Research - experiments on animals

[Apparition]

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What do you guys think about performing experiments on mice and other animals?. Obviously, research is important but would you, personally, be able to inject a mouse with a drug that would make it suffer and eventually die? Have any of you worked in this type of research?

 

[....]

I did research on rat olfactory bulbs. We used pups about 2-5 days old depending on the cells we were after. Still pink, no hair.
You would have to gut their heads of with scissors. there were small enough that to use scissors was basically gouillotening (boy did i bitcher that word) them anyway.

Here is a tough question. Many severly mentaly ****** people can be compared to chipanzees in many ways. Self awareness and concepts like fear and others may be even better devoloped in normal chimps and apes than in severly ******ed people.
What then, allows us to experiment on apes, but forbids us from experementing on the severly ******ed?


No offense to those among you who are mentally ******ed....you know who you are.....

 

[mattorama]

just a curious question to pose along the lines of the thread

Do you think that animals are capable of suffering?

I have kind of wondered about this before. In my opinion "suffering" is very different from "having pain". It seems like (non-human) animals have pain in so far as they have the normal conduction of a "damage" signal to their CNS which initiates reflex arcs to withdraw from the damage and learn to avoid it in the future. Humans have this also, but an added bonus too; we are able to abstract pain and reflect on it. It is our ability to abstract pain, connect it to ourself, and reflect on its progression over time that leads to suffering. I don't think that other animals have a sense of temporal happens in the way we do (it seems like being self-aware is a prereq for this). If this is true, then animals "suffer" as much as plants do (they to have strings of chemical reactions that occur when they are damaged). It seems like we just call animal pain "suffering" because we can relate to some of their external actions (due to a closely related anatomy) to pain that we associate with suffering in humans. We don't have this problem with injuring plants.

What do you more knowledgable SDNers think? I am no neuroscientist nor much of a philosopher (though I enjoy both subjects very much). Are humans the only creatures that can suffer? If so I think PETA has some rethinking to do.

 

[LapisLazuli]

I don't think that other animals have a sense of temporal happens in the way we do (it seems like being self-aware is a prereq for this). If this is true, then animals "suffer" as much as plants do (they to have strings of chemical reactions that occur when they are damaged).

Come on. If that were true, dogs wouldn't cower underneath the railings every time an abusive owner staggers towards them with a broken bottle. For that matter, you disregard decades of scientific understanding of learning and memory. Pavlov ring a bell?

All you need is memory to feel pain like we do, to fear it, and to have it make you miserable - ie suffer. The only real difference is dogs can't express their pain. They won't, for example, paint you weathered faces lined with pain on a canvas, which may be what you meant by abstracting and reflecting. Besides, we have secondary app photos for that.

 

[....]

I think you can break it down into four catagories.

Plant/bactieria pain.....merely information transfer and response....the organism responds to danger (slowly for plants, bacteria faster) and compensates for injury. Trees for instance will slow sap losses through cuts.

Mass produced animal pain

Spcies which rely on the sheer number of ofsping produced for survival no not have a use for complex behavior modifying tools. Pain is simply a teaching tool, the more important the lesson, the more you will hurt. A centipede can lose a dozen legs and still carry on normaly. It doesnt need to be taught to cherrish its legs and hense it most likely feels no pain. Its recoil from having leg amputated is most likley percived as we percive a muscle spasm. Antomical redundancy makes complex pain uneccasary.

True animal pain. (mammals, upper reptiles)
Some species have gone the route of putting all of their eggs in one basket. Longer life spans and fewer childeren mean two things. First, the survival of the species depends on the survival of very few children. Also, these children are fragile, one broken leg and an antelope is as good as dead, and one dead antelope can mean the differnce in survival or not of a herd. Ants and such are in no such danger. So complex pain is neccesary to quickly teach the animals how to behave carfully. Also, there is sufficent time to teach the behavior modifications.

