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Can horseshoe crabs actually feel pain? I thought their nervious systems were too simple for that, ergo there's practically no ethical concerns with doing whate
by Asooka 10y ago
Can horseshoe crabs actually feel pain? I thought their nervious systems were too simple for that, ergo there's practically no ethical concerns with doing whatever you want to them, as long as it doesn't lead to genocide.
- sndean 10y agoNot sure about the question of pain, but most IACUCs (Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) at universities and elsewhere don't care what you do to invertebrates. It's an odd line to draw, but that's apparently the line: whether or not there's a spine.
- tim333 10y agoProbably they can. Pain detection evolved so organisms can avoid damaging their bodies. There's no reason to think that doesn't apply to crabs.
- prodikl 10y agoi think this is the most logical answer. i would imagine pain appeared very early in a common ancestor as its effect on survival is absolutely immense
- ecdavis 10y agoHumans can't feel pain if anaesthetized.
- woodruffw 10y agoPain might be one consideration for an ethical argument against the status quo, but there are plenty of others: * Environmental - Are we diminishing the horseshoe crab population in a way that'll adversely affect the environment? * Sustainability - Will our current methods be able to supply indefinitely increasing demand for horseshoe crab blood? * Practicality - Are we using a natural resource as a way to avoid a more responsible or practical engineered solution (compare: whale oil)? I don't claim a satisfactory answer to any of these (I just don't know enough about horseshoe crabs), but a "yes" for any of them represents a plausible ethical concern.
- jsnathan 10y agoIt's still being debated (for what that's worth) but there are numerous studies that indicate that they do [1]. I don't think we have any workable theory at this point that would explain how exactly (biological) neural networks produce pain, or predict how complex they need to be to do so. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_crustaceans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_crustaceans
- bykovich 10y agoThis is a dumbfuck ethical theory.
- bobsil1 10y agoWe come up with this risible excuse every time we want to do something awful: sport fishing, chicken slaughter, baby circumcision. "They're dumb / they can't feel pain."
- dang 10y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131514 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14131514 and marked it off-topic.