Stem Cell Experiment on Alzheimer's Proves Need to Use Animals in Research
A side note on the post below: The only reason we know that bone marrow stem cells might one day be able to be used as a treatment for Alzheimer's is due to animal experimentation. In this particular case, mice were genetically altered, they were caused to have Alzheimer's disease, they were then treated with the stem cells, and finally, they were euthanized and dissected to see how and whether the experiment worked. Without using living organisms, this research simply could not have progressed. In other words, cell lines and computer models would have been inadequate. Indeed, if this research continues to progress, it may have to be used in monkeys or primates that have a closer genome to humans before use in human subjects. (Either that, or use disabled humans as some animal rights fanatics like Peter Singer have espoused.)
This is the real world: Animal experimentation is essential to scientific progress. It is as simple as that.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:50 AM
3 Comments
3 Comments:
No, I don't think it is as simple as that and I am hard pressed to understand why you keep saying that when it is obvious you are not a simpleton.
From Matthew Scully's book on Dominion Chapter p.245 refering to Budiansky's book "If a Lion Could Talk" that makes conclusions about animal consciousness that he concedes are "unknowable": "His studies amount to [theory] and nothing more, so many vain conjectures piled one atop the other until we are all standing up there on "creation's pedestal", a summit of sanctimony from which all the creeping things of the earth look so small, so worthless, so disposable,their suffering so mere and maudlin and meaningless.
Science conducted with this outlook has today become a project of violence and aggression toward nature instead of cooperative inquiry, of relentless assault instead of respect and revelation, and one fears the worst evils are yet to come. A project, as Saint Bonaventure described the spirit,of "speculation without devotion, investigation without wonder,observation without joy,work without piety,knowledge without love,understanding without humility,endeavor without grace". Missing above all is love, which the theorists mistake for utility".
There is more to it than to say animals are necessary. How they are used and whether there are alternatives are important inquiries,unless you think you are God Almighty and you view of animals as nothing is His view.
Sorry. Scully skirted this issue in his book, and never really tackled it head on. He was too busy repeatedly castigating elephant hunters. It was one of the books major failures.
There is research that cannot be done without using animals, as this experiment demonstrates. Another example: We identified the virus that caused SARS, which required infecting a living being. It was either monkeys or people. The ethical approach was monkeys, which were then euthanized and their tissues analyzed. Positively identifying SARS was crucial to preventing an epidemic. The same thing is now happening with bird flu.
I am all in favor of not using animals when it is not necessary. But it is simply wrong to conclude that animal experimentation can end anytime soon--unless we decide to hold back vital potentially life-saving research.
One can argue that it is unethical to use animals and thus the cost of stopping research in its tracks must be paid. But to say we don't need the research itself is wrong.
If you don't think people have moral superiority to animals, you are welcome to the view. But it is human exceptionalism itself that contradicts your false assertion that believing we are special leads us to look at animals as "puny" or "small," and their suffering as "meanimgless." This is just hysterical emotionalism.
Our important duties to animals come precisely from our place on the "pedestal,
(however we arrived at this point). Special rights and value bring with them unique responsibilities. A cat has no duty not to torture the mouse. We do have that obligation precisely because we are at the pinaccle.
Thanks for writing.
I am with you on human exceptionalism as I have said before. And scully is with you, too. Continuing the quote:
"Love for animals, like our own love for one another, comes in seeing the worth and beauty apart from us, in understanding that the CREATURES NEED NOT BE OUR EQUALS to be our humble brothers in suffering and sadnes and the story of life. We are asked, in theory, to believe that all of these other beings in our midst dumbly traipse and swim and fly about, programmed to forage, hunt and mate, denied even the smallest share in life's gifts and griefs-a dreary self-cnetered assumption that goes against everything we know about the Programmer himself, the Lord of Life who has made each one with care, counted them all and delivered them into our hands". If you think Scully's book is ony about elephant hunting, I wonder whether you have actually read it. And what it is in you that makes you need to cast everyone who has another angle on a subject as some kind of lying extremist-the influence of Adrian Morrison? You aren't like that at all in your work with Nader. Scully has a take on blaming any questioning on idustry and scientific use of animals on "extremists" too: Speaking of animals being processed alive in factory farms he says,p284:"But if radical activists are staging these scenes, the conspiracy is great, and they are everywhere. Larry Gallagher, another journalist who worked undercover, was employed in 1996 at a typical midwestern beef factory. He describes cattle routinely fighting after the first "knock" ,hanging by their legs from the processing rail for minutes, kicking and bellowing...
CLEARLY, we are exceptional and have dominion over the beasts and that is why we have a responsibility in these sitations. In my opinion, it is the rare person who beieves we are not morally superior to the animals. I understood what you said the first time about that. Don't presume anyone with a questioning mind is stupid, please. Thank you.
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