Enslaving animals for pleasure is another demonstration of a natural catastrophe that took place in this part of the Milky Way -- the emergence of speaking animals of genus Homo.
Where do you draw the line?
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Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
Actually, in that situation, the only legal option is to let the baby cry. Morally, it's not you who killed anybody, not did you abandon your child. Killing the baby is a crime, as is leaving it. But if some third party kills everybody in the room, it's not your fault. You didn't kill anybody.
Schrodinger's Cat
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What about great apes that have demonstrated self awareness, and who are able to communicate with humans via computers? Would you be okay with experimenting on an animal which literally can beg you not to? That's really what gets me, but I know that's really an emotional rather than a rational reaction. Or what about the hypothetical situation where we have other hominids which, while still not human, are far more human in abilities than a bonobo ?
Actually, it's not so much as dogs are able to do things that great apes can't, it's that dogs agree to cooperate in experiments that great apes won't.
One of the reasons dogs are so useful in experimentation is because more than any other animal they seek to please the humans doing the experiment. They are simply willing to DO the experiment in the first place. That's the single biggest problem with animal behavioral/intelligence experiments. In order to test them, the animal has to participate in the test. Dogs, as well all know, are very eager to please, and so they are great experimental subjects and as a result we know a LOT about dog intelligence and behavior. Great apes tend to be more obstinate, and their likelihood of particpation correlates to what the ape gets out of it's participation. They just aren't as likely to do something because we WANT them to as a dog is. The experiment has to appeal to them enough to get them to cooperate with it.
No cat owner will be surprised to know that cats are one of the most difficult animals to do behavior/intelligence experiments on. There's a well known case in which researchers were trying to get different animals to go through a maze. Even animals like mice or goldfish were able to complete their mazes, and were able to show improvement in their times with repeated exposure to the same maze. When they tried to do cats though, they were not having any of it. They refused to even try. They just plunked their furry little buts down and screamed until the researchers finally gave in and took them out. It's not that goldfish are smarter than cats. It's that the cats were less willing to do the maze than goldfish.
So when considering animal exerimentation, it's important to remember that while an animals completetion of said experiment is evidence of that animal's abilities, an animal failing a specific test is not necessarily an indication that the animal is incapable of performing the task at hand. It just may simply not want to.
To me personally, that's irrelevent. Again, with primates, I apply the logic I would to human experimentation. Just like it's not okay to breed babies to inject them with AIDS, that's how I feel about great apes as well (which isn't to say that I think a chimp is the equivilent of a human baby).
Not to my knowledge, unless I was too young to remember.
I also try and avoid killing bugs when I can, I always try and catch and release them when I find them on me or inside a home. But generally I save bugs when I can; if I see a worm on a sidewalk, I will take the time to put it back on the grass. Once I found a drowning bee while I was swimming across a pond. I took of my hair elastic and let the bee grab onto it, then I held the elastic up out of the water as I swam 15 minutes to shore. People will tease me about this when they see me do stuff like this and say, "Why did you take the time to save a bug? What does it matter?" To which I always reply, "It matters to the bug." I just believe that all life is precious, no matter how small. I don't think this view should be imposed on others. I don't want to illegalize meat eating or anything like that. I'm well aware of the harsh reality of the animal world. But that doesn't make me feel any less guilty if I have the opportunity to save even a tiny little life, and I don't.
I see your point, but at the same time, if I had to chose between a 95 year old stranger and my 6 month old niece, there would be no question of who I would save. But I still would not be okay with cruel experiments on a 95 year old stranger.
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Dogs evolved to be part of human society--they evolved to be pets. It's a type of mutualism: we give them food, shelter, etc., and they provide us with various services (guard duty, herding, killing pests, that sort of thing). The only real difference between this and the ant/aphid thing is that one of the animals involved in the human/dog system.
So at least in some cases pets aren't slaves, but rather humans and animals are in a mutually beneficial relationship.
Yup. Hunted as a kid and in college, and I helped my grandfather on his farm, butchering chickens and killing animals that got in (and if you think that not killing modern chicken breeds is kindness you've never seen a modern chicken). Never had a problem with it--after all, they wouldn't care if they killed me (and in fact a few attempted to, intentionally and unintentionally).
phantomb
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Care to actually explain why you think this, or are you happy to just state it and leave it at that?
phantomb
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Great apes definitely do give me pause. In regard to self-awareness, I believe we're still using the mirror test or something like it, which many great apes mostly pass, but sometimes do fail. On communication via computers (usually through sign language, I think), there is always the difficulty of discerning between an animal that can learn to pick out words or signs as a trick, and an animal that actually understands language and uses it to intentionally communicate ideas. Many big names in linguistics such as Noam Chomsky are skeptical that great apes can do this.
