7 ms·
I understand the need to test pain response for medical purposes, but I can't shake the feeling that in a few hundred years we're going to look back on the use
by debatem1 8y ago
I understand the need to test pain response for medical purposes, but I can't shake the feeling that in a few hundred years we're going to look back on the use of animals in pain studies and think it's barbarism.
- inamberclad 8y agoWhat else do you suggest?
- jjtheblunt 8y agoHow about not testing it, because it's got truly no consequence?
- viraptor 8y agoPotentially developing more targeted pain killers for people with chronic conditions or recovering from bad injuries, without relying on known addictive substances is of no consequence?
- adimitrov 8y agoA few hundred? There's plenty of folks who already think animal testing is barbarism. Unfortunately, like the "doctors" of the bad old days, for medical purposes we don't really have a choice, do we? We do, however, have a choice when it comes to cosmetics and non-critical research, and I stand by my conviction to use cosmetics not tested on animals exclusively.
- kranner 8y agoWhat if humans were so different from other creatures that testing human medicines on other species made no sense and the established practice was testing on human “volunteers”, i.e. poor people. Would it still make sense to argue that we didn’t have a choice?
- JamesBarney 8y agoThat is literally our choice. Human volunteers as first test subjects or animals. There aren't any other choices besides putting drug research in stasis.
- kranner 8y agoFair enough. Humans can at least give consent, in a way (given that economic necessity is not consensual).
- Konnstann 8y agoSo every toxicology study will need to be postponed until we find 100 people willing to die for no reason? Oh and all of those people need to be part of the representative population the drug is being developed for.
- PeterisP 8y agoSince humans are sufficiently different from other creatures that animal testing alone isn't sufficient for neither efficiency nor safety tests, we do run clinical trials on human volunteers, as we don't really have a choice. Launching new drugs without such tests costs more lives, and not launching new drugs also costs, so we do human testing with the understanding that sometimes it costs lives and causes other grievous harm. However, since testing human medicines on other species does have some sense, we would consider it unethical to run potentially risky tests on humans if that can be avoided by doing preliminary tests on animals instead. If it turns out that some drug which seems safe in vitro actually turns out harmful in the whole organism, then we do want to determine that before trying it out on humans even if that process takes the lives of a lot of lab mice. If your experimentation kills a patient because you intentionally didn't do the due diligence in order to save some animals, that's not an excuse, that's IMHO as good as murder.
- kranner 8y agoMy question was about a sci-fi hypothetical scenario, not the current state of things. However the hypocrisy of the current state of things is staggering to me. Using words like 'ethical' and 'unethical' makes it worse. Nothing makes a human being's life more important than the life of a lab mouse. To avoid a result "as good as murder" in humans, we are actually murdering other animals.
- chroma 8y agoI doubt it, but only because from a utilitarian standpoint, using animals for research purposes is not even a drop in the bucket. Humanity slaughters billions of animals each year just because they're tasty. At least the research animals have some benefit beyond a single person's satiation. I do wonder how long it will be before people start vandalizing statues of historical figures because they ate meat.
- kranner 8y agoBut why do you think attitudes to slaughtering would not change over time?
- chroma 8y agoI think they will, but only once compelling meat substitutes become affordable. Even then, I think most of future society's condemnation will be for eating meat, not for animal experimentation. By comparison: When people talk about the holocaust, they are mostly referencing the mass slaughter, not the relatively small number of victims of human experimentation. (Wow, this got off topic quickly.)
- JamesBarney 8y agoThough it is brought up any time there is a discussion about the rules and hoops IRBs make researchers jump through.
- Nasrudith 8y agoWell anyone reasonable will recognize knowledge just not being the better alternatives like meat growth culture not being available. They might eyeroll at the "obvious" of "smoke is bad for your lungs, don't mix waste disposal and drinking water" not being able to do something hard isn't reasonable - we might grimace at amputations for gangrene but without suitable antibiotics. If anything they would judge those who don't adopt when it becomes viable.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago>> Humanity slaughters billions of animals each year just because they're tasty. It's very likely that people find meat tasty because it's nutritious, just as we find sugar and plant fats tasty. Your comment makes it sound as if eating meat is some kind of indulgence, like eating sweets. Meat is a rich source of protein and energy. We don't need any more justification than that to want to eat other animals. There are practical matters of efficiency and of the ethics of kiling animals at scale, in industrial farming, that are far more important and interesting to discuss than the nebulous idea of the morality of eating any meat at all. At the end of the day- many animals eat other animals' meat. Why is it any different for humans to do the same? >> At least the research animals have some benefit beyond a single person's satiation. I don't understand this. Even a chicken is large enough to feed two people. Larger animals can feed a family for several days.
- golergka 8y agoI doubt that the current trend of indulging empathy instinct to no end can last that long.
- cm2187 8y agoReminds me of this old Ikea commercial https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-cori12KU
- belorn 8y agoIf we reach a point where computer models are close enough, I don't think people will look back and see it as barbarism more than now. People will simply look back and see it as the strange and alien time before computer models, and mostly be fascinated how different life must have been.
- stretchwithme 8y agoI kind of doubt that emergent properties can be modeled.
- mathieuh 8y agoSurely if you model the non-emergent properties well enough the emergent properties will arise anyway
- have_faith 8y agoDepends if you think the universe is deterministic or not I guess.
- stretchwithme 8y agoEven if it is, emergent properties can't be deduced from their precursors. The whole is greater (or lesser) than the sum of the parts.
- c048 8y agoThat's the problem, you can't know if you missed any in a simulated model.