11 ms·

I'm not some kind of crazy animal activist, but seriously what's wrong with people : researching empathy by dipping mice tails in hot water or injecting them wi

I'm not some kind of crazy animal activist, but seriously what's wrong with people : researching empathy by dipping mice tails in hot water or injecting them with vinegar is seriously fucked-up. Should we search for empathy the hard way in these scientists too ?

logicrook 11y ago
Science is a hard work, and sometimes, you need to have some fun too.
ivanhoe 11y ago
yeah, my thoughts exactly... scientists looking for empathy in animals are exposing their own lack of empathy for those very same animals...
- Ygg2 11y ago
  That's all well and great, but should we let people die, because we don't want to hurt some animals? Animals that are bred for the sole purpose of studies and would otherwise had to be killed? Lab mice don't grow in wilds you know. Where do you stop? Do you stop eating bread because there are bits of mice/crickets in it? Do you stop eating carrots, because a family of rabbits might depend on it? Do you stop eating bread because a strain of fungus (which aren't plants and are capable of moving on its own volition) might depend on it?
  - hamax 11y ago
    This is called the continuum fallacy. Just because we cannot draw a strongly defined line it doesn't mean some things aren't definitely wrong. Killing lab mice to develop life saving medicine is fine with me in most cases. Torturing mice to study empathy probably isn't. Either way, besides killing all the lab mice, we can also just stop breeding them, you know.
    - Ygg2 11y ago
      Sure, but it's more complex, than "Can't believe these scientist torture mice for empathy". For now, mice lab animals are our only reliable models. First they weren't "torturing mice for empathy", they were studying them for examining pain receptors. Second the study was used to determine if something has empathy or not. Imagine if tomorrow we discovered that large rocks posses sentience, would you not want to determine that rocks have sentience, even if you have been milling them into concrete. > Either way, besides killing all the lab mice, we can also just stop breeding them, you know. Imagine you are mouse breeder. Your only source of revenue is gone. Are you going to: A) Release them into general mice populace causing potential short term damage by having too many breedable mice, while their genes are potential long term damage to mice population (mice used to test cancer get cancer really quickly)? B) Feed them and chemically castrate them and or keep them in isolation (solitary confinement, yay!). Costs money, not sure if departments have that much free dough lying around C) Kill them painlessly and efficiently? D) Sell them at a loss as pets, even though they aren't suitable as pets (some of the strains die really really quickly, because they are bred for that).
      - hamax 11y ago
        I never passed judgement on this specific study (I only used the worst interpretation of it as an example), I was arguing against your absurd statement that since eating bread can kill some mice, doing any kind of research on mice is fine. Secondly, are you seriously suggesting that we should keep breeding and killing lab mice because otherwise we might have to kill them? I can't even understand how can this make any sense. And nobody here is arguing for stopping all the animal research tomorrow. If demand drops, breeders will simply breed less of them. How is this a difficult concept?
        Ygg2 11y ago
        No, I'm saying we should keep breeding mice until we have a better model of how human body works. > I was arguing against your absurd statement that since eating bread can kill some mice, doing any kind of research on mice is fine. I was arguing against notion that somehow removing lab mice will make stuff better, for anyone. Humans won't get data needed to design various drugs, mice overall will continue to suffer, since I believe that lab mice make a small set of all living mice.
  - yesbabyyes 11y ago
    Thank you for showing me the moral equivalent of tormenting mice and eating bread. I feel enlightened.
  - hanniabu 11y ago
    I'm sorry, but to me that seems like it's along the same lines as saying slavery should be legal if the children are bred for it. And in my opinion, yes, we should let some people die. My thought had always been that for the people on death row, when the day of their lethal injection comes, they should have the option to either be put to death or to donate their body to science for testing. If they should choose testing, they can also opt out at any, in which case they would be given the lethal injection the following day.
    - Ygg2 11y ago
      Well no. First rats aren't same as humans. They share certain qualities but not all. Second we don't have a good replacement (and for a while we did allow children to work). The models aren't there yet, but once we develop those, we could try phasing out lab studies.
belorn 11y ago
The article is clear that the purpose of the research was not empathy study, but pain study. "Though he hurts mice for a living, Mogil says it's not for a lack of his own empathy. He research is about understanding why two people may experience pain in different ways, with the hope of developing better pharmaceuticals for managing it. "My sympathy is mostly reserved for chronic pain patients," Mogil tells me. For decades, Mogil and his team have conducted experiments testing the pain threshold of mice in order to see what role genetics play in pain tolerance." There are human studies on pain reception where people are exposed to cold water, where extreme cold water is reported to use similar pain receptors as heated water but cause less damage to the skin. Researchers also injects subjects with capsaicin (Mythbusters did this on camera in one episode), and I wonder why vinegar was used here.
- staticelf 11y ago
  Sounds like a terrible job nonetheless. I guess you'll have to have a lack of empathy to do it ;)
- jdright 11y ago
  > "My sympathy is mostly reserved for chronic pain patients," Mogil tells me. Same as: "My sympathy is mostly reserved for black child slaves than for the white child slaves." There is no difference! These who fails to see that can be said to have a degree of lack of empathy.
araneae 11y ago
The hot water test is actually one of the nicer tests. 120 F isn't that hot, it only hurts after a while, and the mouse can take its tail out at any time. That's how they were able to detect the effect; the mice that saw the other mice do the test took their tails out faster because they knew it'd eventually hurt based on the prior mouse's reaction.

logicrook 11y ago

Science is a hard work, and sometimes, you need to have some fun too.

ivanhoe 11y ago

yeah, my thoughts exactly... scientists looking for empathy in animals are exposing their own lack of empathy for those very same animals...

