Does anyone else support animal research?

[skywise]

^^^
I think I agree with you then. I don't think that animals are "lower" than humans and it really irks me when people use that as a "common sense" reason to use them for testing. However, as a human being, I'm going to be inclined to care most about the survival of my individual self, and then my species. I don't think we've developed to a point where we can do that without any animal testing, so I do give it my consent in some circumstances. However, I think we should certainly keep trying to find ways that don't harm other animals, and once we have them, I think we should do away with it completely.

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

^ You certainly earn the "wise" part of your screename!

Animals are NOT below us. The only justification for thinking that way is the inflated ego of the human mind. I consider animals on my level, as much if not more so than many fellow humans.
I spent about 10 minutes the other night outside with a flashlight, next to the pool, saving this moth that was drowning. I sat by the edge and led him towards me with the flashlight (he kept swimming towards the light). After I got him out I sat with him until he dried off and watched him fly away.
It got me thinking about how many people actually would have cared enough to do something like that. Even many good people wouldn't..because they simply do not consider a moth to be worth it.
I find this very sad. A life is a life.
I think it is the same with animal testing. I don't think supporting it makes you a bad person..you just don't consider those animals to be on the same level as you. In my opinion, they are much more nobel than any of us, because they don't consider themselves that way. They don't have much of an ego, if any. All they know how to do is love...and hurt.
In my time as an animal activist and Peta member I have seen and read about so many horrors of animal testing. Those of you who have dogs..think about your precious puppy suffering hours of agony after being fed a new type of medication. Hours of vomiting. Hours of unthinkable pain, alone, in a cage, until he DIED. This is what happened to a group of puppies in a story I read about awhile ago. And guess what, it happened before, to ANOTHER group of puppies, with the SAME drug. They did it more than once. There is no excuse for this type of thing. And that is just one of the many horrific stories I have read. It is disgusting.
It is such a contridiction. We rule this planet, we think we are better than everyone, but we are not.
A being that could cause that type of pain just to get some new medication has NO right calling themselves "human", IMO. If thats what humans do, then I am not one of them. And I am disgusted to be a part of any race that thinks that is okay.

 

[justsomeguy]

here's one author's take on man's logical justification for subordinating nature (taken from Karen J. Warren's "The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism," from Environmental Ethics 12 (1990): 125-46):

"(A1) Humans do, and plants and rocks do not, have the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which they live.

(A2) Whatever has the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which it lives is morally superior to whatever lacks this capacity.

(A3) Thus, humans are morallly superior to plants and rocks.

(A4) For any X and Y, if X is morally superior to Y, then X is morally justified in subordinating Y.

(A5) Thus, humans are morally justified in subordinating plants and rocks.
"

I find it interesting that she is only talking about plants and rocks here, but the argument is easy enough to extend to animals if we decide they are not consciously aware of their capacity to change their community.

Warren goes on to extend this proof to explain man's domination of women :

" (B1) Women are identified with nature and the realm of the physical; men are identified with the "human" and the realm of the mental.

(B2) Whatever is identified with nature and the realm of the physical is inferior to ("below") whatever is identified with the "human" and the realm of the mental; or conversly, the latter is superior to ("above") the former.

(B3)Thus, women are inferior to ("below") men; or, conversly, men are superior to ("above") women.

(B4) For any X and Y, if X is superior to Y, then X is justified in subordinating Y.

(B5) Thus, men ar ejustified in subordinating women."

So what do you guys think? Does the same sort of thinking that justifies men's domination of nature turn into patriarchy when men associate women with nature?

If you think about our discourse about nature, we often call nature "she," and scientists might talk about "penetratiting to the heart of nature," or forcing nature to "give up her secrets" (like when we force chemical compounds to give up their secrets in monkey expereiments).

 

[DigitalDuality]

^
ever read the chromosone excuse given in the SCUM manifesto?

 

[justsomeguy]

^^^
no i haven't....what does SCUM stand for, and can you link me?

 

[vegan]

Animal testing is necessary for the continued survival of our species

you should be careful not to say things like that. people tend to notice when you exaggerate so much.
"continued survival of our species" 8)
animal testing has existed for less than 2 centuries.
how do you explain the survival of our species during the millions of years that preceded these 2 centuries?

If you are so against it then don't take medicine. Otherwise you are being a hypocrite

first, what skywise said. i can correct you when you make a spelling mistake even though my spelling is not perfect. you can be against the oppression of women in islam without going there to fight for their liberty.
second, if a medicine already exists and the tests are over, there's no reason not to use it. the fact that you use it or not doesn't change the conditions of the animals.
third, if i was told "scientists are working on a medicine for your disease but they won't give it to you if it's not tested on animals before" then, i would refuse.