Human pain.
I think the true animal pain is comparable to what you feel if you are snaped with a rubber band by suprise. It can be intense, but you are never really in disress. As soon as it happens it is over and you never have a chance to think about it.
Human pain however makes use of our morbid nature.
A dog breaks its leg and it hurts...a human breaks his leg and not only does it hurt, but he has the adition strain of worrying if it will requier surgery, will he miss work, will he be able to make anough money to feed his familiy ect...these weigh very hevily and can be much worse than the pain itself.
consider a woman who finds a painless lump in her breast. the is no pain, but she could tear herself apart with images of cancer, losing her breast, losing her life to it, never seeing he grandchilden born. Tremendous suffering without pain.

I didnt think all this up on my own btw. not going to take credit.

 

[mattorama]

Originally posted by LapisLazuli
Come on. If that were true, dogs wouldn't cower underneath the railings every time an abusive owner staggers towards them with a broken bottle. For that matter, you disregard decades of scientific understanding of learning and memory. Pavlov ring a bell?

All you need is memory to feel pain like we do, to fear it, and to have it make you miserable - ie suffer. The only real difference is dogs can't express their pain. They won't, for example, paint you weathered faces lined with pain on a canvas, which may be what you meant by abstracting and reflecting. Besides, we have secondary app photos for that.

like I said...I don't know for sure what I blv yet. I just want the opinions of other. It is good to think about things like this.

There is a big difference between classical conditioning and being able to abstract something. I can train a leech to respond to a normally non-harmful stimuli if it is paired with a noxious one. In this way the leech will avoid the damage it has associated with the originally non-harmful stimuli. Can the leech access this memory, look at it as something distinct, apply it to itself, and ponder it as such? I think that such reflection on the pain stimuli (something very distinct from reflex arcs associated with classical conditioning) is what is required for suffering. The leech has no knowledge of self. The leech can not reflect on the fact that it has undergone multiple traumas and weep over it. I dare say (maybe incorrectly) that a dog is the same. Its actions are that of pure classical conditioning. That does not require an actual knowledge that it are being injured. Granted, the dog's reaction to such an insult will be more complicated then that of a leech, but they are still the same in that neither creature KNOWS that it is being injured, much less has the KNOWLEDGE that it has been injured in the past, and much less the ability to activly link the past with the present (and contemplate the future). I think all of these are required for "suffering" and so it is reserved for humans only (the only self aware creatures capable of abstraction). In that way the pain of the dog is much more closely related to that of the leech then that of a human. Humans make the leap from a pure damage signal to something much more profound.

Once again, I am just throwing this out in the air. Feel free to disagree and tell me where I am wrong. This topic just really interests me. 🙂

 

[mattorama]

great post hightrump...

 

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"Come on. If that were true, dogs wouldn't cower underneath the railings every time an abusive owner staggers towards them with a broken bottle."

true, dogs most certianly remember and can fear in a way that simpler animals cannot. But that same dog, having forgoten, will lick your face 5 minutes after you put the bottle down. Its just not the same as with humans.

Also, dont confuse an animal fleeing or whatever with fear or pain.
an ant will run from a flame, but no one assumes that the ant has any real "fear" or even true pain. Bacteria retreat from noxios chemicals too. no pain there of course. Im not saying dogs are like this, but its somthing to think about when you use "such and such ran away when i did this" as an argument for an animal having human fear.

 

[....]

redundacy abounds....by the time i write my reply, somene else does it for me...

I have to disagree with you matt about a dog being closer to a leech than a human. We really have to go by anotomy since we cannot really experience the minds of dogs. leeches dont even have a cns (i belive....) dogs have all of the same lobes as humans. Im not saying they have plans for the future and some sort of doogy language...but still...

 

[mattorama]

Originally posted by hightrump
"Come on. If that were true, dogs wouldn't cower underneath the railings every time an abusive owner staggers towards them with a broken bottle."

true, dogs most certianly remember and can fear in a way that simpler animals cannot. But that same dog, having forgoten, will lick your face 5 minutes after you put the bottle down. Its just not the same as with humans.

Also, dont confuse an animal fleeing or whatever with fear or pain.
an ant will run from a flame, but no one assumes that the ant has any real "fear" or even true pain. Bacteria retreat from noxios chemicals too. no pain there of course. Im not saying dogs are like this, but its somthing to think about when you use "such and such ran away when i did this" as an argument for an animal having human fear.