It is my goal that my criteria not be based on species (because I read a lot of sci-fi, and sci-fi loves asking questions about whether intelligent animals or weird but sapient aliens should be considered "people"). If those other hominids were far more human than a bonobo, then yes, I would throw them in with us humans.
How much more human than a bonobo does an animal have to be? Difficult to say as I am a layman and don't know what sort of contexts there are for measurements of, say, general intelligence. Self-awareness and theory of mind seem absolutely necessary to me. They probably also imply a certain level of intelligence. Being similar to us socially and emotionally would be nice, but I don't thinks it's nearly as important.
In many cases, yes, and I agree with what you're saying, but that's not what I'm talking about here. A standard test for theory of mind is the following:
- A subject animal is taught how to request food from a human.
- The animal is presented with a scenario where one human hides some food, a second human observes the first one hiding the food, and a third human is not present or is otherwise unable to observe the hiding.
- The animal then chooses between the second human (who saw where the food was hidden) and the third human (who did not see where the food was hidden) to request food from.
Dogs are capable of correctly begging food from the individual who knows where it is hidden. Great apes appear to just pick randomly between the two. Do you think that can plausibly be explained as great apes just not wanting to cooperate? I think the better explanation is that dogs are advanced in this respect because we specifically bred them to be that way.
Trent Wray
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Well, one could always argue ... "I left the baby with others in the room while I went outside for a moment ... " to get around the abandonment issue perhaps lol
"Babysitting"But this is actually pretty much what I would do, regardless. I wouldn't kill the baby. I wouldn't run. I would let the baby cry I think. Because in the end, I'm not the one choosing to kill ... it's the marauders. The death of everyone in the room isn't "my fault".
I don't think
Loss Leader
I would save the receptionist., Moderator
If you're being sarcastic, it's lost on me. I'm not sure why inaction and action should have the same moral weight. There are an infinite number of actions we don't take that would save lives.
Trent Wray
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I wasn't being sarcastic. I was being serious ... ?
Schrodinger's Cat
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From the way you describe the experiment, I agree that the most likely explanation is that dogs are more capable that apes in this particular experiment. I'm actually surprised that great apes weren't able to figure it out! Do you have a link for this study? I'm not doubting you, just would be curious to see it and other experiments done by the same researchers.
Just to clarify, I wasn't trying to imply that lack of cooperation is always a factor in experiments, just that it can be with some experiments.
Have you ever heard of Alex the parrot and the experiments done with him? It was a really fascinating case study regarding animal intelligence and they were able to show how Alex was able to speak in order to actually communicate ideas, rather than just repeating learned phrases. However, researchers haven't had nearly as much luck with other parrots as they have with Alex, seeming to indicate that Alex was a very above average parrot in terms of his abilities. Still, the fact that, as a bird, he would even have the capacity to communicate ideas to people is pretty fascinating. One of the tests they would do is to show him a series of objects, and he would have to say what specifically about the objects was the same - as opposed to just being asked to name the objects. Or he'd have to look at two objects and say what was different about them. He also was able to use language to express an idea he had no word for. So for instance, he was given cake for the first time, and not knowing the word for cake, he called it "yummy bread" - using two other words (which he had previously never used or heard used together) that he did have in his vocabulary to come up with a new name for this new food that clearly conveyed the meaning of what the cake meant to him.
With all due respect to Noam Chomsky, he's not a primatologist or animal behavior expert, so I don't see his opinion as holding more weight than animal behavior researchers. People are always underestimating animals. Though certainly you are right that we need to be very careful in evaluating methods of research due to the risk of confusing mimicking for understanding, and that in some cases it is very difficult to tell the difference.
Before Jane Goodall's work, tool making was considered by anthropologists to be one of the big things that divided man from the other animals. Then Jane Goodall blew that theory apart when she found that chimps regularly make and use primitive tools, and now, decades later, we know that all sorts of animals do so as well - cephalopods, birds, elephants, etc . Animal researchers have gotten pretty good about controlling experiments to make sure the animal is actually trying to express an idea rather than just repeating phrases without really understanding how they are being used. Alex coming up with the term "yummy bread" on his own is one of the more well known examples of that.
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Beelzebuddy
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It is my firm belief that anyone who feels opposed to animal research first needs to be soundly beaten with the pages of animal protocols they haven't read, wielded by the members of the animal ethics and use committees they don't think exist.
Every argument I've ever had on the subject has boiled down to ignorance.
Where does the idea that biologists are all sadistic, cackling mad scientists come from, anyway? We hardly cackle at all.
Every argument I've ever had on the subject has boiled down to ignorance.
Where does the idea that biologists are all sadistic, cackling mad scientists come from, anyway? We hardly cackle at all.
