Planting incendiary devices, whether under vehicles or on doorsteps, even if you think the people you’re targeting are doing something very, very bad.
Category Archives: Research with animals
Discretion, deception, and communication between scientists and non-scientists.
A recycled post from the ancestor of this blog, before anyone read it.
In my “Ethics in Science” class, we regularly use case studies as a way to practice reasoning about ethics. There’s a case I’ve used a few times involving research with animals where the protagonist airs some of her concerns (specifically, about her PI telling her to change the approved protocol several weeks into the study) to a (non-scientist) roommate. In our class discussions of this case, the question arose as to whether the roommate should even be counted as an interested party in the situation. After all, she wasn’t involved in the research. And, since she wasn’t a scientist, she was in no position to assess whether the protocol was reasonable, whether the scientific question was an important one to answer, etc. So, you know … butt out.
Why we don’t have a pet snake.
I was reading the comments on Dr. B’s brief query on ethical lines in response to a horrific story about the feeding of a live puppy to a large snake for the “entertainment” of teenagers, and I could not help but recall a conversation I had with my children a couple years ago about the feasibility of a pet snake.
DVD review: Ethics in Biomedical Research
On this blog I occasionally note a major motion picture that is (tangentially) related to ethics in science, not to mention seeking your advice on my movie-viewing decisions (the votes are running 2 to 1 in favor of my watching Flash Gordon; if I do, I may have to live-blog it).
Today, I’m going to give you an actual review* of a DVD whose subject is ethical scientific research.
Because you ought to have options when planning your weekend!
Naked chicks in PETA ads: the ethics of getting your point across.
There’s been some blogospheric blowout (see here, here, and here for just a taste) about a recent PETA ad that many viewers find gratuitously sexist. To me, the ad and the reaction to it are most interesting because they raise a larger issue about how we promote our values and how we choose our allies. From Michael Specter’s article on PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk in the April 14, 2003 issue of The New Yorker:
Newkirk seems openly to court the anger even of people who share her views. “I know feminists hate the naked displays,” she told me. “I lose members every time I do it. But my job isn’t to hold on to members, as much as I’d like to–it’s to get people who just don’t give a damn about this issue to look twice.” The truth is that extremism and outrage provide the fundamental fuel for many special-interest groups. Nobody ever stopped hunting because the National Rifle Association supports assault weapons; many of those who oppose abortion are appalled that people in their movement commit acts of violence, yet they are not appalled enough to support abortion. The same is true with peta, and Newkirk knows it; a vegan isn’t going to start eating meat or wearing fur simply because she disapproves of a naked calendar.
(Bold emphasis added.)
When activists are also human: issues of consistency.
I’d like to take a moment to consider a recent comment on a fairly old post about a class meeting wherein my students and I considered some of the inconsistent views about animals with which people seem to walk around. Here’s what the commenter said:
I’m hating their tactics, but I feel some lingering unease.
I am, as usual, late to the party reacting to the news that UCLA neurobiologist Dario Ringach has given up research on primates owing to “pressure put on him, his neighborhood, and his family by the UCLA Primate Freedom Project”. As reported by Inside Higher Ed:
Ringach’s name and home phone number are posted on the Primate Freedom Project’s Web site, and colleagues and UCLA officials said that Ringach was harassed by phone — his office phone number is no longer active — and e-mail, as well as through demonstrations in front of his home.
In an e-mail this month to several anti-animal research groups, Ringach wrote that “you win,” and asked that the groups “please don’t bother my family anymore.”
The North American Animal Liberation Press Office, a resource for the media on “animal liberation actions,” according to the group’s Web site, posted a news release from the Animal Liberation Front, a separate group that sometimes engages in illegal activities, about Ringach’s decision. The press release describes Ringach’s research as torturous and “a far cry from life saving research.” UCLA officials said that groups like ALF often misconstrue information, and that, in the interest of researchers’ safety, the university is not releasing detailed information about projects being attacked by such groups.
Colleagues suggested that Ringach, who did not return e-mails seeking comment, was spooked by an attack on a colleague. In June, the Animal Liberation Front took credit for trying to put a Molotov cocktail on the doorstep of Lynn Fairbanks, another UCLA researcher who does experimentation on animals. The explosive was accidentally placed on the doorstep of Fairbanks’s elderly neighbor’s house, and did not detonate.
Advanced Nature Study (now with splicing!)
Younger offspring did not, to my knowledge, watch of listen to the State of the Union address wherein President Bush called for legislation prohibiting the creation of human-animal hybrids. Indeed, it’s not even clear that this wee beastie has any human DNA in it. (With recessive traits, it can be hard to tell.) Yet it’s hard not to think this specimen is treading on ethically dangerous ground:
Younger offspring’s explanation of this image, plus an image from Elder offspring that calls out for your interpretation, below the fold.
Is all animal research inhumane? (More from the vault)
This post, originally posted 8 January 2006 on the old site, responds to an email I got after the last post. Given John’s recent post on Pro-Test, the questions are still timely.
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I received an email from a reader in response to my last post on PETA’s exposing of problems with the treatment of research animals at UNC. The reader pointed me to the website of an organization concerned with the treatment of lab animals in the Research Triangle, www.serat-nc.org. And, she wrote the following:
Some people may think that PETA is extreme. However, the true “extreme” is what happens to animals in labs. If the public knew, most would be outraged. But, of course our government hides such things very well. Those researchers who abuse animals in labs (which is ALL researchers, by my definition), cannot do an about turn and go home and not abuse animals or humans at their homes. Animal researchers are abusers, and there is enough research on people who abuse to know that abuse does not occur in isolation. The entire industry must change.
Just because they’re out to get you doesn’t mean they don’t have a point. (One from the vault.)
Wrestling overgrown rose bushes out of the ground may be harder than wrestling gators. (At the very least, it seems to take longer, while provoking less sympathy).
Anyway, while I’m recovering from that, here’s a “classic” post from the old location. It was originally posted 5 January 2006, but the ethical issues are still fresh.
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Since I’m in the blessed wee period between semesters, it’s time to revisit some “old news” (i.e., stuff that I had to set aside in the end-of-semester crush). Today, a story from about a month ago, wherein the Rick Weiss of the Washington Post reports on the University of North Carolina’s troubles obeying animal welfare regulations in its research labs.