So far I agree with you completly hightrump. Now to take this to the next step (and hence the initial purpose of the thread). If human are indeed the only ones to actually "suffer" (and no other creature even close), does this eliminate the ethical concerns of animal experimentation? The usual cause against animal experimentation is that the animals are suffering. This usually implies that they suffer in the same sort of way people do (humans are really good at putting purely human thought processes/attributes on things that don't possess them). Well, if their pain is just that, pain, and not suffering (as previously propositioned), then there is no real problem in inflicting pain upon animals like rats anymore then lower animals or even plants. Note though, that his does not mean go kick the family cat. There is still the concept of being a good steward of what you have. It is irresponsible for me to go smash up my car for kicks. Sure, it woudl be within my rights to do it, but I think my parents would be justified in getting pissed off. I don't think we shoudl have any qualms with sacrificing animals in the name of science as long as it is done with the respect for other living creatures.

What do you all think?

 

[mattorama]

Originally posted by hightrump
redundacy abounds....by the time i write my reply, somene else does it for me...

I have to disagree with you matt about a dog being closer to a leech than a human. We really have to go by anotomy since we cannot really experience the minds of dogs. leeches dont even have a cns (i belive....) dogs have all of the same lobes as humans. Im not saying they have plans for the future and some sort of doogy language...but still...

🙂

No leeches do not have a CNS. Overall, dogs are much closer to humans then they are to leeches. I am, however, suggesting that in regard to pain they are closer to leeches. Their more complex nervous system with its limbic system simply allows for more complicated responses to stimuli (they are bigger creatures with more complicated behavior patterns then the leech), but does not allow for the abstraction necessary to move pain responses past normal classical conditioning. Hence I grouped them with leeches.

They may have most of the same general brain parts, but I am almost positive that the parts don't necessarily do the same things as in humans (this from a neuro prof of mine...).

 

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"Well, if their pain is just that, pain, and not suffering (as previously propositioned), then there is no real problem in inflicting pain upon animals like rats anymore then lower animals or even plants"

I disagree. the greater the complexity of the nervous system the greater the capacity for pain. burning an ant and burning a cat are just differnt. A cat has the hardware and evolutionary gift of being able to sense pain in a way that is not possible for an ant.
We have to aknoledge the clumsiness of our english nouns at expressing ideas which exist as vast areas of grey. Because it is not explicitly incorrect to call what dogs and leeches experience both pain, does not mean in reality they are equilevent.


As to the question of whether "suffering" in the the only thing which deserves our revultion, I disagree also. Pain is a terible thing too.

There are people who has a type of amnesia where they forget everything every few seconds or so. they will remeber their name and thats about it. They will talk for about 5-10 seconds and then stop. If you rengage them in converstion they wont know who you are or why they are with you. repeat repeat repeat every 5-10 seconds. freaky huh.
The point is this. these people seem to have lost the ability to really suffer. If you hit them they feel pain for about 10 seconds...long enough for them to go "****! what did you do that..........ow, my nose hurts, i wonder what........ow my nose hurts.....ect

they will never be frightened. they will never really have worries like you and i have. Just pain.....can we beat the crap out of them?
no way.

Another example...if you take a needle and slowly poke yourself harder and harder you never suffer, you are in control and have no worries about whats happening...you just feel pain.
But you dont do that do you. you dont poke yourself....because pain sucks, even if fear and suffering are absent.

So we should take how we treat sentient animals seriously, just not quilte as seriously as how we treat people. I still cut off rat head though (not to differnet from dogs). Their little blip of pain is well worth it.

:not responisible for spelling:

 

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fun stuff totalk about, but i have to get to bed. Ill check it in the morning. Hopfully no treehugs will showup because i wont be able to keep myself from agrueing with them. "trees scream at frequencies you cant hear man......... (puff puff..cough)....." 🙄

nite

 

[mattorama]

agreed...pain sucks without having to take suffering into account.

I guess the real question becomes: Does "pain suck" in animals in the same was "pain sucks" in humans? The world may never know...

beating up the amnesiac (good album too)... I think the fact that he is human disallows that even if you ignore the no suffering thing AND the concept of stewardship (if that necessarily applies to another human). I think going around maliciously harming things is wrong regardless of their ability to suffer...unless they are pesky little insects, then squash them all!!!! 😉

Do the ant and the cat really sense pain in a different way? Or is it just that the cat can have more complex reactions to it (same sense of pain...more happenings afterward)? I don't know. It doesn't seem like they can even really "sense" in the classical human way of sensing (that darn knowledge of self/abstraction thing). It makes me wonder....hmmmm....to be a cat.....
any psych/neuro buffs out there?