If you … develop cancer ... Then come talk to me

i wouldn't ask scientists to look for a remedy by testing on you (except i you volunteer), and neither would i ask them to do it by testing innocent animals. i would be the unlucky one and i would want the suffering to disappear, not to go to animals.

but that is the way nature works unfortunately

i don't care about what's natural and what's not, but i don't see what you see of "natural" in the thousands of genetically modified mice to are inoculated viruses in small cages.

let us say there is a human carrying a disease that is capable of rapidly spreading. Will we let him go on his merry way or will we quarantine him, depriving him of his liberty and thus making him suffer? Of course we will choose the latter because the suffering of an individual or smaller group of individuals is always going to be of less importance than the continued existence of the masses

first, you give the example of one individual.
the reality of animal experimentation is counted in millions of animals.
second, in animal experimentation, one group oppresses a different one by violence. a different group that had nothing to do with the story and will take no advantage of the sacrifice it's forced to make. humans are parasitizing animals.

I asked for efficacy studies to show how these alternate methods of testing are as reliable as animal testing on a long term basis

hey, buy the book, i'm not going to do it for you.
or type words like "validity alternative methods animal experimentation" in google.
i'm not going to do the work for you since yourself haven't posted "efficacy studies that show how animal testing is reliable in any way".
ok, just one about in vitro tests from the site of the physicians committee for responsible medicine to show that i'm not avoiding the subject, but just being lazy
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Whatever has the capacity to consciously and radically change the community in which it lives is morally superior to whatever lacks this capacity.

this sentence is only an axiom, it doesn't contain a justification to this axiom.
if this axiom was true, then a retarded person or a baby would be morally inferior to average humans
i hope that's enough for everyone to realize that this axiom is plain stupid.

quickly, on a side note, i would point out that literally, to me would be "morally inferior" the one who lacks morality = the one who lacks compassion, understanding, altruism… = for instance the one who exploits others (humans and animals)

you can't label beings with an ethical value.
but it's possible to consider how, ethically, you have to take their interests into account.

animals (human and non-) have an interest in not suffering or being exploited.
animals (human and non-) have an interest in not being killed.

according to our current knowledge,
plants don't seem to have an interest in not suffering
because the only suffering we know of can't exist without a central nervous system
if you cut a plant, a chemical reaction happens, but it doesn't induce pain as we know it.
plants don't seem to have an interest in not dying
because to have an interest in life you have to be conscious of this life. and plants have no consciousness as we know it.

rocks seem to have neither the possibility to suffer, nor to enjoy life.

 

[justsomeguy]

-------------------------------------------------------------

you can't label beings with an ethical value.
but it's possible to consider how, ethically, you have to take their interests into account.

just to clarify before i add some other comments, by "beings" do you mean either of these two things: (a) a creature that is capable of experiencing suffering, and thus, a creature with a central nervous system; or (b) any sort of existant object or thing, that is, any discrete piece or bit of the universe that we can say is "is-ing"

?

 

[nads]

vegan - All life has the drive to survive, even plants. If you place a plant next to a heat lamp (too hot), it will do all it can to move away, that is it grows in the opposite direction. You say a plant has no interest in not dying, but that leaf you burned housed some of the plant's energy production so you are depriving it of energy which will lead to programmed cell death to compensate and ensure organism survival.

You say a CNS is required for suffering (through pain) and that all a plant has is a chemical reaction. But pain is only a chemical reaction aswell, one release of neurotransmitter into a synapse with nociceptors on the target cell is all it is. What they have in common is to alert whatever tissues responsible for keeping the organism out of harm. Whether that tissue is conscious or not is irrelevant, the whole mechanism works without its input. The only reason it is conscious for us, and the other higher vertebrates, is because there is a greater chance of survival in remembering environmental hazards than there is in just reacting to them.

IMO, this issue is strictly black and white (and I don't say that very often), either you make yourself responsible for ALL life, or you make yourself responsible for number 1. Anything inbetween is sugar-coating.

 

[DJAngrE]

http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/1/40238_m.gif

 

[vegan]

i was thinking (b) because
- the author you quoted was comparing the 3 kingdoms
- to protect myself from posts that would have said "but what about plants? you are not sure that plants don't suffer"
and actually, no, i can't say i'm sure.
i'm 999/1000 sure that plants and rocks don't know pain as we know it though.
and i have a hard time imagining another kind of pain because the one we know is directly linked to our senses and nervous system.
but there are many things we don't know or understand, so…
- because for all of the 3 kingdoms i wouldn't know how to find an objective "ethical value" to beings.
i don't think "ethical value, superiority or inferiority" are notions that can be used.
an object to which you are very attached could be said to have an "ethical value" because by destroying it i would cause you sadness. plants might have interests that we are not aware of and that distort the "ethical value" that we tend to grant them.
so i'd rather say : "having decided to act ethically. let's respect all the interests that we are aware of."

