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Scientific experimentation is the least bad thing we do to animals. At least at reputable institutes and companies, it's for a clear goal, that could not be ac
by ethbr0 3y ago
Scientific experimentation is the least bad thing we do to animals.
At least at reputable institutes and companies, it's for a clear goal, that could not be achieved otherwise, and governed by a review board. It's trading animal harm for human harm. Furthermore, it's few animals for much good.
Simply killing an animal to eat it seems far less ethical: there are other things we can eat, and animal deaths must scale linearly with human population.
IMHO, one shouldn't eat meat unless one can look into a live animal's eyes and murder it. I eat meat, and I feel bad about it -- but we should all be honest about what it means, even if it shows up in colorfully-wrapped, no-blood, sanitized-of-sentience form.
... And at the bottom of the ethical gradient is just killing an animal without any purpose, for which I hope there's a special place in hell.
- zvmaz 3y ago> Scientific experimentation is the least bad thing we do to animals. I did not know (maybe I didn't want to) the ineffable amount of suffering we subject animals in vastly useless "scientific" experiments (see Singer, Animal Liberation, Chapter 2: Tools for research).
- ethbr0 3y agoThe existence of horrific science experiments doesn't prove that most science experiments are horrific. And it's a very differently regulated landscape now vs even 30 years ago.
- boringuser2 3y ago[flagged]
- zvmaz 3y agoThanks for the precious advice. I will take note of it. The descriptions and the results of the experiments cited in Singer's book come from the experimenters themselves. Published work, publicly available. Edit: I have talked about a "documentary" above, but it's not really a documentary, but video footage stolen from a lab doing experiments on baboons. The lab has been closed because of the videos. The fuss is unnecessary with you sir [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unnecessary_Fuss
- boringuser2 3y ago[flagged]
- Pxtl 3y agoIt's not so much that scientific experimentation isn't justifiable, it's just that the sheer scale of suffering involved in it is staggering. Scientific experimentation requires basically a near-constant holocaust of rodents. The animals aren't even raw materials, they're basically stationery. This is an excellent article on the subject, written by somebody who worked in a testing lab. https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1676-5-horrifying-realities-testing-drugs-lab-animals.html https://www.cracked.com/personal-experiences-1676-5-horrifyi...
- ethbr0 3y agoIt is staggering. But we spend worm lives so that we can spare fly lives. And we spend fly lives so that we can spare rodent lives. And we spend rodent lives so that we can spare rabbit lives. And we spend rabbit lives so that we can spare pig lives. And we spend pig lives so that we can spare primate lives. And we spend primate lives so that we can spare human lives. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Rs_(animal_research) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Rs_(animal_research) The only thing worse than deliberately infecting or genetically engineering animal models... is allowing disease to rampage unsolved, when you might have done something. The world we live in is built on a mountain of rodent skulls, and while I'm uncomfortable with that, I'm more comfortable than if it were built atop a mountain of human skulls.
- krageon 3y agoIt is not that long ago folks would do vivisections of fish in university, as a teaching exercise. This insight could clearly be achieved some other way (as it is no longer done and folks still get diplomas) and universities are what I would term as reputable (certainly this one, which is top in it's specific field). An argument from reputation is weak and in my experience very often wrong, as it is in this case. Experimentation on animals should quite simply not happen. When you torture something that you have absolute power over, this is ethically similar to torturing a child in my opinion. They have the same amount of proximate agency, and are similarly helpless.