I'm daring to ask what will appear to be a very stupid (and slightly off-topic) question, but one that has bothered me most of my life:
When dogs are used in animal research, must they be purchased from specific sources, with specific notes on pedigree and lineage and such? For legitimate scientific research (including research done by pet food companies) would "distributors" or sales agents be able to pick up animals from shelters or from "free puppies" ads, or would the animals have to come from a recognized breeder or supplier?
Thanks in advance.
When dogs are used in animal research, must they be purchased from specific sources, with specific notes on pedigree and lineage and such? For legitimate scientific research (including research done by pet food companies) would "distributors" or sales agents be able to pick up animals from shelters or from "free puppies" ads, or would the animals have to come from a recognized breeder or supplier?
Thanks in advance.
Beelzebuddy
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Well, for starters, research done by pet food companies is to legitimate scientific research what dog fighting rings are to pet ownership.
But a quick survey of pubmed turns up articles using dogs provided by volunteer pet owners for surveys and behavioral tests, as well as case studies of veterinary operations. They have more in common with human medical studies than animal research as performed on, say, mice.
Schrodinger's Cat
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I work in health care, currently in finance, but I'm in school right now to go into research, I'm specifically studying physical anthropology and biology. I did not say that all animal research, never mind all biologists, are cruel sadists performing cruel experiments. I actually know, first hand, from reading protocols, what goes into research study protocols. I am familiar with IRBs and ethics committees that are involved in animal studies. I work with people who DO work in our animal research department.
But you can't honestly be suggesting that there are no experiments done on animals that would not be legally allowed to be done on humans. I have read a great deal about HIV/AIDS research done on chimpanzees, for example. An IRB would not approve an experiment today in which we knowingly infected a human being with a disease in order to test a vaccine, but if certain conditions were met, such an experiment could be approved for a non human animal. Also, you conveniently ignore that ethic standards are not always enforced. The Coulston Foundation is a prime example of a lab that received massive government funding (as well as retired air force chimps as test subjects) for years and years before it was finally shut down, despite the fact that it was known to be constantly violating ethical standards for research animals, and despite the fact that a number of chimps and monkeys had in their care died from neglect (such as dehydration).
If you feel that such experiments are simply worth it, for what we get out of them, then you can argue that point. But don't come on here with some silly straw man argument in which you imply the only reason anyone can be opposed to any kind animal research on any kind animal is because they are ignorant. Someone can be perfectly aware of what such experiments entail and the processes involved, and still not be okay with holding a chimp in a cage and infecting it with HIV. Being opposed to some very specific kinds of research for very specific animals does not mean that one believes that they oppose all or even most animal research, or think that research biologists are an inherently evil bunch. It especially does not mean they are ignorant of what animal experimentation entails. For that matter, I know of people who are opposed to not just specific kinds but to most or even all animal experimentation who are well versed on the subject. Attorney Steven Wise teaches at Tufts Veterinary School of Medicine and Harvard Law and is an expert on animal experimentation policy, and he is one of the fiercest animal research opponents/activists out there. I assure you, he is well versed in experimental protocol.
The fact that ethics committees exist does not = animals cannot be subjected to experiments or conditions which cause them grievous harm or death.
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Beelzebuddy
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Well, now who's strawmanning? I don't think you grasped the elegance of my violent solution: if you have read the animal protocols it will be a very mild sound beating, administered by perhaps that one emeritus professor whose name has technically appeared on the committee for the last two decades, but no one can remember him ever actually showing up for a meeting.
Perhaps I should have been more specific: every actual argument I've ever had on the subject has boiled down to ignorance. Like, of those instances where I actually engage people in a heated manner. When the other party turns out to be a rational and well-informed individual, it's never escalated that far.
Personally, I'm pretty anthrocentric. If injecting a chimp with aids and watching him slowly die can help save the life of a single drug-addled South African prostitute, that's dharma well invested in my book. Asking just how many chimps - ten? a thousand? - gets murkier, especially since we'd only know the true cost in hindsight. The extreme end, Penn & Teller's answer: "all the chimps" does have a certain pleasing finality going for it.
Going the other way there aren't any good answers either. Evolution's no help, as "perfect research animal" is just as valid an ecological niche as any other. Further, simply being alive in a competitive world is to act out a parade of cruelty, red in tooth and claw and all that, from field mice crushed in the harvesting of your raw organic free range muesli to those sacrificed decades ago to make that polio vaccine you received as an infant. If you really cared about preventing suffering for the sake of suffering, you'd just kill yourself. Anything less is half-assing it.