 

[mattorama]

Originally posted by hightrump
fun stuff totalk about, but i have to get to bed. Ill check it in the morning. Hopfully no treehugs will showup because i wont be able to keep myself from agrueing with them. "trees scream at frequencies you cant hear man......... (puff puff..cough)....." 🙄

nite

I have tried a variation on this line of reasoning which on my aunt who is a vegitarian just to get a rise out of her. I take her reasoning against killing animals and try to convince her that by that reasoning it is immoral to kill plants. So, the only responsible thing for humans to do is try and find a way to photosynthesize....it is fun to make relatives frustrated. 🙂

later..bed time here too

 

[LapisLazuli]

Can the leech access this memory, look at it as something distinct, apply it to itself, and ponder it as such?

No, it cannot. But all that proves is the obvious - that the animal doesn't experience pain anywhere near as deeply as we do. But its still enduring damage, and it's capacity to function is still potentially being undermined, which in that organism's own context is profoundly negative. If you define suffering only in the human context, then clearly no animal suffers besides humans.
We need to agree on a definition of suffering we can apply to the entire animal kingdom, if this is to be an ethical debate as I think the original poster intended.

Granted, the dog's reaction to such an insult will be more complicated then that of a leech, but they are still the same in that neither creature KNOWS that it is being injured, much less has the KNOWLEDGE that it has been injured in the past, and much less the ability to activly link the past with the present (and contemplate the future). I think all of these are required for "suffering"

About your requirements for suffering:

1. knowledge of injury
Alright, so let's say a dog doesn't know that the damage being wrought upon him is injuring him, and isn't conscious of its repercussions. In other words, let's say he doesn't understand the negative influence of pain, b/c his mind is so rudimentary he doesn't even have a concept of positive-negative duality. All your argument proves is that he doesn't suffer as humans do. His cells are still being destroyed, and his capacity to function is still being undermined, but beyond the experiece of a plant - he still feels stress, desparation, and agony in that moment. Also, depending on the severity of the injury, his body will continually stimulate his brain about an injury that is not going away, to alert him of the necessity to carry on in a manner that will maximize his chances of healing and survival. He does not understand this profoundly, but he feels PAIN nonetheless. The neurological equipment shared among humans, dogs, chimps, and higher orders of animals is homologous enough so that seering pain is still seering pain across the board for all of them. In that moment of contact with a hot flame, all vertebrates feel the same thing, it would be inefficient for humans to feel anything else but "****, get off me!", as with all other vertebrates. Likewise, recovery periods exert similar stresses on all vertebrates, simply because their physiology needs to keep them aware that they are injured and not entirely effective.

In light of this, I think the ethical question is still valid, and the act of causing this pain weighs on one's conscience just as heavily.

2. memory of past injury
3. link past to present
I think these still fall under classical conditioning, which is universal for all animals.
As for contemplating the future... Dogs don't "contemplate" anything, but how is it they can still lay by the door at a certain time everyday, expecting their owner is going to return at the same hour she always does, anticipating the sound of a key clicking into a lock, with precise consistency? I'm sure if you hooked it up to apparatus about 30 mins before that regular daily time, you'll see notable increases in all sorts of neurotrasmitters associated with emotion. In other words, its processing a notion of the future in emotional terms, however basic. Its not as mathematically complex as our own neuroloigcal reactions, but its still life, complex life, complex enough to be morally inconvenient for some of us to destroy.

 

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"Does "pain suck" in animals in the same was "pain sucks" in humans?"

Its all grey. human "pain without suffering" being the darkest.



"Do the ant and the cat really sense pain in a different way? Or is it just that the cat can have more complex reactions to it (same sense of pain...more happenings afterward)? I don't know. It doesn't seem like they can even really "sense" in the classical human way of sensing (that darn knowledge of self/abstraction thing). "

I though the pokeing yourself thing showed that pain without the abstarction aspect was a very real thing. Something that cats could experince.

