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Do I want to know how they get mice with severe spinal cord injuries to test on? I'm guessing it's exactly what I think it is, but I'm wondering if there's anot

• mindcrime 5y ago
  I'm sorry you were downvoted for asking that. I think it's a fair issue to raise. Assuming the mice are intentionally injured to allow testing, it seems reasonable, to me, to question the ethics of that. Of course it's easy to say "they're just mice, who cares?" but it's not wrong to ask "they're living creatures as well, shouldn't we care?" I expect the response to be "it's justified given the benefits we derive for humans, based on this mouse based research", and probably most people would agree with that. But perhaps not everyone would. Also consider the number of really scary books/movies out there rooted in the idea of "medical utilitarianism." For one example, this issue is addressed in a show called Biohackers that I just started watching. And even in real life, people have tried to justify a lot of really sketchy stuff over the years, in the name of "the greater good".
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • kevinsky 5y ago
    Another good question is whether mice are a good analogue for humans as far as spinal injuries
  • archontes 5y ago
    I'm curious if you can elaborate on, "they're living creatures, shouldn't we care?". What about them being living creatures "ought" to lead to that? Why do you think that the base assumption is caring?
    • mindcrime 5y ago
      I'm curious if you can elaborate on, "they're living creatures, shouldn't we care?". No, because I'm not saying that is a position I personally hold. I'm merely presenting it as a position that I know that (some) people do hold. My position here is, roughly speaking, "this (intentionally injuring mice or other animals) is an issue where there is a legit discussion to be had around the ethics of same." Of course I have my own opinion, but I don't really care to get into it. I just didn't think that the parent poster needed to be downvoted for raising the question.
    • tombert 5y ago
      Not the poster obviously, but I'm going to give my two cents on this. Obviously the phrase "they're living creatures" is a bit vague on this; bacteria and molds (and arguably viruses) are also living creatures but I don't think anyone considers it genocide to disinfect your counter with alcohol or something. I think we generally start drawing lines with animals. Even within the scope of animals, I think we can still make reasonable concessions on things that are of sufficiently low intelligence to where we're not even 100% sure they feel pain in the same way that we do. Do I care if a mosquito suffers? No, not really, they're annoying dangerous little critters who aren't really having a lot of intelligent thought. However, when we start getting into mammals (and possibly birds), I think it starts getting into more questionable territory. Most mammals (as far as I know) do have enough neural development to feel pain, to feel fear, and actually suffer in ways not completely dissimilar to humans. Since mice are mammals, there is an argument to be made that if we're hurting them, it's adding a lot of pain to the world. ------- To be clear, I'm somewhat in the camp of "they're just mice, I care about helping humans more". I just wanted to play devil's advocate for a bit.
    • i_haz_rabies 5y ago
      I'll try: we have absolutely no idea to what degree any given living thing can feel pain, in the subjective sense. We know that mice, for example, react in a way that looks like pain to painful stimulus, but we don't know if there is anything that it feels like to be a mouse in pain. We care when humans feel pain, in a large part because we know, almost for certain (although not quite), that they are feeling pain... why should the same not extend to a creature that may be having a similar experience?
    • dahart 5y ago
      Perhaps “living creatures” is a bit broad if taken too literally, but in context here it seems like the implied topic is clearly animals. One reason the base assumption is caring is because we have laws against harming, torturing or being cruel to animals, and laws against killing some animals. Another reason to care is the growing scientific and public awareness that animals have intelligence, consciousness, and feelings. A third reason is that we have a base assumption about caring for humans, both socially and physiologically, and seeking a moral consistency might automatically lead to the reasonable question “shouldn’t we care about animals too?”. Since your question implies some, are there reasons that we shouldn’t care about animals or other living creatures?
    • ajuc 5y ago
      Living creatures might be too much (see bacteria), but if you think we should care about other people - it follows that we should also care about other creatures that can feel and think. Mammals certainly qualify.
      • adventured 5y ago
        > but if you think we should care about other people - it follows that we should also care about other creatures that can feel and think It doesn't automatically follow. I can entirely correctly, subjectively decide which living things I want to care about and which I do not. I can separate living things by a hierarchy of importance. Which is exactly what we do all the time with other people and our relationships to them (example: hey HN, let me know how much you love Donald Trump and where he ranks on your hierarchy of importance). I don't care about mice. I care about puppies (insert reasons here). That is not an irrational position. It's entirely subjective either direction. Any attempt to apply logic or science to the premise is inherently absurd. What we each value and why is subjective, it's personal; it inherently can't be objective. Rat and mice fans might likely pick those over puppies or kittens for example, due to their personal experiences and their hierarchy of values. No, I wouldn't kill or injure the mice myself for a living. I think it's grotesque. I wouldn't perform abortions for a living, it's sometimes a very grotesque process. I'm entirely pro-choice. I wouldn't butcher animals for a living, it's often quite a disgusting process as far as I'm concerned. I have no problem with other people doing so. And I have no problem with eating a steak. That's not contradictory or hypocritical. I also would never want to be a nurse. I fully understand what nurses do. The human body can be quite disgusting at times. I'm glad nurses exist. Such things are not contradictory. You can find an action and outcome acceptable, while not enjoying (or glorifying) all aspects of the process in question. Once you cross the line of: all living things matter without exception and should never be killed, on to: some living things do not matter as much as others (eg plants for consumption) - then you're down to subjectivism as your argument across the board. The animal rights argument is entirely subjective (what should the protections be, should there be any protections, how many should there be, who decides, for which living things, and on and on). What that means is, the opposite position has as much validity, it's also subjective. What it comes down to is majority politics ultimately: how many people can you get to agree with you, such that you can pass legislation in your preferred direction.