 

[vegan]

All life has the drive to survive, even plants

i didn't say the contrary.
but i said we don't know if the plants cares about it.
if you drop a ball on the floor it will bump back. does that will it wills to bump back? that it has an interest in bumping?
i doubt it.
yes plants have a drive to survive. but if they don't is it detrimental to the "plant entity"?
i'm not sure, but with our current knowledge i doubt.

pain is only a chemical reaction aswell

but the way we feel it is due to the CNS. if i anaesthetize your brain and cut your finger, the same chemical reaction will occur in your finger, but you will not feel it.
with our current knowledge it seems to be the same case for plants. if you cut a plant, there's a chemical reaction, and it grows back and everything. but it doesn't seems to suffer like we do.

only reason it is conscious for us

the fact that it's conscious makes all the difference.
if you were born unconscious and lived in a coma all your life just to die at the end without waking up, you wouldn't care about people putting pins in your body.

why do i always get the plant argument from people who consider animals' interests inferior in the first place?
if they think animals are less important than humans, they shouldn't care about plants or rocks!

 

[vegan]

http://www.cartoonbank.com/assets/1/40238_m.gif

unfortunately it's very very wrong.
many animals are used to test weapons
the U.S. department of defense experimented on 327,097 animals in 1999
testing chemical weapons, ionizing radiation, lasers, high power microwaves, and biological weapons for your happiness

 

[nads]

but i said we don't know if the plants cares about it.

"Caring", is a human emotion, and has no meaning for a plant. Its like saying animals are inferior because they don't add to the net potential energy of the planet like plants do. You can setup any criteria for superiority you like, so it kind of loses meaning.

but it doesn't seems to suffer like we do.

On the contrary, faced with life threatening trauma, both plant and human will kill off cells to ensure survival. As the killing off of cells is the opposite of what organisms normally try to do, it is detrimental to the organism's 'interests' conscious or not, in other words, suffering.

if you were born unconscious and lived in a coma all your life just to die at the end without waking up, you wouldn't care about people putting pins in your body.

You imply that an organism has to have a certain correlation with you or your concept of a typical conscious human before being able to suffer. What I'm saying is that you don't need to be aware of suffering to experience its consequences.

if they think animals are less important than humans, they shouldn't care about plants or rocks!

Why is it absurd to hold a plant's life as more or just as important as an animal's? Why show disgust at those who exclude animals from their circle of friends while simultaneously excluding plants and lower forms of life from your own?

 

[vegan]

"Caring", is a human emotion, and has no meaning for a plant

you're working for me right here.
why don't you want to die? because you care about life.
if plants don't care, maybe they have no specific interest in not dying.

You can setup any criteria for superiority you like, so it kind of loses meaning.

taken from post 1301284 of the same page :
"but what would make humans ethically superior to animals?
intelligence?
like said skywise, if it was the case you would be ethically inferior to other humans.
and this would also legitimate the exploitation of mentally retarded people, and of children.
so if the criteria is not intelligence, what is it?
sensibility, kindness, altruism?
we are big losers at this game. the very exploitation of animals being the proof.
then what? speed, the jaguar wins. vision, the eagle wins. smell, the dog wins. survival in a jungle, even an ant wins.
there's no criteria for "ethical superiority"

please reread the last sentence

-----------------------
but it doesn't seems to suffer like we do.
-----------------------

On the contrary, faced with life threatening trauma, both plant and human will kill off cells to ensure survival. As the killing off of cells is the opposite of what organisms normally try to do, it is detrimental to the organism's 'interests' conscious or not, in other words, suffering.

if the killing of cells will ensure survival, it's not detrimental to the being's interests.
it's like fighting an fire with a backfire. the backfire is not detrimental.

anyway, in the case of the plant, its health is not related to suffering, as humans know it.
they don't suffer like we do.
we suffer because our brain transforms in pain the stimuli. that's not the case with plants.
maybe they have another kind of suffering that we are not aware of, but it's not the same as our.

You imply that an organism has to have a certain correlation with you or your concept of a typical conscious human before being able to suffer. What I'm saying is that you don't need to be aware of suffering to experience its consequences.

suffering, the painful one is not experienced if you're unconscious.
so for the twentieth time, maybe exists another kind of suffering that we are not aware of. but as far as we know, plants and rocks don't know human suffering.
yes they experience the consequences of harm done to them, but not in the form of human suffering. they experience it by loss of the leaves or by a cracked branch for instance.
but once again, if you're born and live in a coma, does it matter to you if you loose your hair or have your finger cut?

Why show disgust at those who exclude animals from their circle of friends while simultaneously excluding plants and lower forms of life from your own?

i don't and i'm fed up with people who dishonestly twist my words.
i said that we have an objective reason to respect animals' interests : the fact that they are affected by pain and death as we humans are.
i didn't say that we had reasons not to consider plants and rocks' interests.
what i said is that with the knowledge we have, their interests don't seem to be comparable to those we have (not being hit or not being imprisoned for instance). and that if they actually have interests, we don't know what they are.