Then there's the issue of sentience, which deeply conflicts with the rights-based ethics people like to use when approaching the subject. A fly life or a mouse life or a chimp life simply isn't worth a human life, that I'm sure we can agree on. But some number of fly lives are worth a mouse life, and some number of mouse lives are worth a chimp, and some number of chimps are worth a human. That number probably depends on the human as well, but it is indeed a hard number for a given consistent ethical system. The concept extends beyond mere existence, too - how many mouse lives are worth one human's quality of life? His convenience? His wallet?
So, yeah. Somewhere in between all that we arrive at a compromise. Maybe not the best compromise, but a workable one. One where experimental harm is not unduly inflicted without clearly defined experimental goals and a lot of planning and clearance. Where discomfort is minimized whenever possible, above and beyond when it would be merely reasonable. Where violations are the unfortunate exception, and their aggressive prosecution supported by pretty much all concerned.
So, "where do we draw the line?" I dunno. Where we draw it now works pretty well. Both sides can make very good arguments, and there aren't many easy answers in the middle ground. The only people I truly object to on a principled basis are those who say there are easy answers, so long as they never have to examine the implications with the same critical morality they use to pore over the rest of spectrum.
Perhaps I should have been more specific: every actual argument I've ever had on the subject has boiled down to ignorance. Like, of those instances where I actually engage people in a heated manner. When the other party turns out to be a rational and well-informed individual, it's never escalated that far.
Personally, I'm pretty anthrocentric. If injecting a chimp with aids and watching him slowly die can help save the life of a single drug-addled South African prostitute, that's dharma well invested in my book. Asking just how many chimps - ten? a thousand? - gets murkier, especially since we'd only know the true cost in hindsight. The extreme end, Penn & Teller's answer: "all the chimps" does have a certain pleasing finality going for it.
Going the other way there aren't any good answers either. Evolution's no help, as "perfect research animal" is just as valid an ecological niche as any other. Further, simply being alive in a competitive world is to act out a parade of cruelty, red in tooth and claw and all that, from field mice crushed in the harvesting of your raw organic free range muesli to those sacrificed decades ago to make that polio vaccine you received as an infant. If you really cared about preventing suffering for the sake of suffering, you'd just kill yourself. Anything less is half-assing it.
Then there's the issue of sentience, which deeply conflicts with the rights-based ethics people like to use when approaching the subject. A fly life or a mouse life or a chimp life simply isn't worth a human life, that I'm sure we can agree on. But some number of fly lives are worth a mouse life, and some number of mouse lives are worth a chimp, and some number of chimps are worth a human. That number probably depends on the human as well, but it is indeed a hard number for a given consistent ethical system. The concept extends beyond mere existence, too - how many mouse lives are worth one human's quality of life? His convenience? His wallet?
So, yeah. Somewhere in between all that we arrive at a compromise. Maybe not the best compromise, but a workable one. One where experimental harm is not unduly inflicted without clearly defined experimental goals and a lot of planning and clearance. Where discomfort is minimized whenever possible, above and beyond when it would be merely reasonable. Where violations are the unfortunate exception, and their aggressive prosecution supported by pretty much all concerned.
So, "where do we draw the line?" I dunno. Where we draw it now works pretty well. Both sides can make very good arguments, and there aren't many easy answers in the middle ground. The only people I truly object to on a principled basis are those who say there are easy answers, so long as they never have to examine the implications with the same critical morality they use to pore over the rest of spectrum.
Schrodinger's Cat
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Those are really my options? Don't genuinely care about preventing suffering, or suicide? There's no third option: recognizing that animal suffering for things I benefit from is an inevitable part of the human condition, but seeking to minimize/mitigate that suffering to some degree?
Most vets I've met aren't even vegetarians, but they still genuinely do care about preventing animal suffering. I only know a very small number of vegetarians, yet I don't think I know anyone who doesn't support at least some manner of animal protection laws that are in place.
I disagree that there are only two possible ways to behave that don't make you a half assing hypocrite.
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devnull
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Really?
I better tell my brother's ex that she doesnt really have a stomach ulcer then.
Schrodinger's Cat
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So you're claiming that your brother's ex was subject to vaccine testing, in which she was intentionally infected without her consent with a communicable disease that then caused a stomach ulcer, and that this happened in very recent years?
Why didn't you contact the authorities and the media? Unless you already have, of course, in which case perhaps you could kindly link the news story?
Maybe you can explain to me why she developed a stomach ulcer as a result of being infected with a disease they were developing a vaccine for, when the bacteria that causes stomach ulcers, heliobacter pylori, has no vaccine associated with it, and is instead treated by antibiotics.
What was the name of the study, the protocol number, where was it held, what vaccine were they testing, and what was the communicable disease your brother's ex was intenionally infected with?
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Beelzebuddy
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Way to go, man. You knocked that scarecrow down but good.