Animal Research

[danlux]

I don't get why you can't see why you're a Science Extremist, or an evolution or atheist extremist. It's not all that different from being a Christian Extremist.

[vhawk01]

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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]

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Of course research is performed on baby rats, probably moreso than on adult rats. We genetically engineer knockout mice and rats all the time, and they aren't even babies yet.

Also, there is no comparison between this type of experimentation and the human testing we do. We do not subject humans to anything that is likely to be unpleasant unless it is demonstrated to also be very likely to save their lives or greatly improve quality of life. Knockout mice >>>> Phase III clinical trial, in terms of suffering.

That being said, I have little problem with testing on rats, mice, flies, yeast and so on, and the answer for this has been mentioned and should be obvious. I don't empathize with mice. This is a dangerous proposition if carried too far, however. Different people have larger or smaller 'spheres of empathy,' in that some empathize only with themselves, or their family, or their nationality, or their race, or their species, and so on. As the sphere gets bigger, behavior changes. It isn't too long ago that research was performed on other human beings because some weren't capable of empathizing with them. We all draw the line somewhere, and the vast majority of us draw it above rats. I draw it below primates, for example.

[JaBlue]

Howard,
How do you know that your distinction between babies and rats is one that should be trusted? Hard to say "because everyone agrees" because there have been a lot of times when everyone agrees but they're all wrong or they all end up doing something that in hindsight seems they shouldn't have. I think that the appeal you mention, the intuitive appeal, is strong but insufficient to deal with the problem at hand. Your argument, like HPs, has very little force with me for this reason. I'm trying to give reasons for what I believe. You're just saying, "This is what I believe and I don't have to justify it because the problem at hand is vague." At least, that's what I take to be the case in the examples you've given- its hard to draw a line for hardcoreness in porn, etc. because we're dealing with vague concepts. But I've argued that the concepts involved in this case are not vague. If they were, how could we possibly justify rat experiments?


HP,
I don't think that system is flawed at all. That's the one I [think I] use! It certainly has a place, but I don't think its this thread or this issue, for that matter. The reason I think this is that I happen to think that feeling bad in this case is just a bias - not genetic- and that if it turned out that doing research on babies was fine, there may be a point where the general bias shifts. I agree that it is this very bias that is why we are not doing research right now, but I think that it very well could change in time. It might change if we come to view the problem as scientifically, logically, and ethically acceptable and think that there would be big benefits to doing research on babies. I suppose that's why I want to look at this issue in a logical, scientific way.

Duke,
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if we were widely self-destructive, we wouldn't last long on the planet.

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I'm not proposing that we be widely self-destructive. Testing on a few thousand babies, or even a few million is not like nuclear holocaust.

2. What makes you think our genes are what make us think babies are cute?

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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.

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Why can't I sub in "baby" in place of "rat" here if I accept your reasoning?

I highly doubt that animal research is as necessary to our survival as you construe it to be. After all, other animals don't do research on us and they're still around. A lot of their populations will grow if we let them. And if I say that rats have as worthy of living as we are, then why would I be so alarmed at the prospect of us dying instead of the rats?

BF,
All we need to create conditions necessary to study babies:
1) we think they will give us valuable information
2) we think its OK to do so

[Howard Treesong]

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How do you know that your distinction between babies and rats is one that should be trusted? Hard to say "because everyone agrees" because there have been a lot of times when everyone agrees but they're all wrong or they all end up doing something that in hindsight seems they shouldn't have. I think that the appeal you mention, the intuitive appeal, is strong but insufficient to deal with the problem at hand. Your argument, like HPs, has very little force with me for this reason. I'm trying to give reasons for what I believe. You're just saying, "This is what I believe and I don't have to justify it because the problem at hand is vague." At least, that's what I take to be the case in the examples you've given- its hard to draw a line for hardcoreness in porn, etc. because we're dealing with vague concepts. But I've argued that the concepts involved in this case are not vague. If they were, how could we possibly justify rat experiments?

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Close, but not quite. I'm not saying that vagueness necessarily means I'm right; but rather that I'm willing to trust my instinct in vague cases. I think your argument has intellectual force, but it's ultimately unconvincing because there is an essential difference between humans and rats that makes innate sense to me. It's a little like the old computer science saw that it's very difficult to get a computer to recognize a chair. You can't test for given forms like "it has four legs" because there are all sorts of chairs, such as beanbags or recliners, that have no visible legs or no legs at all. Yet humans have a very easy time figuring out when an abstract object is in fact a chair. I recognize a difference that matters between rats and babies. I am sure you do too; you can't describe it specifically and so are unwilling (for purposes of this argument, at least) to concede the difference.