 

[djwhirlpool]

i don't think there is anything wrong with animal research. i am one of the people that feel that animals do not have the same rights as humans. i know we are animals, but we have the ability to reason (some would disagree ) and to me animals aren't really that important.

we are superior to the animals we test and their loss is our gain. when it comes down to it, would you rather a rat's life be taken or yours? maybe i'm selfish, but i would rather the the rat take one for the team than me.

yes monkeys and bunnies are cute, but i can live with them being abuse to that maybe there will be a cure for cancer or AIDS someday.

 

[lostpunk5545]

I think you are simplifying the issue... Whether or not other animals have the ability to reason (and I would debate that point), it does not change the fact that non-human animals also feel pain and fear. Therefore subjecting them to fear and pain simply for our own gain is ethically wrong. I guess your stance kind of seems to me like "let's experiment on starving african children because, hey, nothing is ever going to come of their lives, so why not exploit them for our own gain".

 

[nads]

why don't you want to die? because you care about life.
if plants don't care, maybe they have no specific interest in not dying.

The plant's growing behaviour is proof enough of its interest in survival.

if the killing of cells will ensure survival, it's not detrimental to the being's interests.
it's like fighting an fire with a backfire. the backfire is not detrimental.

I meant the trauma is detrimental, as opposed to merely halting a series of biological reactions.

but once again, if you're born and live in a coma, does it matter to you if you loose your hair or have your finger cut?

I can't compare the two here in this analogy. To remove consciousness from the person is not likening them to a plant, because they lose so much of their normal functioning in the process. To a person in a coma, a cut finger is, by scale, unimportant. Its like saying to a plant who's lost 90% of its root structure, a torn branch is insignificant, yes, but because of the relative significance of the injuries - not from other factors.

i don't and i'm fed up with people who dishonestly twist my words.
i said that we have an objective reason to respect animals' interests : the fact that they are affected by pain and death as we humans are.

Right, you can relate to their suffering. Can you not also relate to a plants suffering, as in envisioning major trauma (lets say for arguments sake, without pain)?

 

[djwhirlpool]

I think you are simplifying the issue... Whether or not other animals have the ability to reason (and I would debate that point), it does not change the fact that non-human animals also feel pain and fear. Therefore subjecting them to fear and pain simply for our own gain is ethically wrong. I guess your stance kind of seems to me like "let's experiment on starving african children because, hey, nothing is ever going to come of their lives, so why not exploit them for our own gain".

so who or what are we supposed to exploit?

i'm sorry they feel pain and fear and it may not be totally ethical, but how are they supposed to test new drugs and products?

if you feel so strongly about putting a non-human animal in pain then why don't you let them do it to you?

yes it sucks for the little guys, but it has to be done sometimes. there is no way to get around it.

 

[lostpunk5545]

^ As mentioned before a large percentage of the experiments on animals come to naught and they have to be tested on people anyway due to inconclusivness. And the point I am making in not putting a non-human animal in pain is that I would not want that pain inflicted on me. Thus I am not volunteering myself for medical research. I repeat your question to you.

 

[JerryBlunted]

I think this argument is breaking down into idealists versus pragmatists. That is typically the point when further meaningful communication dwindles.

For the record, no one here has said they like the idea of testing on animals, or that they think it is a good thing. However, we have stated there is no other way to achieve the ends than without these means, and as a society we have decided that the ends are worth the means at this present point.

You seem to think that scientists have this huge stash of animals they can just squander away for any illegitimate use. There is a huge amount of protocol, checks and rechecks before you can get animals and there are very definite rules concerning their suffering that you must follow. No animal is to be made to suffer unless it is necessary for the purpose of the experiment.

Personally, I would tighten the restrictions further to only allow animal testing in critical areas such as developing vaccines for serious illness, studying pathogens, etc. No one in this thread has said they support animal testing for cosmetics, weapons, or any other frivolous use.

I've heard a lot of comparisons of animal testing to exploiting black people (an emotional hot button issue that once introduced obscures the debate), however I would more compare it to the former practice of miners who would bring a canary down into the mines with them. If the canary keels over then they leave the mine, but if it doesn't they stay and work. The object is not to exploit the canary or purposefully hurt it, the object is to ensure the safety of the multitude of miners.

I appreciate the opposing point of view, and I can surely understand why people feel they don't want to cause pain to anyone or anything. However, my contention is that life is about pain and suffering. It is an unfortunate fact that every person must consume life to remain alive, and that our actions have a multitude of consequences, some not even remotely imagined, many of which are deleterious to other forms of life. We should try to minimize the wanton destruction of life, however for a higher purpose it may be sometimes warranted in the absence of something better.