Why We Need Animal Testing

[ru.]

Saying we're more intelligent is like comparing a wolf with a badger. Completely different.

Exactly; but we always immidiately compare every other creature to human intelligence. Because we see ourselves as the best and most important. (Which I obviously do not see as right.)

[Taffine]

Exactly; but we always immidiately compare every other creature to human intelligence. Because we see ourselves as the best and most important. (Which I obviously do not see as right.)

But think about it this way; if your pet mouse dies, you're going to be sad, but compared to the death of a friend or family member? I'm pretty sure most people would consider the death of a person much more devastating than that of a mouse, rat, or most any other animal.

Animal testing isn't nice, it isn't happy, it's pretty horrible, actually. But for medical purposes, it's necessary. As for cosmetic purposes, I don't agree with testing on animals for that.

[Harpalyce]

I don't agree with your statement of "a human life is worth the lives of 100 rats"

Okay. I'm sure you'll find many interesting discussions in the last near-fifty pages wherein we discuss the innate hierarchy of life (and with it consciousness and intelligence included). I encourage you to look at them.

Just a reminder.

All life isn't equal. Sorry, folks, but that's how it is. We're going on biological complexity here, not some arbitrary measure about if we can build houses or not.

There's been a lot of discussion about this in the thread. I encourage you to read back for some of the well-presented arguments.

[PathEast]

Ah, what a juicy subject!

I have such mixed views myself on this that I usually keep the subject out of my mind completely. But alas, here is this post. I like some of what everybody has written. I frankly think that the valuable knowledge vs. torturous practices opinions come from a persons place in life.

I myself am a healthy young adult, and animal lover, a bit of a hippie with a vegetarianish diet. Do I like the idea of a mouse having it's spine disfigured on purpose? No, of course not. Does my cat do this on a daily basis? Yes, and it's a lot less productive. There end up being headless bodies or bodyless heads about. So one of my points is, nature is nature. Torturous and untimely deaths happen in nature too, it's normal. Not to most of us, because we live in an enviroment that is much much less raw. We don't often get our spines misfigured on purpose, we don't usually die of exhaustion or get fed poisonous chemicals, (not saying in human cultures, I'm just assuming that you don't in yours if you're on a CS forum right now). So these things seem absurd to us. I can understand that, I myself couldn't be an animal tester because I'm only able to kill already dying mice and mosquitos, maybe a chicken or two. But the life of a lab rat could turn out better than the life of a sewer rat, you never know.

Now, lets say I was diagnosed with lung cancer in ten or fifteen years. I'll probably have a job, a family, a home... Do I want to die from lung cancer before my kids grow up? No. Imagine if you were diagnosed with something that could be cured by reasearch done by animal testing. A thousand dead rats might save your life. If you were getting eaten by a thousand rats, I'm guessing you would kill all of them to save your life too. Whether you like it or not, you are a human. Of course we're not going to disfigure other people's spines on purpose, they're our kin, our own species. If mice become super-intelligent, (who knows, maybe from all these experiments they will), they might test on us. But it's the other way around at the moment, and that's just how it is.

[VESTAIS]

Exactly; but we always immidiately compare every other creature to human intelligence. Because we see ourselves as the best and most important. (Which I obviously do not see as right.)

But think about it this way; if your pet mouse dies, you're going to be sad, but compared to the death of a friend or family member? I'm pretty sure most people would consider the death of a person much more devastating than that of a mouse, rat, or most any other animal.

Animal testing isn't nice, it isn't happy, it's pretty horrible, actually. But for medical purposes, it's necessary. As for cosmetic purposes, I don't agree with testing on animals for that.

I certainly agree with Taffine here. Testing animals for cosmetic purposes is not right, as it is completely unnecessary. Testing on animals for medical purposes is necessary, and therefore needs to be allowed. That is why I support animal testing for medical purposes.