Ygg2 11y ago
That's all well and great, but should we let people die, because we don't want to hurt some animals? Animals that are bred for the sole purpose of studies and would otherwise had to be killed? Lab mice don't grow in wilds you know. Where do you stop? Do you stop eating bread because there are bits of mice/crickets in it? Do you stop eating carrots, because a family of rabbits might depend on it? Do you stop eating bread because a strain of fungus (which aren't plants and are capable of moving on its own volition) might depend on it?
- hamax 11y ago
  This is called the continuum fallacy. Just because we cannot draw a strongly defined line it doesn't mean some things aren't definitely wrong. Killing lab mice to develop life saving medicine is fine with me in most cases. Torturing mice to study empathy probably isn't. Either way, besides killing all the lab mice, we can also just stop breeding them, you know.
  - Ygg2 11y ago
    Sure, but it's more complex, than "Can't believe these scientist torture mice for empathy". For now, mice lab animals are our only reliable models. First they weren't "torturing mice for empathy", they were studying them for examining pain receptors. Second the study was used to determine if something has empathy or not. Imagine if tomorrow we discovered that large rocks posses sentience, would you not want to determine that rocks have sentience, even if you have been milling them into concrete. > Either way, besides killing all the lab mice, we can also just stop breeding them, you know. Imagine you are mouse breeder. Your only source of revenue is gone. Are you going to: A) Release them into general mice populace causing potential short term damage by having too many breedable mice, while their genes are potential long term damage to mice population (mice used to test cancer get cancer really quickly)? B) Feed them and chemically castrate them and or keep them in isolation (solitary confinement, yay!). Costs money, not sure if departments have that much free dough lying around C) Kill them painlessly and efficiently? D) Sell them at a loss as pets, even though they aren't suitable as pets (some of the strains die really really quickly, because they are bred for that).
    - hamax 11y ago
      I never passed judgement on this specific study (I only used the worst interpretation of it as an example), I was arguing against your absurd statement that since eating bread can kill some mice, doing any kind of research on mice is fine. Secondly, are you seriously suggesting that we should keep breeding and killing lab mice because otherwise we might have to kill them? I can't even understand how can this make any sense. And nobody here is arguing for stopping all the animal research tomorrow. If demand drops, breeders will simply breed less of them. How is this a difficult concept?
      - Ygg2 11y ago
        No, I'm saying we should keep breeding mice until we have a better model of how human body works. > I was arguing against your absurd statement that since eating bread can kill some mice, doing any kind of research on mice is fine. I was arguing against notion that somehow removing lab mice will make stuff better, for anyone. Humans won't get data needed to design various drugs, mice overall will continue to suffer, since I believe that lab mice make a small set of all living mice.
- yesbabyyes 11y ago
  Thank you for showing me the moral equivalent of tormenting mice and eating bread. I feel enlightened.
- hanniabu 11y ago
  I'm sorry, but to me that seems like it's along the same lines as saying slavery should be legal if the children are bred for it. And in my opinion, yes, we should let some people die. My thought had always been that for the people on death row, when the day of their lethal injection comes, they should have the option to either be put to death or to donate their body to science for testing. If they should choose testing, they can also opt out at any, in which case they would be given the lethal injection the following day.
  - Ygg2 11y ago
    Well no. First rats aren't same as humans. They share certain qualities but not all. Second we don't have a good replacement (and for a while we did allow children to work). The models aren't there yet, but once we develop those, we could try phasing out lab studies.

belorn 11y ago

The article is clear that the purpose of the research was not empathy study, but pain study. "Though he hurts mice for a living, Mogil says it's not for a lack of his own empathy. He research is about understanding why two people may experience pain in different ways, with the hope of developing better pharmaceuticals for managing it. "My sympathy is mostly reserved for chronic pain patients," Mogil tells me. For decades, Mogil and his team have conducted experiments testing the pain threshold of mice in order to see what role genetics play in pain tolerance." There are human studies on pain reception where people are exposed to cold water, where extreme cold water is reported to use similar pain receptors as heated water but cause less damage to the skin. Researchers also injects subjects with capsaicin (Mythbusters did this on camera in one episode), and I wonder why vinegar was used here.

staticelf 11y ago
Sounds like a terrible job nonetheless. I guess you'll have to have a lack of empathy to do it ;)
jdright 11y ago
> "My sympathy is mostly reserved for chronic pain patients," Mogil tells me. Same as: "My sympathy is mostly reserved for black child slaves than for the white child slaves." There is no difference! These who fails to see that can be said to have a degree of lack of empathy.

araneae 11y ago

The hot water test is actually one of the nicer tests. 120 F isn't that hot, it only hurts after a while, and the mouse can take its tail out at any time. That's how they were able to detect the effect; the mice that saw the other mice do the test took their tails out faster because they knew it'd eventually hurt based on the prior mouse's reaction.