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The case for free-range lab mice

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Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#21

Post by runnerup »

teddyh wrote: post #4
kanzure wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's that old joke about mice benefiting from all the research but not humans? Maybe we can switch back to (this time voluntary) human experimentation at some point.

If human experimentation was that more useful, wouldn’t a lot more scientific results be available from countries with more lax laws against it?

Most likely a small handful of backwater countries would allow it. Most of the test subjects would get $500 from pharma giants and horrible disabilities from the side effects. There would be local organizations owned by relatives of politicians that would be statutorially required to be used for oversight, coordination, recruitment, etc.

The rulers of the country would take 99% of the profits and 0% of the costs.

Think Tuskegee syphilis experiments or Dengvaxia.

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#23

Post by GreenWatermelon »

Dalewyn wrote: post #20
photochemsyn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consciousness.

What is your reasoning that cells do not possess conciousness? Why is conciousness even the deciding factor?

Cells are just biological automata, they are dead thing, just a bunch of robots exchanging messages, no more alive than a chair. However, when many types of cells come together, they form a living being.

Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts.

Where is the boundary? When do these automata become alive? We don't know, but we can be sure that monkeys and mice are alive, and they feel things. They feel pain, which is a property of the neural system.

To use another analogy, let's imagine a conscious robot. It's made of various metallic things, of nuts, bolts, alloys, wires, sensors, and let's assume it feels pain.

Performing stress testing on the individual bolts that make up its body (just bolts, like spare parts, from a toolbox) would not cause anything to feel pain.

I really recommend watching this kurzgesagt video [1] about cells, proteins, and how they interact.

[1] https://youtu.be/TYPFenJQciw

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#24

Post by mandmandam »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #23
Dalewyn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your reasoning that cells do not possess conciousness? Why is conciousness even the deciding factor?

Cells are just biological automata, they are dead thing, just a bunch of robots exchanging messages, no more alive than a chair. However, when many types of cells come together, they form a living being. Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. Where is the boundary? When do these automata become alive? We don't know,…

[dead]

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#26

Post by Dalewyn »

GreenWatermelon wrote: post #23
Dalewyn wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your reasoning that cells do not possess conciousness? Why is conciousness even the deciding factor?

Cells are just biological automata, they are dead thing, just a bunch of robots exchanging messages, no more alive than a chair. However, when many types of cells come together, they form a living being. Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. Where is the boundary? When do these automata become alive? We don't know,…

>Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts.

A singular cell very much is a "life".

>They feel pain, which is a property of the neural system.

We know for a scientific fact today that plants can detect and even respond to stimulants like "pain", just not in the same way animals with nervous systems do.

Honestly, the only thing we understand about biology is that we understand almost nothing about it; and it's not for a lack of trying either. We really haven't gone beyond a very basic, distinctly human understanding of biology yet.

Basing judgments of cruelty on what are obviously just human biases with no objective basis serves to benefit nothing other than some humans' need to feel good about themselves. Saying we shouldn't test on live mice because its cruel but that testing on live cells isn't cruel is hypocritical and belies the vapid nature of the argument.

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#27

Post by photochemsyn »

Dalewyn wrote: post #26
GreenWatermelon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cells are just biological automata, they are dead thing, just a bunch of robots exchanging messages, no more alive than a chair. However, when many types of cells come together, they form a living being. Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. Where is the boundary? When do these automata become alive? We don't know,…

>Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. A singular cell very much is a "life". >They feel pain, which is a property of the neural system. We know for a scientific fact today that plants can detect and even respond to stimulants like "pain", just not in the same way animals with nervous systems do. Honestly, the only…

Extending your argument, why then should we not test drugs and medical procedures on human beings, if there's no distinct difference from humans to rats to microbes? It's fairly obvious that if the objection to rounding up a bunch of human beings for use in sacrificial drug testing and other research is based on rights, ethics, morality,legality and so on, then why doesn't that concept of of ethical morality extend to clearly conscious animals?

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#28

Post by GreenWatermelon »

Dalewyn wrote: post #26
GreenWatermelon wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cells are just biological automata, they are dead thing, just a bunch of robots exchanging messages, no more alive than a chair. However, when many types of cells come together, they form a living being. Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. Where is the boundary? When do these automata become alive? We don't know,…

>Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. A singular cell very much is a "life". >They feel pain, which is a property of the neural system. We know for a scientific fact today that plants can detect and even respond to stimulants like "pain", just not in the same way animals with nervous systems do. Honestly, the only…

If someone took my severed arm, and performed medical tests on it, I won't feel pain and I wouldn't mind.

I also don't mind when someone extracts a tissue from mu body for testing. it's not connected to a "whole", these tissues alone don't make life.

I think our differences stem from how we charactarize individual cells.

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#29

Post by Dalewyn »

photochemsyn wrote: post #27
Dalewyn wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Consciousness, or life, is an emrgent property that appeared due a collection of cells working together, it's more than the sum of its parts. A singular cell very much is a "life". >They feel pain, which is a property of the neural system. We know for a scientific fact today that plants can detect and even respond to stimulants like "pain", just not in the same way animals with nervous systems do. Honestly, the only…

Extending your argument, why then should we not test drugs and medical procedures on human beings, if there's no distinct difference from humans to rats to microbes? It's fairly obvious that if the objection to rounding up a bunch of human beings for use in sacrificial drug testing and other research is based on rights, ethics, morality,legality and so on, then why doesn't that concept of of ethical morality extend t…

Objectively I have no objections with tests on human subjects, humans are just another animal in the animal kingdom and just another living being like any other living being.

The only difference, if we can call it that because it's superficial, stems from human biases where humans are "one of us" whereas other species are "not us". That's it. From an objective perspective of living being, there is no difference between humans and other species including singular cell organisms.

Re: The case for free-range lab mice

#30

Post by superkuh »

beebmam wrote: post #7
superkuh wrote: post #2

It's even worse than the un-life like conditions of allowed animal models leading to bad results. With the increasing regulatory burden and outright outlawing of animal models in scientific research biological studies are moving to new far-abstracted models that are much cheaper, easier, higher N, and counterintuitively, way, way less predictive of the actual results in human bodies. Testing 1,000,000 compounds in si…

I don't find this very convincing. Do you have any evidence for this claim breaking down all the different costs for the research and quantified the change in those costs over time, or is this just an apriori argument?

I apologize for my answer being in the form of a youtube video. I hate and ignore it when people link me youtube videos. It's a terrible format for information and discussion. But...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u6ZkAVQfPA "Jack Scannell - Why was biopharma so much more productive in 1950 I DeSci.Berlin" - The main points is the need to formally evaluate biological models.

https://www.science.org/content/article/fda-no-longer-needs-...

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