I imagine to poke a cat with a pin, and to poke your self with pin would be nearly equal. but to poke an ant, nearly meaningless.

Perhaps we should use the term "psycic pain" for the pain which is not directly related to the harmfull stimulus, but that is caused through our ability to imagine future harm, fear for our survival (selfawareness) ect.

 

[mattorama]

okay, so I am going to stay up just a little longer for one quick post. The linking of hte past and present with a dog/ any classical conditioning. You hit the nail on the head...the dog can do the classical conditioning form of linking past with present with future in that it just "happens' without contemplation. The dog is most certainly processing things about the future, but only in the classical conditioning sense. Humans link, bu tnot in just the normal way like dogs do without contemplation, but in an abstract way...the two methods are very different.

The whole reason that the suffering thing was brought up was because most people who argue against animal experimentation do so with the usually unstated, but implied, notion that animals "suffer" in much the same context that humans do. Even if it isn't as profound as human suffering, it is suffering nevertheless. I think this is probably false (though very open to changing my mind with input from wiser people) and animals can't even have a rudimentary form of suffering. The animal merely stops at "having pain" and can't progress, even a little, beyond that.

Now, is there a difference in "having pain" if you are a chimp or a leech? If so, is there a certain level of "having pain" complexity that is acceptable before ethical problems start? Do we only stop at animals that have some reactions that appear externally similar to ours? If leeches and chimps "have pain" in the same way, but the chimp has a more complex reaction due to more complicated neural connections are we only sparing them because they remind us vaguely of ourselves by their external appearance/actions? If that is true we are truely in an ethical crisis because we are screwing over the leech who has the same pain just because is doesn't remind us of ourselves (very ego-centric). Good night for real

 

[LapisLazuli]

Where we disagree is that I don't think "The animal merely stops at "having pain" and can't progress, even a little, beyond that."

Look at the polar opposite. A dog sees someone its attached to approaching... it starts wagging its tail, its heart rate goes up, its obviously drawn to the person before the person even gets close enough to spew his pheromones, its visual memory comes alive with images, perhaps sensations, of anticipation based on past experience (I'm pretty sure higher mammals have visual memories, how else would gorillas learn sign language?) In other words, the dog is experiencing joy. If this is classical conditioning, then obviously classical conditioning is enough to produce an experience that goes "beyond that". It is a protracted, intricate, and lingering experience, that occupies the whole of that dog's consciousness in that moment. It is, perhaps, a smaller vessel, but it is full nevertheless.
Apply that to the opposite extreme, and you'll see where I'm getting at.

In addition, I think all your arguments fall apart when you apply them to whether or not its acceptable to experiment on day-old newborn human babies. What experiences do they have to integrate profoundly? What can they apply of the past, to what understanding of the future? And human embryos?

If I'm being clear in my arguments, you'll see why I'd have no problem cutting apart thousands of human embryos, but a very difficult time cutting a single living mouse.

G'night.

 

[mattorama]

Originally posted by LapisLazuli
Where we disagree is that I don't think "The animal merely stops at "having pain" and can't progress, even a little, beyond that."

Look at the polar opposite. A dog sees someone its attached to approaching... it starts wagging its tail, its heart rate goes up, its obviously drawn to the person before the person even gets close enough to spew his pheromones, its visual memory comes alive with images, perhaps sensations, of anticipation based on past experience (I'm pretty sure higher mammals have visual memories, how else would gorillas learn sign language?) In other words, the dog is experiencing joy. If this is classical conditioning, then obviously classical conditioning is enough to produce an experience that goes "beyond that". It is a protracted, intricate, and lingering experience, that occupies the whole of that dog's consciousness in that moment. It is, perhaps, a smaller vessel, but it is full nevertheless.
Apply that to the opposite extreme, and you'll see where I'm getting at.

In addition, I think all your arguments fall apart when you apply them to whether or not its acceptable to experiment on day-old newborn human babies. What experiences do they have to integrate profoundly? What can they apply of the past, to what understanding of the future? And human embryos?

If I'm being clear in my arguments, you'll see why I'd have no problem cutting apart thousands of human embryos, but a very difficult time cutting a single living mouse.

