This makes the argument that a drug working on animals is weak evidence that it works on humans, but skips over the issue of toxicity. If drugs never had side effects, I'm sure everyone would be perfectly happy to immediately start with human trials. Why waste all that time?
Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
211–220 of 319 posts
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#212As an academic who isn't directly involved in anything close to animal testing (I'm a physicist) I always find it strange that people working in biology have to jump through incredible hoops relating to how the animals they work with are treated, but then the lunch place in the biology department sells sandwiches with chicken, ham etc in with incredibly minimal oversight for how the animals are treated. The differenc…
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Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#213Neuroscience is built on animal testing. I can't see a realistic was of learning about the brain without animal experiments, unfortunately. https://speakingofresearch.com/2015/12/10/importance-of-anim... Do we want to give up learning the brain? (And other organs but brain is extra special)
If animal experiments were banned in neuroscience I think it's likely that would force the development of new technologies for studying the brain that would actually accelerate progress in neuroscience - "necessity is the mother of invention".
> If animal experiments were banned in neuroscience... would actually accelerate progress.
And if planes would be banned humans will develop wings, or maybe not.
The other option, advances in neuroscience stagnating for decades until we would be able to develop this miraculous Kosher substitutes, is also possible. Young researchers quitting the field in mass upset by the new barriers would be also a probable outcome.
I want ALS and Alzheimer solved as fast as possible and the new solutions supported by proven solid facts so, thanks, but not thanks.
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#214Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many people don't want to avoid things that have massive negative externalities but at some point we have to take responsibility for the harm we cause.
Speak for yourself bud. We only have one life, and it is not for you to decide what other person should eat based on your moralist principles.
from an ethical perspective, why wouldn’t you want to live in such a way that minimizes suffering?
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#216Still a better usage of an animal life than eating them. I prefer to advance humanity, even minimally. If you put these numbers in comparison to animal farming, their suffering and their murdering, then it's absolutely worth it. For me it boils down to a simple set of questions. Would you murder 10'000 chickens to save your grandma's life? How about 10'000 cows? How about 10'000 rats? How about 10'000 rabbits? How ab…
"I prefer to advance humanity, even minimally." - Part of advancing humanity is expanding our moral circle. Pointlessly hurting animals is not an "advanced" society.
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many people don't want to avoid things that have massive negative externalities but at some point we have to take responsibility for the harm we cause.
Speak for yourself bud. We only have one life, and it is not for you to decide what other person should eat based on your moralist principles.
Moralist principles aren't really my issue here. Its kinda sad that animals suffer but I understand that not many people care about that. My issue is the massive ecological harm done by eating other animals compared to eating plants.
Climate change and ecosystem collapse are real, concrete problems that are coming home to roost, and I find it incredibly sad that educated, prosperous people don't do the bare minimum they could to reduce these problems.
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#218Given the small sample sizes it wouldn't surprise me if this was contributing to the reproducibility problems in biology.
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
It does so, but via an inefficient route ( plant -> animal -> human instead of plant -> human ), which causes huge sustainability and animal ethical issues.
Finding high protein / low carbohydrate plants to eat is hard. Many meatless meat products are hyper-processed. Last I looked a huge part of the population is diabetic. They can't eat grains, can eat small servings of nuts, fruits are mostly out, and greens alone aren't sustainable nutrition.
could you better define hyper-processed? seitan, tofu, and tempeh are very simple in my opinion. I don’t imagine pea or soy protein being wildly difficult to create, but am unfamiliar with those processes.
Re: Animal testing is exploitative and largely ineffective
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Death is not the same as torture. Kill me before you ever torture me.
Too bad most food animals are tortured, sometimes for their entire life, before being killed. The unluckiest ones are the females kept alive for breeding.
That is true of battery chickens and of meat and dairy cattle in factory farms, but not for "most animals", like you say, and certainly not the world over. On the contrary, around most of the world, farm animals are among the happiest, healthiest, best-fed and best-cared for animals on the planet.
Of course you will not know that if you selectively look at the factory farms with feedlots that are the norm in the US, Argentina, etc. These are indeed atrocities. But, for the time being, they are not representative of the majority of farms in most of the world.
You can see that if you take a slow train ride through the French countryside, for example. You'll see houses, barns, trees, grass and small herds of cows busking in the sun, peacefully chewing cud, just like large beef and dairy industries want you to think their animals are kept (which obviously they're not). Or, if you take a walk around the countryside where I live, you'll see that every meadow and plot of land has a few sheep or goats browsing serenely, often next to the road, typically without even a fence to keep them in, because it's unnecessary. I know one particular dairy farm on a Mediterranean island, with a fully modern barn and automatic milking machine, where, if you visit during the day, you'll see maybe a dozen goats in the barn that can house a couple hundred. The rest are out in the mountains, browsing, and will return on their own in the evening. That's how terrified those allegedly mistreated animals are. The barn is their home.