the erroneous conception of the nature of the human disease based on misleading experimental models of the disease in monkeys.
In 1949, John Enders grew the virus in tissue culture. This paved the way for vaccine. For this achievement he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1954.
The vaccine could have been produced from non-animal tissue, however manufacturers opted for monkey kidney tissue instead. The older animal-based vaccine contained live virus, causing 204 people to contract polio, and eleven documented deaths.
The polio vaccine is now grown in human diploid-cell culture instead of in animal tissue."
if that info in incorrect please let me know since it is from some brief internet research
Cal has an amazing track record when it comes to lab inspections, but just because they are better than most does not mean that it should go unchallenged.
Finally, a protest does not rule out public debate, petitioning, electoral methods, or other forms of organizing or resistance. But i think we did a good job, we got you thinking (and writing) about the issue. We got an article in the paper that while not the most sympathetic still help to publicize the issue, since it seems many students are unaware of animal research going on at Cal.
Posted by: and... | September 23, 2007 2:04 AM
In the interest of space, I'll try to address your points succinctly; however you bring up some interesting topics, so I may write more later.
The problem with speciesism is that its scope is so global and so absolute that it's almost religious in scale. Believers see no room for debate and often, like yourself, create a false dichotomy between themselves and infidels. I agree that humanity has no innate right to dominate the natural world, however, I also think we have a moral responsibility to minimize suffering in general, because humanity alone has the tools to stop suffering. An adult human likely has more self-perception, emotion, and sentience than a mouse, and mice behave as though they have more self-percept than a zebrafish or a human embro. There are gradations of autonomy and consciousness; the inability to acknowledge the gray area is why I put animal rights protesters and pro-lifers in the same box.
Let's illustrate this with a scenario that the pro-lifers don't like. If you're in a clinic with some children, some cats, a dog, and some frozen embryos and the clinic begins to burn down, what do you rescue first? For me, despite my sadness at the loss of animal life and loss of potential with the embryos, I wouldn't hesitate to rescue the human children first. Call it speciesism if you like, but I also wouldn't look down on the mother cat if it chose to rescue her young rather than the human kids. In the same way, humans who live in a world with limited resources also have to make difficult choices regarding the alleviation of pain. Thoughtful people have concluded that humane and responsible animal research, which leads to both medical and veterinary treatments, is the best way we have to minimize suffering in general.
I won't address the Tuskegee point because it's a straw man, and not relevant to this discussion.
And, as far as I know, the Dan lab has concluded its natural-scenes research and no longer performs research with cats. To me, cats and monkeys are among the most challenging work, because it's hard to deny that either animal is conscious to some degree. Because of their long generation times, they're also very expensive. I know for certain that ferrets and hamsters were never used, and that the numbers of animals used in the Indybay post were exaggerated. It's also my understanding that the lab does not even use cats anymore, only mice and rats.
I also suspect you haven't been to graduate school. Grad students are literally among the most powerless in the university structure, aside from undergrads. Even the choice of which lab to go to is often constrained by funding, politics and one's educational background. Harassing graduate students is inexcusable; it's akin to harassing the women entering a clinic. Yes, they technically have a choice, but it doesn't really work that way.
Posted by: hch | September 23, 2007 11:27 AM
Regarding polio, Jonas Salk created his vaccine through the infection of monkey kidney cell line followed by chemical inactivation. This vaccine reduced poliovirus to a fraction of its previous population, but was not as succesful as later vaccines.
Sabin's oral vaccine was credited along with Salk's vaccine with eradicating polio. It was derived by passaging the virus many times through animal cell lines to obtain an attenuated virus. This is a more sophisticated technique, however both vaccines relied on cell culture, which of course requires animal experiments to obtain donor tissue and serum, as mentioned in my post above.
Sabin in his famous 1956 eradication status report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA 162, 1589) credited all the quantitative animal work before him. He said the animal studies "were necessary to solve many problems before an oral polio vaccine could become a reality."
