Animal Research

[SlowHabit]

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what does that have to do with this thread?

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Long and complicated reasonings that can be answered with "rats are rats, babies are people."

[BeaucoupFish]

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Imagine scenarios where studying babies was feasible. I'm not saying these conditions exist today, just that they could exist at some time...[snip]...The point is, there are lots of imaginable circumstances in which baby research would be possible

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No there aren't. If they don't exist today, why would they exist tomorrow? Please give an example.

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Nobody has even touched the question that I think is most important, "is someone willing to test on rats also committed to being willing to test on babies?" I think the answer is yes. Most people say no. I have given good reasons for my belief, others have not.


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Your good reasons are "why shouldn't we?". Not exactly groundbreaking.
Since we are willing to eat animals, therefore should we also be committed to eating babies? etc

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I know this is a sticky issue, but come on. What gives?


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It's not a sticky issue, its simply not an issue. Are you really expecting some major discussion on this? I normally just ignore threads like this, but EDF is supposed to be a better forum.

[JaBlue]

HP,
What do you expect to get from me responding to you if you're just gonna do what you feel like at any rate without other justification? What do you expect me to get out of your response? "I'll do it cuz I feel like it" just is not appropriate in the context of this thread and how I want to discuss the problem at hand.

I'm curious what a system of valuating lives would look like. How is this not going to result in the rich devaluating the lives of the poor, the smart devaluating the lives of the dumb, and so on, to the extent that we reach conclusions that we shouldn't i.e. the smart/rich should enslave the dumb/poor? A valuation system on a smooth scale is going to run into the slippery slope again I think. Very curious how you might design it though, extremely interesting idea IMO.

Slowhabit,
I think you're talking out of your ass.

Beaucoup,
"No there aren't. If they don't exist today, why would they exist tomorrow? Please give an example."

You're saying that if certain conditions don't exist now, they won't ever? What? This is clearly not true. Look at history. A good reason to create conditions that allow scientific research on babies might be that there is a big debate and it turns out that a majority is persuaded by the side that says its OK and then is willing to allow those conditions. Another good reason to create these conditions might be in some scenario where baby research would be considered a big eye opener for developmental research or research on diseases, etc. It is very possible for this stuff to happen at some time in the future and to say otherwise is absurd IMO.

"Your good reasons are 'why shouldn't we?'"
Nope. You are oversimplifying and misrepresenting what I've said so far. If you don't agree, reread it. I (and others) analyzed reasons why we study rats, and tried to show that these reasons also extend to babies and that the rat-baby line is arbitrary and chauvinist.

"It's not a sticky issue, its simply not an issue"
Because we shouldn't think about things that aren't convenient or plausible in the current state of the world? Besides, what you say is completely wrong. There is a lot of literature published on this subject. Why would that be the case if it were a non-issue?

[BeaucoupFish]

JB, I don't mean to sound rude, but I just don't see any 'good reasons' that you are stating (you do 'x' to 'y', therefore you should do 'x' to 'z'), and more importantly I don't understand why this is an important or interesting discussion.

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You're saying that if certain conditions don't exist now, they won't ever? What?


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No, of course things change - but there is reason for changes. My point is that you are not providing any reason for the 'could'. Here is an example of one of your 'reasons' (I paraphrase here):

The minority (you) persuades the majority (everyone but you) that its a good idea.
What?!!!! You have basically said "because I said so". I am asking you, how did the minority persuade the majority. ie what is a reason. Something better than it being "a big eye opener" please [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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You are oversimplifying and misrepresenting what I've said so far. If you don't agree, reread it. I (and others) analyzed reasons why we study rats, and tried to show that these reasons also extend to babies and that the rat-baby line is arbitrary and chauvinist.


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I just feel that you are trying to be argumentative for the sake of it, I just don't see any real point of discussion or interest - nothing personal.

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Besides, what you say is completely wrong. There is a lot of literature published on this subject. Why would that be the case if it were a non-issue?

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I agree that what is an issue to you and what is an issue to me are likely quite different.

Tell me, what point(s) are you trying to make here? That there is not difference between the relative 'importance' of humankind over other species?

[JaBlue]

BF,
The important thing is that its very possible and imaginable for conditions where testing babies is feasible to exist. This is enough to make it worthwhile to think about. For now its just a thought experiment. If you don't see the value in a thought experiment like this, we have very little to talk about.

And no, I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing. How could you say that? Imagine what happens if you (and everyone else) accepts my conclusion. Then you start the real process of making it possible to do baby research. If you think baby research wouldn't yield anything worth discovering, then you're right, there's no reason to worry about it.

I'm starting to get frustrated. I posed very specific questions with reasons why I thought they were good questions to ask. Nobody has satisfactorily addressed either the reasoning or the questions. I'm not going to reexplain. All the information is in the thread and I've done enough regurgitating.

edit: "(you do 'x' to 'y', therefore you should do 'x' to 'z')"

Your characterizations are clearly not of the same logical form as what I've been saying. My question is: if you think its OK to do rat research, do you have to think it is OK to do baby research. My position is that if rat research is justified, baby research is justified for the same reasons. I've said why I think this. Its your job to say where you disagree and why.

[Howard Treesong]

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EDF, you guys really dropped the ball on this one. Why has nobody seriously tried attempting to answer my questions except for zeebo and tablerat? Nobody has even touched the question that I think is most important, "is someone willing to test on rats also committed to being willing to test on babies?" I think the answer is yes. Most people say no. I have given good reasons for my belief, others have not.

