Author Archives: admin

The Earth Day 2009 resolutions meme.

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Mike Dunford initiates a meme for Earth Day 2009:

I’d like you to take a minute or two to come up with three things that you can do to be more environmentally friendly. The first should be something that’s small, and easy to do. The second should be more ambitious – something you’ll try to do, but might not manage to pull off. The third should be something you can do to improve something you’re already doing.

I love this meme! No matter what habits you’ve already cultivated (and we’ve cultivated a few), there’s always room to optimize them. So here are my Earth Day 2009 resolutions:

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Help a bunch of quitters.

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Noted ScienceBlogs commenter DuWayne Brayton has started a new blog to aid in kicking an old habit. In his welcome post, he writes:

I’m a soon to be ex-smoker. My name is DuWayne Brayton and I have been smoking for about sixteen years now. I’ve had enough – though embarrassingly, it has taken the price of tobacco doubling, for me to decide to quit. I will move some of my other posts on smoking over, from my regular blog, but first, I am hoping to hear from you. I would really like to get some other smokers – current and ex, to post their stories.

While I have never had a tobacco addiction myself, I’ve been close to a number of people who have, so I know that quitting can be a challenge. But I also know that it can be done. (Case in point: my father quit smoking, after 13 years with cigarettes, shortly after I was born. At least part of his motivation was what cigarettes took out of the household budget.)
So if you’re looking to end a relationship with tobacco, or if you’ve done so already and want to share words of encouragement, head on over. It’s a safe bet that DuWayne will keep you entertained.

Movie review: Orphans of Apollo.

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OrphansOfApollo.jpg
I’ve mentioned before that I grew up in a family that was fairly captivated by the U.S. space program, especially the Apollo program that brought humans to the Moon. But as impressive as those manned missions to the Moon were, what did the Apollo program accomplish? Where are our moon-bases?
Orphans of Apollo, a documentary film by Michael Potter, explores what one group of space exploration enthusiasts did when NASA’s commitment to the space age seemed to falter. By the mid-1970s, the Apollo program that put Americans on the moon was done, with two planned Apollo missions cancelled. The U.S. had beaten the U.S.S.R. to the moon and brought back some moon rocks for study but what, really, had been accomplished? Had the moon landings left a lasting impact on human culture that was more than superficial?
The impact was anything but superficial on a generation of kids whose imagination was captured by the Apollo program. As these kids grew up, dreaming of a human future in space, NASA’s visions and priorities shifted. This generation that assumed space travel and exploration almost as an American birthright felt orphaned by the American space agency.
But, as Orphans of Apollo tells it, a group of them found each other and started figuring out how to get a foothold in space. If NASA couldn’t establish colonies on the moon or manned space stations, maybe the private sector could.

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Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 5).

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Today we discuss an impediment to dialogue about animals in research that seems to have a special power to get people talking past each other rather than actually engaging with each other:
Imprecision about the positions being staked out.
Specifically, here, the issue is whether the people trying to have a dialogue are being precise in laying out the relevant philosophical positions about animals — the position they hold, the position they’re arguing against, the other positions that might be viable options.

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Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 4).

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As we continue our look at ways that attempted dialogues about the use of animals in research run off the rails, let’s take up one more kind of substantial disagreement about the facts. Today’s featured impediment:
Disagreement about whether animals used in research experience discomfort, distress, pain, or torture.
This disagreement at least points to a patch of common ground shared by the people disagreeing: that it would be a bad thing for animals to suffer. If one party to the discussion accepts the premise that animal suffering is of no consequence, that party won’t waste time haggling over how much suffering animal research actually produces.

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Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 3).

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As with yesterday’s dialogue blocker (the question of whether animal research is necessary for scientific and medical advancement), today’s impediment is another substantial disagreement about the facts. A productive dialogue requires some kind of common ground between its participants, including some shared premises about the current state of affairs. One feature of the current state of affairs is the set of laws and regulations that cover animal use — but these laws and regulations are a regular source of disagreement:
Current animal welfare regulations are not restrictive enough/are too restrictive.

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Impediments to dialogue about animal research (part 2).

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Today we continue our look at the reasons that attempts to have a dialogue about the use of animals in scientific research routinely run aground.
Dialogue, you’ll remember, involves the participants in the dialogue offering not just their views but also something like their reasons for holding those views. In addition, in a real dialogue, participants engage seriously with each other’s positions. Serious engagement doesn’t necessitate that one of the positions on offer ends up persuading everyone in the dialogue, but everyone is supposed to be open to considering each view — and open to critically examining one’s own view. A dialogue is not a high school debate where the point is for your side to win. Instead, “winning” here is really understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competing view, and ideally, all of the dialogue’s participants can achieve this sort of win.
Research with animals seems to be a topic of discussion especially well-suited to shouting matches and disengagement. Understanding the reasons this is so might clear a path to make dialogue possible. Yesterday, we discussed problems that arise when people in a discussion start with the assumption that the other guy is arguing in bad faith. If we can get past this presumptive mistrust of the other parties in the discussion, another significant impediment rears its head pretty quickly:
Substantial disagreement about the facts.
Trying to get people to accept (or even seriously consider) your conclusion, no matter what that conclusion might be, is a lot harder if those people do not accept your premises. In discussions (or shouting matches) around animal rights, animal welfare, and the use of animals in research, there are plenty of premises that are hotly disputed by participants. Thus, I’m going to focus on three types of facts that are usually points of contention and give them each a post of their own. In the next post, I’ll discuss contention about what animal welfare regulations allow or require. In the post after that (part 4 of the series), I’ll take up disagreements around the facts as far as animal discomfort, distress, pain, or torture when animals are used in scientific research. We will start, though, by considering a pretty basic clump of claims over which various sides have trouble agreeing to the same facts:
Is animal research necessary or unnecessary for scientific and medical advancement?

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