[zboe]

Funny how everyone always values an animals life less than a humans. Yes I can see being more depressed over loosing a family member or friend but at the exact same time my life means as much to me as that little experiment rats does to him/her.
We always think ourselves the best and our lives most value but a dog wants to be put to sleep as much as you do. A deer wants to be caught by a wolf as much as you. Their life means as much to that animal as yours does to you and I don't know many people who notice that.
I also want to point out that animals work differently than humans dogs cant eat chocolate we can eat it daily, a successful test on an animal doesn't mean it is successful for people every species runs slightly different has different immunity's.A Endurance test on an dog will turn out different than a person knowing a dogs endurance helps us in NO WAY AT ALL it simply exhausts or kills the animal. Even monkeys HUGELY different from us okay so a baby chimp can be like a human child but when they grow up they become more aggressive and often kill their ''lovedones/family of humans'' They are different from us mo matter how much DNA we share the tests will give different results
I was reading some pages and saw some stuff about did horses choose to be with us and be ridden. No they didnt however I would like to state this
Family horse vs. slaughter horse
Family pet rat vs. Lab rat
Family horse is loved and loves his/her family ever wild caught mustangs get this way I know quite a few who do follow their owners around no lead. Family horse has a great wonderful life with his/her family even if he/she doesnt have all much space.
Slaughter horse may have been born a family horse but gets to spend the last few months of his/her life in auctions cattle trailers listening to other horses be killed and ultimately being killed him/herself. In that whole time Slaughter horse knows no kindness no love and never will again before slaughter horse dies he/she is panicked seeing other horses dissapear and hearing them scream. And then there are the slaughter horses born for the purpose. Their whole life is bad conditions and abuse they never know a kind hand.
Enter Family rat where family horse is and lab rat where slaughter horse is. Pretty much my equivalent cramped conditions no kind touch in their lives
I also saw
Person is person human is human rat is rat heres how I see it
Pain is pain soul/spirit/life is souls/spirit/life right to live is right to live
1 human life is worth 100 rats its still a life is 100 human lives worth one human life no a life is still a life.
I fully feel the animals cant speak or stand up for themselves so its up to us to stand up for them and that is what Im doing here I wouldnt want a disease injected into me so I have to die or go through huge amounts of pain so someone else lives I just dont find it fair to do that to any living thing.

[Umbrellas]

zboe, I have a question for you. When does that stop being true? It might be easier to say that humans and horses are equal, but when does it turn into humans and sponges are equal? Or humans and single cell bacteria are equal? Humans kill millions of things like that every day. What about humans and mosquitoes? They are also alive. Saying that anything that is alive is equal to a human makes everyone mass murderers.

[Horsemadlottie]

I have to say, I am a bit appalled. I am incredibly against animal testing, and may I just point out, that you saying that a human life is worth a thousand of a rat's is a bit profane, and frankly sort of shocks me.

However, I am an animal-lover, and a vegetarian.

Regardless of my beliefs, I do not think that shoving a bar of soap into a dog's eyes is very responsible, nor is it helpful

Have you considered that we have a very different genetic make up? I see you clearly do, so let me ask you this:
How does testing on an animal so different to us, causing it pain and even sickness, help us at all?


Don't get me wrong, I respect opinions....And I do like discussing things such as this

I absolutely agree, I know this seems a bit harsh but one human life isn't more than a thousand rats lives, it is my opinion and I think you are being really cruel when you say that. All animals have feelings and just because they can't talk, doesn't mean we can harm them. Would you like any of your family to have bars of soap shoved into their eyes? No, so why should we do it to them. I am really disgusted that you said that one human life is worth more than a thousand rats lives.

[Kokoamo]

I have to say, I am a bit appalled. I am incredibly against animal testing, and may I just point out, that you saying that a human life is worth a thousand of a rat's is a bit profane, and frankly sort of shocks me.

However, I am an animal-lover, and a vegetarian.

Regardless of my beliefs, I do not think that shoving a bar of soap into a dog's eyes is very responsible, nor is it helpful

Have you considered that we have a very different genetic make up? I see you clearly do, so let me ask you this:
How does testing on an animal so different to us, causing it pain and even sickness, help us at all?


Don't get me wrong, I respect opinions....And I do like discussing things such as this

I absolutely agree, I know this seems a bit harsh but one human life isn't more than a thousand rats lives, it is my opinion and I think you are being really cruel when you say that. All animals have feelings and just because they can't talk, doesn't mean we can harm them. Would you like any of your family to have bars of soap shoved into their eyes? No, so why should we do it to them. I am really disgusted that you said that one human life is worth more than a thousand rats lives. :(

So, you're saying that you would be more upset with the loss of however-many rats rather than one of you family members of friends? Just wondering :P

I'd be much more upset with the loss of my family members or friends.

[Harpalyce]

All animals have feelings

All animals?

ALL animals?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal

All animals...?

Just checking that you really do mean ALL animals before I continue my counterargument.