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I am entirely willing to test rats and entirely unwilling to test babies. Viewed from a certain perspective, these are intersecting sets: a smart rat is certainly smarter than a brain-dead baby, so intelligence or reasoning power can't provide the litmus-test difference between the two. Nor can an ability feel to pain. Nor, perhaps, can any other particular metric -- all because it is possible to draw limiting case exceptions that demonstrate how thin the distinctions are. Nor can I accept a faith-based aggrandization of humanity's role on the planet.

Thus, I accept your proposition that this is a difficult problem from a purely intellectual perspective. But there are similar problems that our society deals with all the time: abortion, for one, comes to mind. It is similarly difficult to define obscenity with any fair degree of precision: Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart finally cut through that particular muck by saying he knows it when he sees it, and that answer serves adequately.

Similarly, know there's a clear distinction between rats and babies -- as, I think, does most of our society, the animal-rights nutters notwithstanding. And I'm willing to accept the drawing of arbitrary lines, and easily so accept in this instance. Perhaps it's because I object to the consequences of your reasoning; but I concede that the result should not create the rationale. At the end of the day, I don't know that there is a fully adequate answer to the problem you've posed.

Fuller Stewart quote here: "under the First and Fourteenth Amendments criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard-core pornography. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that."

[HP]

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HP,
What do you expect to get from me responding to you if you're just gonna do what you feel like at any rate without other justification? What do you expect me to get out of your response? "I'll do it cuz I feel like it" just is not appropriate in the context of this thread and how I want to discuss the problem at hand.

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I was expecting your response to be something like "oh ok. makes sense. Now for others who have an ethical system similar to mine, what do you think?"

My justification is it makes me feel best! And I guess I'm trying to say that's pretty much how most other people think whether they realize it or not. I sorta got the impression you thought my approach is flawed, and yours makes much more sense. btw who has ever done something that didn't make them feel best? I'm in the camp that everything you do is done for the benefit of yourself, ultimately. More specifically, everything is done to make you feel best.

I mean I suppose I could go into detail as to why I feel killing rats is ok. I try to be fair in general because that makes me feel good, which makes me not want to research on rats, or start researching on babies some. But the fact that babies are cute and for unknown reasons (as in I like chocolate, for unknown reasons) it would make me feel horrible killing a baby, makes this a no brainier.

It may not have been appropriate in the context of how you wanted to discuss the problem. But I just wanted to show you how one could logically think killing rats for any reason is ok and researching on babies is never ok.

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I'm curious what a system of valuating lives would look like. How is this not going to result in the rich devaluating the lives of the poor, the smart devaluating the lives of the dumb, and so on, to the extent that we reach conclusions that we shouldn't i.e. the smart/rich should enslave the dumb/poor? A valuation system on a smooth scale is going to run into the slippery slope again I think. Very curious how you might design it though, extremely interesting idea IMO.

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Are you asking how I would do it in practice, or how they should be theoretically evaluated? Either way I'm guessing you could come up with just as good a system or better than I could come up with. But if you want I'll come up with it

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so my answer to your question "if you think its OK to do rat research, do you have to think it is OK to do baby research."

is a no. However you may have been asking this question in a certain context I'm not sure

[Duke]

The simple answer is that if we were widely self-destructive, we wouldn't last long on the planet. We'd be extinct, and some other form of life that didn't destroy its own kind would take over.

What does this have to do with babies? Our genetics don't have a lot of power over our higher level thought processes. But they can (apparently) make us think that babies are cute.

What benefit do we get from doing studies on animals? We can learn better how to either fight diseases that may affect us, find ways to repair ourselves better, or find ways to lessen our own pain. All of these things make us more likely to succeed against various plagues and other forms of death.

So, saying that something like animal testing is unethical is on par with saying that you don't value our own survival over that of rats, as long as you take a big-picture approach.

Like, you may be fine with your ethics telling you that you're no more worthy of living than a rat is. If even a majority of people felt that way, well, we'd face extinction. At the very least, our numbers would reduce substantially.

Something that I do that is fairly rare is ask myself if the world would benefit by everyone thinking or acting a certain way. If it would, then I strive to be like that. If not, then I don't.

Look at the big picture, and then torture the rat if it serves a constructive purpose pertaining to our own survival. If it came down to it, torturing 100,000,000 babies to find a cure for some plague that was threatening all of us would be the correct play. The play that leaves us extinct is by definition incorrect, unless you're totally cool with humanity dying out to be the "nice guys."

[BeaucoupFish]

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BF,
The important thing is that its very possible and imaginable for conditions where testing babies is feasible to exist.

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We're still waiting to hear some examples beyond 'suspension of disbelief'.

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My position is that if rat research is justified, baby research is justified for the same reasons. I've said why I think this. Its your job to say where you disagree and why.

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You may have missed this so I will repeat my earlier response: Research is done on humans all the time as clinical trials. Why are you focusing on early developed humans ("babies")? Is there some reason you think "babies" are useful for research?

Basically, you are comparing research on developed rats vs undeveloped humans ("babies"). Why? Research is generally not performed on undeveloped rats ("baby rats") so the comparison is odd, to me. And as I indicated above, research is done on humans. So I just don't see your argument or it's point.

But I accept that you are not being argumentative for the sake of it [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[king_of_drafts]

Ja,

Anything of worth I could have contributed has already been said, and some of the posters have made such strong arguments I am having trouble getting ahold of my actual feelings on the central topic as well as the other minor questions that have been brought up around it. Pretty sure Howard Treesong articulated my thoughts much better than I could have.