animal experimention - mistreating animals
- Thread starter spuriousmonkey
- Start date
What? LOL
Who's reason? yours?
There is a system the planet has been thriving on since it came about. Its what just happens, it is the law of the universe, but you know better?
I'm sorry but that is really funny.
It is true canute, it is.
I get no rewards from kicking dogs. And I like dogs. I'd rather not work with rats, because I used to have one myself. But I have no problems with mice. It is all sentiment, and not moral induced.
Wrong? There are so many things wrong in this world and still we do it. Being right is a luxury I can't afford.
We can all kick and scream and say that it is unfair that animals are treated in such ways that we would never put upon another human being. But when it comes down to it, it doesn't take much for someone's opinion to change. Your mother is dying and a cure for her disease may be possible . I'm sure you'd sacrifice a few rats for testing if it meant that your mother's life could be saved.
That's because you don't know me.
If my mother's life is directly threatened by an approaching animal?
Yes, I would kill that animal to save her.
However, in YOUR scenario, I keep my eye on the big picture.
I would prefer to comfort my mother and make her last days as tolerable (and hopefully enjoyable) as I possibly can.
I would rather see her die with dignity than kicking and screaming trying to hold onto life.
I think, as a whole, we face death in entirely the wrong way.
It is not something to be feared and hated.
It is necessary.
It WILL come.
I would rather focus on quality of life than cheating death.
Someone I cared for very deeply (my mother's boyfriend, who was more of a father to me than my father ever was) died of cancer, so I know exactly how I would feel. I am not deluded, if that is what you are thinking.
Yesterday I was talking with someone about scientific careers, but at one point the subject wandered of to thesis defense. He had been to a thesis defence in which the opponent asked why the PhD student had put in his objectives 'to make a model system (a transgenic mouse) for a specific disease', since so many people were trying to do this.
The PhD student answered honestly and said that it was never the intention to make a model for the disease, but that the transgenic mouse just happened to resemble the disease.
This whole 'we do science for the good of mankind' looks good on paper and especially on grant applications, but it is only rarely the real reason to do research.
The PhD student answered honestly and said that it was never the intention to make a model for the disease, but that the transgenic mouse just happened to resemble the disease.
This whole 'we do science for the good of mankind' looks good on paper and especially on grant applications, but it is only rarely the real reason to do research.
But it is a major reason that society funds scientists, so better keep that quite, spuriousmonkey, or the funding will dry up. 
BTW the annual world market for blood coagulating factor VIII - is estimated at $880 million, which could theoretically be produced by just one transgenic cow.
BTW the annual world market for blood coagulating factor VIII - is estimated at $880 million, which could theoretically be produced by just one transgenic cow.
Re: Canute/ One Raven
I agree that it impossible to exist without harming things, but that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the question of whether it is acceptable behaviour to harm things on purpose.
Don't know what you mean there.
This is all just confusing the issue. I really don't think that there'll be many times I have to make this choice in reality. If I do I'll make according to what I believe and the contingencies that apply at the time. Just like everyone else. Are you suggesting that because I might in some surreal coincidence have to choose to save an old women from drowning rather than a dog it's OK to cause pain to rabbits? You're confusing issues again.
The same of course.
What's value got to do with this? We're talking about hurting things.
I agree that it impossible to exist without harming things, but that has absolutely nothing at all to do with the question of whether it is acceptable behaviour to harm things on purpose.
Don't know what you mean there.
This is all just confusing the issue. I really don't think that there'll be many times I have to make this choice in reality. If I do I'll make according to what I believe and the contingencies that apply at the time. Just like everyone else. Are you suggesting that because I might in some surreal coincidence have to choose to save an old women from drowning rather than a dog it's OK to cause pain to rabbits? You're confusing issues again.
The same of course.
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I agree with this totally, but the fact of the matter there is so much benefit arising from testing on animals that society will never give it up. And it's not just about cheating death. What about if it's finding a cure for AIDS or maybe curing a childhood disease that would mean the child could live a healthy, prosperous life?
I hate to see animals in pain too but it can't be prevented if society continues to demand medical advances. You can't just chuck a new medication out onto the market. That's something we're all aware of. So we have to test it on somthing right? "Test it on humans...thats who's going to be using it". That's what some people say. But would you volunteer to unergo a heap of procedures or stick a whole heap of chemicals into your body without nowing what its going to do? No. So thats why we have to test them on animals first. Sure humans are just playing boss, but thats just the way things are.
This is crazy. What's all this stuff about reason, laws of nature, values, dogs and grandmothers? What does it mean to 'put reason over nature'? And whatever happened to the talking banana? Who got him?
This is just a matter of whether harming other creatures is right or wrong or, if you like, whether our reasons for doing it are good enough to make it not wrong.
The vast majority of animal testing we do only to pursue our own selfish goals, usually financial or ego-related, whether as species or individual. I can't believe an honest jury would need long to make a decision.
On some of the arguments here the Nazis were wrong to think that certain types of humans were animals, but not wrong to conduct medical tests on them. That's got to be ridiculous.
Someone said earlier "Being right is a luxury I can't afford." That seems to be a fair argument. If you are forced to do wrong by your circumstances it isn't wrong, it's just unfortunate. Mind you it would be wrong if you were just pretending that you were forced, and doing that 'this is going to hurt me more then you' stuff.
This is just a matter of whether harming other creatures is right or wrong or, if you like, whether our reasons for doing it are good enough to make it not wrong.