Particular studies with confounding results did of course delay progress; but you'll note in your uncited quote that Sabin does not criticize all animal experiments in general. In the quote, he criticizes particular animal models, but this should not be confused with criticizing all animal experiments, because he also made use of them to develop his vaccine!
Finally, the cell culture techniques developed for animal cell lines led to human cell culture techniques. So even human cell culture depended on the knowledge obtained from animal cell culture. This is the cumulative nature of research.
Posted by: hch | September 23, 2007 11:35 AM
I recognize there are various levels of consciousness and sentience. But to hold the different levels of awareness as significant enough dividing lines to allow one to exploit a being for ones own purposes is very dangerous. Such an ethic could lead to invasive experiments on retarded children or the elderly, who in many cases have less mental capacity then many "higher" mammals. To harm a chimp with the capacity of a 5 year old, who can speak with you about many things including abstract concepts of fear and love instead of using a debilitated 4 years old child would be a speciesist and un-utilitarian. That is not to say we should experiment on children, society already recognizes that you can't involuntarily experiment on a person for any reason. Why can we not extend what seems to be an irrational belief in the sacredness of human life to non-human sentient life? I am not willing to say "you mouse have a smaller brain therefor you must suffer for my benefit". It is not more human involvement in the natural processes of the world that we need but far less. Humans create suffering when they bulldoze land and trees (no doubt home to many beings) to build wal-marts and new animal testing labs (the new one @ cal with expand the animal facilities by 70%). We create suffering when we release millions of carcinogenic compound into the environment daily as a routine part of industrial society. We then wonder why cancer rates are so high and then decide to induce cancer in million of otherwise healthy animals so we can try to save our own asses. I think we would do be to reduce over all suffering by not attempting to manipulate the natural order to suit our desires. We are only several billion strong and we kill a couple hundred billion animals a year. It seems we inflict more suffering that we could ever relieve, so we must stop intentionally inflicting suffering if we wish to make a large dent in the overall amount of suffering. I also have a problem with the idea that pain and suffering can be like a math problem, adding or subtracting the unique experience of individuals. We can not exchange animal suffering for our own, this only result in a greater amount of suffering. It seems most of the top killers in America are our fault link directly to pollution, poor diet, fast paced lifestyle, cars, lack of affordable healthcare. If one cared about humanity it seems there are many social ills that cause a great deal of suffering.
There is no real correlation between your "clinic scenario" and animal research. Vivisection never offers us the clear cut choice between an individual human life and an individual rat life. The reality is vivisection is about intentionally violating the rights and/or causing suffering for millions of animals merely hoping that that immense collective suffering may in some way lead to a greater understanding of a given disease.
According to papers published this year Ralph Freeman currently uses cats in vision and neurobiology research. Yang Dan also has published work this year involving cats. I would like to know, what makes you beleive that Yang Dan no longer uses animal models. Also just because it "only" mice and rats does not make it less deplorable. Small rodents do not lack an ethically considerable attributes, they have very similar nervous system to feel pain on a level much like ourselves (if not exactly), They have a desire to not be caged, they have natural instincts which are frustrated by captivity. To say it is "only a rat" is offensive like saying that it is "only a child" or "only a black person". Putting rodents on a different ethical or moral plane is arbitrary and unethical.
The original intention of the protest was not to harass grad student. In fact I did not see any individual student being harassed. A few heated debates arose throughout the day but they all seem to be voluntary discussions. The bullhorn was not shoved in approaching students faces nor were they physically block from reaching the door. The intended target of the protest was the vivisectors themselves, letting them know that not everyone agrees with what they do and that some are willing to call them out by name and hold them personally responsible for their actions ("Your research, your fault") At one point a chant started sayign that tuition is blood money and personally stand behind this statement. Students should have the choice in their money being diverted from projects they feel to be unethical, including even pro-life students not contributing to stem cell research.(i do not oppose stem cell research...as long as sentient beings are not harmed) Yes people were loud and at points abrasive or provocative with their speech but to react calmly to the murder of individual lives seems to be a privileged position. Our live are comfortable, we don't have to struggle much to defend our lives on a daily basis, we have general freedom of movement and autonomy...let us our freedom to obtain these rights for all sentient beings.
