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Poor animals. Locked up in small confinements. Tormented. Bred as we see fit, killed as we see fit, experimented on as we see fit (but it's for Science!). Ther

by cies 5y ago

Poor animals. Locked up in small confinements. Tormented. Bred as we see fit, killed as we see fit, experimented on as we see fit (but it's for Science!). There's quite some research to prove the whole animal testing is now mainly done for compliance reasons, that for their actual benefit is preventing bad stuff to happen to humans. I hope one day we can do (largely) without test-animals.

rhaps0dy 5y ago
I agree. The treatment of animals destined to be eaten is way worse, as well. You should consider going vegan.
- cies 5y ago
  > You should consider going vegan. I am. Obviously. And it's so easy not to contribute to the demise of animal individuals, that I dont understand so many humans do not seem to care.
kypro 5y ago
I love rodents and as someone who's owned rodents (and has had problems with mice and rats in the past) I'm always shocked at how social and intelligent they are. I do think it's sad how dismissive people are about testing on rodents because they're often viewed as dirty, stupid animals because that's not true. That said, I do prefer rodent testing over testing on primates which I find horrifying in most cases. One thing that gives me some peace is knowing how hard natural lives are for these animals. It's not like rodents have a particularly pain-free, happy life in the wild. I think a better solution than avoiding animal testing all together is just to ensure that the majority of them have good lives.
- goldenkey 5y ago
  That doesn't give me peace at all. We can not ameliorate the torturous acts we commit by making comparisons to the worst natural scenarios. Santa doesn't exist and we are dirty, stupid monsters.
pvaldes 5y ago
> Poor animals. Locked up in small confinements. If what you afraid of is that the rats could suffer from claustrophobia I have good news for you... rats are not people. We love empty plains under the stars. Rats hate it and love passionately being in narrow safe places.
drekk 5y ago
Unless you're willing to test blindly on humans that's not going to change. Our understanding of animal physiology is not purely selfish either, veterinary medicine doesn't exist without animal testing. Besides that, the IRB handles research approval in the US and has very stringent requirements for animal research that increase exponentially depending on the model organism. Saying that they're being tortured carries some heavy implications—rodents only live a year or two to begin with and regulations exist for things like housing them in pairs. If I do research for a few months and then need to harvest brain slices I'm not exactly cutting down the rat in its prime + relative to the NYC rats fighting over a slice of pizza it lived a much nicer life. I'm vegetarian personally and think we should reduce unnecessary suffering, however the 1% of animal deaths in our society going to the furtherment of knowledge seems like the wrong focus to have. You mentioned you're vegan; if you can't get your peers to stop eating animals (which is totally unnecessary, unhealthy, bad for the planet) I'm not sure how you realistically expect them to line up in place of Remy the rodent for research purposes. Even then, there's a limit to what you can do non-invasively with where our medical knowledge is currently. My hope is that we refine what the research priorities are in our society + eliminate things like cosmetic testing, but ultimately I don't see an end to medical model organisms unless we can simulate them—and that's hard to do without further medical experimentation.

by cies 5y ago

rhaps0dy 5y ago

I agree. The treatment of animals destined to be eaten is way worse, as well. You should consider going vegan.

cies 5y ago
> You should consider going vegan. I am. Obviously. And it's so easy not to contribute to the demise of animal individuals, that I dont understand so many humans do not seem to care.

kypro 5y ago

I love rodents and as someone who's owned rodents (and has had problems with mice and rats in the past) I'm always shocked at how social and intelligent they are. I do think it's sad how dismissive people are about testing on rodents because they're often viewed as dirty, stupid animals because that's not true. That said, I do prefer rodent testing over testing on primates which I find horrifying in most cases. One thing that gives me some peace is knowing how hard natural lives are for these animals. It's not like rodents have a particularly pain-free, happy life in the wild. I think a better solution than avoiding animal testing all together is just to ensure that the majority of them have good lives.

goldenkey 5y ago
That doesn't give me peace at all. We can not ameliorate the torturous acts we commit by making comparisons to the worst natural scenarios. Santa doesn't exist and we are dirty, stupid monsters.

pvaldes 5y ago

> Poor animals. Locked up in small confinements. If what you afraid of is that the rats could suffer from claustrophobia I have good news for you... rats are not people. We love empty plains under the stars. Rats hate it and love passionately being in narrow safe places.

drekk 5y ago

Unless you're willing to test blindly on humans that's not going to change. Our understanding of animal physiology is not purely selfish either, veterinary medicine doesn't exist without animal testing. Besides that, the IRB handles research approval in the US and has very stringent requirements for animal research that increase exponentially depending on the model organism. Saying that they're being tortured carries some heavy implications—rodents only live a year or two to begin with and regulations exist for things like housing them in pairs. If I do research for a few months and then need to harvest brain slices I'm not exactly cutting down the rat in its prime + relative to the NYC rats fighting over a slice of pizza it lived a much nicer life. I'm vegetarian personally and think we should reduce unnecessary suffering, however the 1% of animal deaths in our society going to the furtherment of knowledge seems like the wrong focus to have. You mentioned you're vegan; if you can't get your peers to stop eating animals (which is totally unnecessary, unhealthy, bad for the planet) I'm not sure how you realistically expect them to line up in place of Remy the rodent for research purposes. Even then, there's a limit to what you can do non-invasively with where our medical knowledge is currently. My hope is that we refine what the research priorities are in our society + eliminate things like cosmetic testing, but ultimately I don't see an end to medical model organisms unless we can simulate them—and that's hard to do without further medical experimentation.