The vast majority of animal testing we do only to pursue our own selfish goals, usually financial or ego-related, whether as species or individual. I can't believe an honest jury would need long to make a decision.
On some of the arguments here the Nazis were wrong to think that certain types of humans were animals, but not wrong to conduct medical tests on them. That's got to be ridiculous.
Someone said earlier "Being right is a luxury I can't afford." That seems to be a fair argument. If you are forced to do wrong by your circumstances it isn't wrong, it's just unfortunate. Mind you it would be wrong if you were just pretending that you were forced, and doing that 'this is going to hurt me more then you' stuff.
Our species could carry on without it.
Therefore it is not necesarry.
Therefore it is not necesarry.
one_raven, I know what you're saying. Last year my mother died of cancer. After her death I began thinking about death itself. It is inevitable, like all things, it's impermanent. Yet all organisms seems to do everything to avoid it. From birth, we run from the one thing that is certain in our lives.
My mother did this too, and while she rarely showed it, she was suffering hell. Near the end of her life, she broke a leg of which the bone had been deteriorating over a few years. After a week or two in hospital she came back home in crutches. She could only walk at a snails pace. A few weeks after her return, she started to feel worse. She could hardly eat and she could not empty her bowels properly. She lost a great deal of weight and only then did it became apparent to me, after her suffering of 10 years, that she was going to die. Her cancer had spread to her digestive system which was a point of no return. Three days before her death she asked to be taken into pallative care. On the last day of her life she could not respond to anything at all, but she was able to sense things to a degree.
The reason I tell you these is just to point out what is in store for life. Suffering. Perhaps my mothers death taught me more than anything ever had. It made me realise that death, whether I liked it or not, was comming sooner or later, but it was how I faced it that mattered. Suffering is what you make it. It will always be unpleasant but the way you handle it is what makes it greater or less than what it really is. Alot of things were revealed to me in the months prior and after her death. I learnt that my mother was diagnosed when I was 5 and still applied for a full time job and sustained it though stages of chemotherapy. She did take leave from work and retired early but she set her suffering aside and focused on what she felt was important.
I know that my mother suffered in her pursuits to elongate her life, and she did it by 6 years to what the doctors said when she was first diagnosed (so much for science!). But in those 6 years, she experience suffering that I can only imagine enduring. Like one_raven said I wanted my mother's last days to be comfortable. I know that she used medicines that were probably tested on animals first and while I love my mother and am greatful that she lived for the time that she did, after her death, I dicided that I did not want her fate. I decided that rather than run from death when it was so close, I would accept it. I would rather a short period of suffering than a long elongated fall, or as one_raven put it, cheating death.
I've accepted the fact that I will one day die. Therefore, I have no problem with death today, or death tomorrow and see no purpose in staying alive longer than nature intends.
Off the topic, I know, but I felt obligied to share these thougths with you after reading one_ravens post.
On topic:
My view on animal experimentation:
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I'm against it.
I'm like one_raven and Dr Lou Natic in that I prefer to let nature run its own course and live according to it.
Like Dr Lou Natic pointed out, an animal cannot comprehend what is happening to it and is traumatised much more than a human would be. They don't make informed decisions as what their fate is.
Animals that cannot live without humans are only a product of human intervention and only act as more evidence of why humans should not intervene.
Animal experimentation can result in an animal being harmed and traumatised.
-People arguing that the moral value of an animal is dependant on the individual are avoiding part of the question and not confronting themselves with that part. There is only ever one truth.
Animal experimentation, like science, is not neccessary and therefore cannot be justified.
-Curiousity is not a justification. If it were, it would be ok for me to bash someones head open with a baseball bat because I wanted to see what the brains of someone who had been beaten over the head with a baseball bat looked like.
And for anyone who would like to see more disscussion on animal related morals:
Is it wrong to kill an animal?
My view on animal experimentation:
---------------------------------------------
I'm against it.
I'm like one_raven and Dr Lou Natic in that I prefer to let nature run its own course and live according to it.
Like Dr Lou Natic pointed out, an animal cannot comprehend what is happening to it and is traumatised much more than a human would be. They don't make informed decisions as what their fate is.
Animals that cannot live without humans are only a product of human intervention and only act as more evidence of why humans should not intervene.
Animal experimentation can result in an animal being harmed and traumatised.
-People arguing that the moral value of an animal is dependant on the individual are avoiding part of the question and not confronting themselves with that part. There is only ever one truth.
Animal experimentation, like science, is not neccessary and therefore cannot be justified.
-Curiousity is not a justification. If it were, it would be ok for me to bash someones head open with a baseball bat because I wanted to see what the brains of someone who had been beaten over the head with a baseball bat looked like.
And for anyone who would like to see more disscussion on animal related morals:
Is it wrong to kill an animal?
here's a thought on animal cruelty...people should consider animal cruelty in how it affects humans, I mean, its dangerous to deal with animal lives the same way we deal with human lives...face it, as much as I love my cat, I know that he's gonna die soon (he's quite old), and once he dies, all the suffering he ever went through will no longer exist...cats don't have souls, but if someone was torturing him, well there'd be bloodshed...mice, though, aren't anyone's pets, and shouldn't influence people like pets, unless people go on rightous animal crusades and care about that...basically what I'm sayin is, generic mice=okay, my cat, not okay, someone else's cat, not okay, humans=very much so not okay...see where I'm goin with this?