Posted by: until every cage is empty | September 23, 2007 2:10 PM
What is past is past. Animal research has been done but as one of many techniques in multi-layerd research. This is different than saying that animal research was the only reason these cures came about. Let us not forget the wealth of informant we got from ex nazi scientist and Japan's unit 731 (among others) that help biologist in America. I haven't heard anyone suggest we scrap modern biology because some knowledge we have is based on old involuntary human experiments.(nor do I suggest that) Even some of our understanding of syphilis comes from Tuskegee. We must put an end to the experiments that we can, like the ones happening right now or in the near future.
Simply put, their lives are not our to take even if we imagine that we might save our own lives.
Posted by: resect for individual life | September 23, 2007 2:49 PM
Good post.
In response to comments above:
The appointment of rights, to any species, is a very complicated and contentious thing. First and foremost, it is a purely subjective phenomenon; there is no evidence that universal, cross-species rights are acknowledged in the animal kingdom. Quite the reverse, in fact. All species look to their own for survival, rarely granting consideration to rival groups within their own kind let alone outside of it. As highlighted above, there's no shame in wanting to rescue the baby before the kitten.
We can say that as the most advanced species, we have an obligation to ensure that the rights of lower species, whether they are cognizant of them or otherwise, are preserved and inviolate. It would be a noble cause. However, that position is fraught with difficulties. Do we prevent carnivores from hunting in order to preserve the rights of their prey? That's speciesism after all. It isn't consistent to say that we should not enforce vegetarianism on a pride of lions, and yet at the same time claim that all animals are subject to a set of inalienable rights. The reason that it is relatively easy to conceive of inalienable rights within a species is that a given species rarely feeds upon its own. Superficially, there is no good subjective reason why humans should have to harm each other (and yet we do so frequently anyway). Granting rights to a certain species in the food chain, by definition results in the constraining of another species' rights. Therefore, there are no inalienable rights beyond what we, in an inevitable display of anthropormorphication, choose to confer upon a certain species at a certain time.
Rather than argue from the somewhat amorphous position of universal rights, animal rights activists would be better served by concentrating on the Epicurean appeal against the facilitation of suffering in any form. On this note, they would actually align themselves to a degree with a large part of the scientific community. Contrary to the beliefs of many animal rights groups, scientists are constantly researching new, less invasive methods of conducting research into mammalian physiology and disease. As has been highlighted, Animal-based research is both emotionally and economically costly.
Of course, as Rowan Williams pointed out when asked about his stance on abortion, sometimes you have to put these things in perspective; these things are of course important, but in the pursuit of true, global civil responsibility, we have still got a rather long list of benchmarks to meet before we get anywhere near being able to talk, without hypocrisy, about the "rights" and welfare of animals and the unborn. To date, humanity can't make it through six months without one groups of people declaring war on another.
Posted by: Rev. Dr. Incitatus | October 24, 2007 1:11 PM
How do you KNOW that you will obtain the answers to human diseases (such as cancer)from continuing to test upon animals?The way you argue that this is a given end is as lauded and naturalised as the discourse you besmirch activists for.
Isnt it true that animals by law MUST be put to death after experimentation--how does this negate harm/suffering??
Regulation is not the goal,vivisection's foundations are a fallacy-humans are too different to animals.
I find it an insult to the intelligence of all humans that sentient beings are tortured and destroyed unneccesarily and without apology in the name of medical progression, and finding cures for pain.
This is the hypocrisy that perpetuates non-advancement.
Response:
It is exactly this type of near-religious vitriol that prevents people from having a productive discourse on the benefits and pitfalls of experiments with animals. This type of black-and-white logic leads inevitably to a single polarized ethical perspective, one that, in my opinion, is overly simplistic and lacks an awareness of the complexity of both the natural world and the human condition.
In addition, you have confused the logic above. Nobody promised cures if animal experiments proceeded; instead, we know that future cures will require experiments with animals. This is not the same type of argument that the anti-research crowd uses.
Posted by: Jade | November 10, 2008 7:01 AM