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What I had in mind were the people who volunteered for experimental medical procedures. Transplants, blood transfusions, neurosurgery, skin grafts, etc. The tec
by Cyph0n 10y ago
What I had in mind were the people who volunteered for experimental medical procedures. Transplants, blood transfusions, neurosurgery, skin grafts, etc. The techniques were only perfected through the suffering and death of a vast number of nameless people.
> Animal testing is weighed against what benefits us in even the slightest way and is some sort of "unnecessarily cruel" metric.
> We say these things are okay, and important, but when I think that almost 13,000 animals were killed, beagles, cats, monkeys, rats, just so we could have splenda, I think that whatever we value non-human life at must be so trivially small.
That is a deeply philosophical argument. We can obviously agree that -- all things being equal -- a human's life is worth more than an animal's life. But exactly how much more valuable is it? Can we accurately quantify how many mice can die so one human can live? Does it depend on the animal and its intelligence, at least as we perceive it? The questions can go on and on with no end in sight.
Now, I'm honestly not intimately familiar with what goes in the life sciences, particularly when it comes to experimenting on live subjects. Nonetheless, I am convinced that modern ethical standards are a good way to set universal limits to what can be done to animals in a laboratory setting, while also ensuring that we as humans benefit from the results. The alternatives would be either to delay the discovery of new procedures because we don't want to hurt animals, or to just experiment on humans directly. Neither of these sounds like a better option to me.
- pingec 10y ago> We can obviously agree that -- all things being equal -- a human's life is worth more than an animal's life. No, not at all. Ethics are relative. Sure, this is the a generally accepted opinion in our society, but so was slavery.
- Cyph0n 10y agoThis is honestly one of the weirdest statements I've ever heard. Are you actually comparing the impact of slavery to the use of animals for research purposes? Please tell me that I misunderstood that.
- JetSpiegel 10y agoWell, the GP mentions moral relativism, so it's no so farfetched.
- marricks 10y agoI believe they are saying times change and some things that seem fine to most of the populous currently seem monstrous later. It's a lot easier to dismiss if you interpret it as you did, though.
- ralfd 10y ago> That is a deeply philosophical argument. We can obviously agree that -- all things being equal -- a human's life is worth more than an animal's life. Normally I would agree, but, for example, if there is news that an Elephant trampled a poacher to death you won't find many readers rooting not for the animal.
- marricks 10y agoI think splenda is a good example, in the end after killing thousands of animals to approve it people discovered it can actually cause weight gain[1]! Kind of destroys the original reason for it. That's the thing with models, they're just models and ultimately they will have flaws. We rely heavily on animal testing and have built up reasoning to say why it's right, and that it helps, but we also don't know how much it hurts our own science with ridiculous blunders like that. Another recen inflammation, and they've been used for decades![2] That being said, do I think science would progress slower without animal testing, or just far less and safer for the animal testing? Sure, probably, but it's worth the cost, and we'll get some benefits with less horrible blunders by relying on models. Another example, science could progress a lot faster if got rid of safety laws to test on humans, but somethings are just wrong so we don't do it. [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/08/the-awful-truth-about-diet-soda-and-weight-gain-according-to-science/#5ad67369462f https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2016/09/08/the-awful-trut... [2] http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/08/08/mouse_models_of_inflammation_wrong_or_not http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2014/08/08/mou...
- marricks 10y agoWow, looks like I accidentally a secente there and I can't change it. > Another recent study showed that rats handle inflammation very differently than humans, making lots of past research useless and they've been used for decades![2]
- marricks 10y agoHere's another view of what goes on in life sciences: https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/67897/i-dont-want-to-kill-any-more-mice-but-my-advisor-insists-that-i-must-in-order https://academia.stackexchange.com/questions/67897/i-dont-wa... It's far too easy to ignore the atrocities in our system.