  • rhino369 5y ago
    It's really only a good question after we stop slaughtering animals for essentially entertainment.
  • s1artibartfast 5y ago
    The the answer in the science and medical communities is Almost Never "they're just mice, who cares" It is rather that this is an important experiment that can't be done any other way and can have large benefit for humans
    • taylorius 5y ago
      It's funny how this cost benefit calculation is considered valid when applied to research on mice, but any such calculation used to try to justify research on humans would give a "divide by 0" error. I think there's an inconsistency there somewhere.
      • klipt 5y ago
        But there absolutely are clinical trials on humans. It's just the humans generally have to volunteer.
    • mindcrime 5y ago
      The the answer in the science and medical communities is Almost Never "they're just mice, who cares" That's fair. My comment above was maybe overly glib in that sense. But I was just trying to capture the general spirit of the thing, not write an essay, due to limits of time, interest, and knowledge on my part.
    • mental1896 5y ago
      "it can't be done any other way" strikes me as pretty thin. Whereas we may not be able to conceive of another way at this point in time, it does no good to imagine that this condition will continue in perpetuity.
      • comrh 5y ago
        Like the bleeding of horseshoe crabs for LAL it's always reevaluated based on current technology.
      • s1artibartfast 5y ago
  • belorn 5y ago
    We do have an alternative to animal testing. We can use humans who are desperate enough to volunteer to a medical experiment knowing that it might not work and could potentially make things worse. The purpose of animal testing in situations like this is to catch early problems before the final human testing. Computer simulation can do a lot to minimize the need for animal testing, but I don't think we are there yet where we can go directly from a simulation to human testing. I do not however like to view it as medical utilitarianism. The testing will happen regardless if the test subject are human or mice, because people do still want the medical cures. People are however less sad if an experiment accidentally killed a bunch of mice than if a bunch of human test subjects died. Historically people tend to use military service men as test subjects, which is why much of medical knowledge is based on test subjects of a specific gender (male) and age group (20-35). Not that long ago (~1950) people also used people with mental disabilities and orphans. Going just a decade earlier and people used prisoners and war and people deemed unwanted. Hopefully computers will one day replace the need for testing.
    • Evidlo 5y ago
      At least with animal subjects, you can ensure that the health, age, and severity of the 'injury' is exactly the same with all subjects. You'll never get that with humans even if you have plenty of volunteers.
    • rlpb 5y ago
      > We do have an alternative to animal testing. We can use humans who are desperate enough to volunteer... This situation would presumably only arise because somebody else previously made the decision not to perform that experiment on an animal, but instead wait until a human suffers enough to become desperate enough to volunteer. That decision resulted in human suffering (albeit in the form of the trolley problem). Was that decision acceptable? How much human suffering, and/or how many humans suffering, is equivalent to one animal? Does sapience make a difference to this calculation? I'm not saying this makes animal testing OK. My point is just that testing only on human volunteers isn't a magical solution to this ethical problem.
      • 5y ago
• vmception 5y ago
  the player is instructed to attack the weak point for maximum damage
• genomer 5y ago
  It’s what you think it is, and it happens to more than just mice. I toured a bioengineering lab where they were actively severing the spines of chimpanzees to perform fiber rerouting experiments. I think the normal citizen never thinks much if at all about this kind of thing because they’re never exposed to it. A few researchers have opened up to me personally about their personal psychological trauma caused by involvement with animal experimentation. A couple PhD candidates I know changed fields entirely. One to ecology and another to environmental engineering. I personally moved forward with bioinformatics. Edit: that isn’t to say that this result isn’t exciting for human welfare. We’ll see if it translates…
  • bodge5000 5y ago
    Reminds me of "The ones who walk away from Omelas". Clearly not a one-to-one analogy, but close enough to make the connection.
  • tkahnoski 5y ago
    This is absolutely in the moral gray. The greater good, lesser of two evils, however you want to describe it whether it's right or wrong will get down to your personal beliefs. I had a family member involved in a cancer research that used mice and although he admitted it was sad, he did call them heroes. Understandably, I don't think that satisfies anyone strongly aligned with animal rights. In many other sciences we've been able to use simulation as a first step, but that is still out of our reach for biological systems.
    • dtgriscom 5y ago
      A hero makes heroic choices. These mice aren't making choices.
      • tkahnoski 5y ago
        Indeed. No more than any other farm animal really.
  • nonameiguess 5y ago
• stephencanon 5y ago
  It is exactly what you think it is.
• fbanon 5y ago
  My brother was researching brain regeneration in rats, and he said they used cryogenically induced lesions as a test bed. So probably something similar.