G'night.

Good ideas on the dog thing. I will have to think about that some more...decide if the basic type of visual memory dogs and higher animals have warrents special consideration.

as for the baby/embryo thing, I am on the complete opposite side. Those ARE humans and call me a whimp, but I have a soft spot for my own kind. 😉 Those babies and embryos WILL become fully adult humans unless random chance or somebody else intercedes. I don't agree with harming anyone human be they in an early stage of development, comotose, profoundly ******ed, or any other varient. I guess you could call me a pro-lifer then. I set humans apart as special as alluded to earlier with the amnesiac thing for reasons that do not hinge on the arguments we are talking about now.

To those of you out there who have done animal experimentation...what are the conditions actually like? Aren't the animals usually numbed to a certain exent before anything is done to them? The only thing I have done is with frogs. We first chilled them on ice for a while, then quickly and cleanly cut off their heads (I doubt they ever had any "pain sensation") so we could take their leg muscles and do some physiology experiments with them. This was for an anatomy/physiology class that I teach not in a normal lab.

 

[....]

"If leeches and chimps "have pain" in the same way, but the chimp has a more complex reaction due to more complicated neural connections are we only sparing them because they remind us vaguely of ourselves by their external appearance/actions?"

I dont belive they feel the same pain. suffering aside, the capacity for PAIN is obviously going to be severly lacking in a leech which simply does not have the brain power to experience pain. We have no reason to think a money would not hurt just as much as us if stabed or cut. They would probably lack the most abstract forms of suffering, but the actual sensation of pain would be blindingly intense. This, in reality, is what makes harming one different than harming another.
Now, what makes most people object to harming higher organisms? You said it perfectly. when we see behaviors that mimic ours we assume the animals feel like we do. 15 year old girl feeling warm and fuzzy insinde when their little hamster starts getting exited when she comes come.
but there is no reason say that the absence of such human-looking behavior is the hallmark of an absence of human type pain. Nor is there reason to say the the presence of such behavior implys the presence of such pain.
But yeah, the uneducated play favorite with the cuter animals.

"In addition, I think all your arguments fall apart when you apply them to whether or not its acceptable to experiment on day-old newborn human babies. What experiences do they have to integrate profoundly? What can they apply of the past, to what understanding of the future?"

Nice question. But as i said with the other "pain no suffering" examples, intense pain is reason enough not to do somthing like hurting a baby. Babies have no experiences and it takes them a while to get their shlt together, but their pain sensing neurons and pain relaying brain pathways are all formed by the time of birth. So the pain a baby would feel is as intense as you or i would feel it. But you have to admit that an organism like a fish simply doesnt have the BRAIN POWER to ever feel what we feel (and im speaking only about the pain sensation not the abstract aspects of suffering).

 

[jefras99]

Well, I'm a vegetarian and a hindu, and I don't believe in animal experimentation. But it's not only because of suffering. (Although, in the case of suffering, we can't prove it occurs, but we can't disprove it either.) I feel it's more of a respect issue. By consciously using other animals in violent ways to gain knowledge about our own existance (which does not always occur, since we function in different ways), we are disrespecting the value of their lives. Maybe it's a simple difference in ideology, but I feel that everything contributes to value of life on earth, and should be respected in that way. By treating other animal's lives with little respect, we are disrespecting our own lives. Think of it this way: all our definitions in life are made out of relationships: we define happiness by sadness, pain by pleasure, etc. On a deeper level, we relate our existance to the existance of other beings. When that is disrespected, the value of human life is disrespected. Experimenting with life to the point of ending it is taking away its value.

It's definitely a gray area, though. It helps me to talk with people who think it's okay because I can then define more about what it is that bothers me on a gut level about animal experiments. Good topic.

 

[....]

"we are disrespecting the value of their lives"
what gives their lives value, specificaly?

"but I feel that everything contributes to value of life on earth"
Why, how?

You realize that nature IS death, for evolution and natural selection to work a cycle of death is neccesary?

just questions, im not advocating a position of "animals have no moral status"

 

[....]

"we are disrespecting the value of their lives"
what gives their lives value, specificaly?

