641–650 of 731 posts
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People forget about how hard it is to get through ethics reviews for animal testing. I remember a PI telling me that it was easier to run psych experiments on undergrads compared to rats or mice.
As it should be. Undergrads can give consent, rats and mice can’t.
We're getting good at building artificial nonorganic heart, still a bit away from growing conventional hearts. I wonder how these future options intersect, whether one will win out over another, or we will be having hybrids? Electromagnetic motors work fine, but a big issue with them is the method of powering them and maybe biocompatibility issue. Normal organic hearts don't have this disadvantage but their downside…
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I assume you're vegan then.
I'm not sure why you think that's relevant. (Note - I am not OP.) Being hypocritical is an indictment at the speaker, not of the speech. The most hypocritical person to ever live may well be completely right about their most hypocritical belief. It's just not relevant to the the validity of the idea. So why do people constantly try to use it as a counterargument? It seems especially prevalent in these sorts of discus…
While it's perfectly fine for GP to make this judgement, I'm not fine with them applying this standard to others while excusing themselves. Why is it wrong for me to ensure they are being consistent when making moral judgements on others?
> hypocritical belief. It's just not relevant to the the validity of the idea.
I disagree with your premise. GP is not merely talking about the validity of an idea, but again, is making a moral claim about what is right and wrong. In which case, hypocrisy diminishes one's right to make their moral claim.
> seen as some kind of refutation of the importance of animal rights in general.
Quite a straw man there. So being in favor of medical animal testing means I don't think animals rights in general are important?
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They use a common medical technique called anastomosis. Basically they just sew the two arteries/vessels together with suture and the blood and tissue seals it as any other cut or nick in the body. Sometimes they use "bioglue" but its not strictly needed, just a timesaver.
And the pig tissue then connects with the human tissue and eventually heals to form a connected vessel? or it never grows together but it is sealed with a blood cloth?
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Yes they are. The syncardia TAH, Heartmate 2 and 3, Carmet, etc.
All with severe limitations
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And the pig tissue then connects with the human tissue and eventually heals to form a connected vessel? or it never grows together but it is sealed with a blood cloth?
Exactly, the former.
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If you think that humans make terrible things to animals, you should check what they do to other humans. There are "beautiful, human" stories about a certain Dr. Mengele, or Unit 731 or Guantanamo...
The weird thing was, the parties from the Nazis and the Imperial Japanese Army, responsible for atrocious experiments on humans, were pardoned by the allies in exchange for their findings and research results.
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> But the circumstances attending euthanizing research pigs are tricky; the pigs are all in a common area, and they're social animals and know something's up when you put one of them down. Interesting. I wonder if people have experimented with more humane slaughtering practices like giving the pigs a bunch of booze/opiates so they can have a big pig party, then slaughtering once they've had their fun and passed out.…
The easier solution would be to euthanize them one by one in a separate room.
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> The way I see it, the "vegan utopia" would get rid of all small family farms (even strictly milk/egg ones) -- where animals are given all the food they need, have access to good medical care, are sheltered from predators, and are able to reproduce and nurse offspring This is, like, the most charitable interpretation possible of the current state of farming for meat.
Certainly large scale factory farms should be avoided at all costs. But animal husbandry is an ancient art that a good number of small family farms still practice. They're the ones I'm referring to here. Also note I'm specifically referring to egg/dairy production as opposed to meat production.
It is charitable to call it charitable. Almost all meat, eggs, and dairy comes from factory farming. The small farms that people like to tell themselves they eat from are a literal rounding error [0]. You only get that if you go to the actual small farm itself or eat out at a very expensive restaurant.
- If you buy a meat sandwich from the corner store...factory farming
- If you buy a burrito from a restaurant...factory farming
- If you buy eggs and cheese at a diner...factory farming
- If you buy milk from the grocery store...factory farming
You can tell yourself you only buy from small farms, but there is a 99% chance [0] you are eating factory farmed animal products. Sorry to break it to you.
[0] https://thehumaneleague.org/article/what-is-factory-farming
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Dave Arnold tried to take euthanized research pigs to cook, back when he worked in, iirc, Dr. Oz's lab. No dice.
Well, if they were "euthanized" with narcotics, there are good reasons not to eat them... Or even to give them out to the public for drug addicts to get at.
Nitrous oxide asphyxiation could be quite pleasant for the pig, and there would be little risk to anyone eating the tissue.