I can't describe it specifically, either. And so I'm not entirely convinced the difference is principled -- but even so, I'm quite happy with the rats-OK-babies-not status quo.

I like the argument, though. It's amusing to have people flame at you that they're right and yet not be able to quite justify it.

[Duke]

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if we were widely self-destructive, we wouldn't last long on the planet.

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I'm not proposing that we be widely self-destructive. Testing on a few thousand babies, or even a few million is not like nuclear holocaust.


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I'm talking about tendencies. If we had a tendency to harm babies without remorse, we'd be less successful amongst the various life forms on the planet that do not slaughter their own.
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2. What makes you think our genes are what make us think babies are cute?


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It's not taught and is mostly true. Very few people do not think babies are cute, and it is difficult to harm something that you think is cute. What's the simpler explanation?
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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.

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Why can't I sub in "baby" in place of "rat" here if I accept your reasoning?


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Because killing babies regularly would not be a successful evolutionary strategy, and we likely wouldn't have lasted this long to have the discussion.
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I highly doubt that animal research is as necessary to our survival as you construe it to be. After all, other animals don't do research on us and they're still around.


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Virtually every species to have existed is extinct right now.
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A lot of their populations will grow if we let them. And if I say that rats have as worthy of living as we are, then why would I be so alarmed at the prospect of us dying instead of the rats?


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You might not be, but your genes wouldn't do as good a job of hanging around through the ages if that were truly a base tendency of yours.

[JaBlue]

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I'm talking about tendencies. If we had a tendency to harm babies without remorse, we'd be less successful amongst the various life forms on the planet that do not slaughter their own.

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How would experimenting on babies make us "less successful amongst the various life forms on the planet that do not slaughter their own?" Seems to me we dominate them so bad right now that, barring stuff like nuclear holocaust it doesn't really matter what we do we'll always be kings of the hill.

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It's not taught and is mostly true. Very few people do not think babies are cute, and it is difficult to harm something that you think is cute. What's the simpler explanation?


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I can't offer a simpler explanation, but I think its reasonable to suppose that thinking babies are cute is a product of environment rather than genes. At least, both explanations seem plausible to me. So if you want to say that one is true and the other is not, you gotta cite research or show why the other is false. Even if the other is false, that still doesn't make it necessarily true. And if you want to make scientific claims, they gotta be necessarily true. [see Kripke: Identity and Necessity if you're curious about my last statement, its really, really interesting and definitely controversial] But even if Kripke is wrong about identity statements, you gotta have some empirical evidence to make scientific claims.

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Because killing babies regularly would not be a successful evolutionary strategy, and we likely wouldn't have lasted this long to have the discussion.



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This simply doesn't matter today.
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I don't think evolutionary arguments are very good for this issue. I mean, evolution can't explain everything about us and to apply it overly strictly to how we should conduct ourselves seems kind of silly I think. Besides, we are in such a dominant position over the rest of the species on the planet right now that we don't have to worry about being wiped out by them, at least not so much that we can't afford to crack a few baby skulls.

[JaBlue]

HT,
Whoops, didn't mean to not respond to you last post. I didn't mean to imply that you were using vagueness to support your claim, you are definitely right that it often seems OK to trust our instincts in vague cases. This works really well in deciding what a chair is, or what a heap of sand is [good ole Sorites paradox]. But I think more is demanded in the case at hand.

I think you explained why people are cool with rats and not babies very well, but I still think that another explanation is wanted. If there is no satisfactory explanation, one mustn't necessarily conclude that we should start testing on babies and try to make it happen but at the very least I think you should be less happy with your intuition that rats are cool and babies are not and give the problem some thought [if it interests you, of course].

[OrangeCat]

The experiment you mention might seem pointless on the surface but it could very well lead to the discovery of how pain works in the brain. Much of what we know about medicine, biochemistry, pharmacology, etc.. is of because of research using rats, monkeys, cats, dogs and other animals.


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I don't really care about babies being in pain unless they're my baby,

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No wonder you have trouble understanding the difference between man and animals.

[Clarkmeister]

We may not test on babies, but we do test on humans. After we have thoroughly tested on those irreleveant vermin, of course. If there were no rats or other animals to test on, we likely *would* test on humans. But, lots of other animals exist, so it's not necessary, at least, until after we've tested on the rats to the point that we think it's time to move on to human case studies.

[microbet]

Duke,

I think you are getting there, but not exactly right. There are lots of species that have little or no regard for the young of their species, especially if they are not direct offspring.

You might want to read "The Selfish Gene" by Richard Dawkins and see if you still want to defend group selection or not.