"but I feel that everything contributes to value of life on earth"
Why, how?

You realize that nature IS death, for evolution and natural selection to work a cycle of death is neccesary?

just questions, im not advocating a position of "animals have no moral status"

Also, what seperates plants from animals, if you belive in the inherent importance of such things. Why can you eat plants? do you belive it is a neccessary evil or no evil at all?

 

[jefras99]

If we value our own lives, we have to value what makes us living. As we must have something to define "living" against, we use other "living" animals, and death. Therefore, we should value other animals lives, as it helps us define our own lives, just as we should value death and not kill haphazardly.

Well, everything contributes to the value of life on earth because we're part of the natural ecosystem. Without other animals, we would cease to exist. If we don't exist, there is no value to life.

And yes, of course death is natural. However, I wouldn't constitute mass killings in a research setting as part of the definintion of natural selection. I guess, technically, you could include it because it involves using our evolved intelligence to do research on other, "less intelligent" animals. However, even though we are trying to use it to better our species, I think it has limited advantages and is a crude use of our intelligence. I would even say it is detrimental to us evolutionarily because it allows us to treat death carelessly.

Actually, I would eat animals if I thought the way we raise and kill them weren't wasteful/disrespectful/cruel. I do think that there is obviously a difference between plants and animals (CNS comes to mind) but that's not why I eat one and not the other. And, to be honest, it just doesn't feel right to me, so I don't do it.

 

[....]

"If we value our own lives, we have to value what makes us living"

What does that mean?

I value my life because I have desires and expections that need fullfilment. For me to die would mean the cessasion of my hopes and dreams. The death of an ant is nothing like this.

I value pleasure and hate pain. I hate causeing anything pain. And i hate it in proportion to the strenth and duration of that pain. I would hate to hit a monkey more than i would hate to kill an ant. Because more suffering would come of hitting a monkey and killing an ant. If i could painlessly kill a person in their sleep i would not do it beacuse I would be taking their dreams and expectations of their future from them. To painlessly kill a mouse does not rob him of his expectaion of his future, becasuse he has no such expections. It does rob him of his future however, whether he knows it or not, and as such i dont make a habit of killing mice for do reason.
Plants have no consiousness and no capacity of happiness, to kill one it not really doing anything moraly speaking, they are not a substrate for moral consideration.

Read up on Utiliarianism and the animal rights stuff will follow from that.

 

[LapisLazuli]

I value my life because I have desires and expections that need fullfilment.

How does that give your life value, specifically? What do you mean by value? What makes your desires and expectations hierarchically higher and more valuable than the experiences of other animals? Do you really "contribute to the value of life on Earth" more than, say, a cow?
And even if you do, does that give you the right to negate the value of another organism for your own ends?

If i could painlessly kill a person in their sleep i would not do it beacuse I would be taking their dreams and expectations of their future from them. To painlessly kill a mouse does not rob him of his expectaion of his future, becasuse he has no such expections.

Mice don't dream, but neither do human embryos or the clinically brain-dead. What about them?


Also, thought I'd throw this out there: What do you guys think about experimenting on Death Row inmates?

 

[....]

"How does that give your life value, specifically?"

My life is valuable simply because I value it. If someone does not value their life it has no value. If someone values their death than death has value. I do not belive in some objective worth of things, that is independant of us.

"Do you really "contribute to the value of life on Earth" more than, say, a cow? "

If i belive the point of life is to maximize happiness and I also, correctly belive that I have a capacity for happiness greater that a cow than I am more important than a cow.


"And even if you do, does that give you the right to negate the value of another organism for your own ends?"

It depends, if mutilate a cow for my own enjoyment, obvoisly the cow suffers more than i benifit, so it would be wrong.


"mice dont dream, but neither do human embryos"

You can deprive someone/thing of a happy future (whether the are aware of haveing a futre or not (ie a mouse/embryo)) that is bad.
So killing embryos is, with no other considerations, bad.
But not as bad as killing a grown human. When you kill a grwon person you are ending a life that they themselves value. They actively desire to go on living. If they did not desire to go on living it would not be as regretable if they died. Its what make Kevorkian not as bad as other killers. The people he kills dont value their lives.

"clinically brain-dead"
These people neither have a life worht living ahead of them nor any desire to live. these people can be killed at will, with no other things being considered. Now most of these people have other healthy adults that atibute value to the breaindeads persons life (for sentimental reasons) as as such, the give the person some "value". To kill the person would be harming other living people and that is not good.

It the same reason why we dont go around screwing with works of art or pissing on land that indians regard as holy. Its not that the painting or land has any intrinsic value or capacity to be harmed. Its that we harm others by harming things people care about.

Death Row inmates can be deprived of alot of things, and as such, should not be harmed before execution. Personaly im against the DP anyway.

 

[SM-UCLA tech]

i know that some medical schools use animals to teach students. And I know that BU, (at least within the last decade), uses sterile rabbits to teach medical students how to place femoral catheters and measure cardiac output. The rabbits are bred and raised at the school and the students put them to sleep and never wake them up. Since they are sterile, there is no need for the use of gloves since they have no diseases.


I got this info from one of my best friends that went there.

 

[maximumevilbob]

In response to the original post, yes, I have worked in an animal research lab. The majority of my work involved the use of nude mice models to test new anti-cancer therapies developed in-house. I believe that animal testing plays a vital role in the development of new treatment and therapies. Every single drug used in medicine has been tested at one point on animals...it is the only way to safely (for humans that is) determine both potential benefits and the definate harmful side effects of a new drug. People who have a raging problem with animal testing are welcome to their opinions of course, but they must remember that any prescriptions they have at home are the product of years of animal trials. Modern medicine would not and can not progress without the sacrifice of lab animals.

With that said, I must confess that I quit my cancer research job in favor of a less...depressing enivironment. While I recognize the necessity of animal testing, I do not wish to be a direct part of it any longer.

In response to the subsequent posts:
I do think the animals suffer to a certain extent. The behavioral differences between the healthy nude mice and the tumor bearing mice was fairly apparent to me. This may just be a biased observation on my part, but I do believe that these animals were in constant pain and suffering (on some level...whether it is close to human suffering I leave to the more informed and creative posters).

 

[TTSD]

Yeah,

I used to work on rats all the time.. a lot of various different tests regarding brain functions and radiation.

To get the brain out, guillotining them was an option but we never used it. After perfusion I would just use a scalpel and bone cracker to quickly get the brain out.. it was an art to get it out quickly without damaging it.

Also a lot of electrode implanations and femoral catheter insertions and post-natal lesionings.

As to my opinion about animal test I think it's better than doing them on humans.

 

[Newquagmire]

Yeah, just a small thought. How do we know that animals do NOT suffer? Maybe this is all a big flaw in our animal rights treatment.

 

[woolie]

I worked in a neurobiological lab where we did lots of rat surgeries (cannulations, really depressing) and sacrifices and after a while I couldn't take it anymore. I would have to come home and say a little prayer to God (or whomever) and apologize for taking this little creature's life.

We also used transgenic mice at 400. a pop, esecially the little obese ones (we were studying leptin and the hypothalamic hormones that regulate eating and obesity).

When I wrote my Yale essays, one of the things I mentioned was my learning from that experience, that while what we were doing was difficult and I was aware of the pain for the animals, I felt I was able to be sensitive and respectful as much as the circumstances allowed. Something along those lines ...

 

[....]

I though you meant rabbits that cant breed.

You mean they can destroy all of the bacteria and crap in a rabbit?
I'm not sure if i belive that.

 

[TTSD]

Woolie, are you a girl? Not meant to be sexist or anything but usually it's girls that have those types of problems or sensitivity. The one girl in our lab was such fun to work with.. she almost passed out during the first perfusion. We're such sadists, we love playing tricks on that poor girl, lol. Keeps us awake.

However, to put things in perspective as we were having one of our roundtable discussions the PI asks one of the MD/PhD's and asks "You've done this on rats in China?" And the reply was, "No, on humans."

Perhaps in the lab I worked in the benefits of working on animals was readily seen. Our focus was on treating pediatric patients with radiation.. specifically epilepsy. So you can imagine, we want to be DAMN (let me emphasize DAMN) sure about doses before we even move into clinical.. which is probably not going to happen during my lifetime as an undergrad.