From: mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey)
Subject: Re: animals in research
Followup-To: talk.politics.animals
Organization: Dept. Foods & Nutrition, Univ. of GA
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 1992 14:47:37 GMT

In <c8lp02X22b3c01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Ted
Robinson) writes...

>>>In particular, the research community seems to overlook the 
>>>institutional inertia present in its own system. Like 
>>>any group of people, scientists will continue doing things as they've 
>>>always been done.
>
>Martin Hulsey writes:
>
>>If this were true, there would be no scientific progress.  
> 
>1. You're taking my statement too absolutely. Obviously there are many 
>researchers who continually rethink their approach. Being only human, 
>however, most scientists are quite subject to inertia, and many approaches 
>are attempted merely because that's the way they were done before.

Oh, I get it.  Researchers who do not use animals are creative types who
are "continually rethinking their approach," whereas researchers who use
animals are dullards who are subject to "institutional inertia."  Your
argument parallels Ingrid's characterization of animal researchers as the
"Joe six-packs" of the scientific community.  How would you & Ingrid
classify someone like myself who uses both paradigms?  Would you suggest
that the 108 Nobel laureates, who have received 55 of 83 prizes in
physiology or medicine for work with animals, were suffering from
"institutional inertia?"

Is it possible that persons such as yourself suffer from "intellectual
inertia" because of years of brainwashing by agencies such as PCRM and
PETA?

>2. Even if my statement were true, progress wouldn't halt altogether. The old 
>ways of doing things would still yield results. 

Precisely.  Until new techniques are proven more more effective the old
techniques are preferred.  This is not "institutional inertia," as you
suggest, but effective use of proven techniques.  The purpose of medical
research is to save humans not non-human animals.

>[...]
>mh>This is akin to arguing that artists would improve their creativity if
>mh>forced to abandon their most effective medium.
> 
>If I suggested that a biologist become a chemist your analogy would work. I'm 
>suggesting that if an artist stays in his/her medium of choice, but is denied 
>a frequently used tool, that his/her creativity would be enhanced. Many 
>artists do this to themselves. 
>
>When I get in a rut playing the piano, the first thing I do is force myself 
>to stop using my favorite chords/scales/riffs. Sometimes I switch to an 
>electric piano. In either case the result is always greater creativity.
>
>NOTE: by no means do I consider myself an artist, I'm not very good. I merely 
>include my personal experience to illustrate my point. 

I was using "medium" in the sense that a painter or sculptor would. 
Substituting one keyboard instrument for another is not an analogy for
taking away animals in research.  Also, the "creativity" in overcoming
these obstacles would not necessarily enhance the results.  Consider taking
away an artist's brushes, and making her paint with her fingers. 
Creativity might be enhanced, put previous results would nonetheless be
impossible to duplicate.

>[...]
> 
>Certainly we need to appreciate the pitfalls of hindsight. Nonetheless, if 
>upon reaching the summit of our mountain we spy a better alternate route, one 
>which could've been found by a modicum of reconnaisance at the base, then 
>surely we would vow to be less impetuous next time out.

From the summit, or at any time after reaching it, we could not determine
that an alternate route would or could have been found "by a modicum of
reconnaissance" without employing hindsight.

Remember also that, in your analogy, we would only be able to perform our
reconnaissance on one side of the base (the "steepest," animal-free one).

>tr>As I understand it the insulin  example has 2 animal components. One was 
>tr>the dogs during the initial research, and the other is the slaughtered 
>tr>cows used ultimately for the extract. I view Ted Altar's article as 
>tr>focusing on this first case.
>
>mh>What justification do either of you have for ignoring or denying the second
>mh>case?
>
>I don't understand. I neither ignored nor denied the second case. In fact, I 
>very clearly acknowledged and addressed it in my next paragraph.

Ted Altar's article suggested that Collip could have instead used human
pancreata.  I presumed that you supported his claim.

>[...]
>My impression was that many people (if not most) die in or on the way to the 
>hospital or nursing home, at least in the U.S. (and presumably Canada). If 
>so, the ice bucket and tests for infection could be fairly close at hand. If 
>the tissue from all hospital deaths were made available for insulin 
>production, could enough safe insulin be manufactured to meet demand? Just 
>looking for a guesstimate of orders of magnitude.

"On the way" to the hospital, or in the nursing home would not provide a
suitable alternative to slaughterhouse conditions where pancreata may be
removed and chilled immediately.

In the 0-17 year age group, people with IDDM constitute between 0.06 and
0.13 percent of the American population (Diabetes Mellitus Theory and
Practice, Third Edition; Ellenberg and Rifkin, eds.; 1983, Medical
Examination Publishing Company).  This includes ALL forms of the
disease: viral, autoimmune, and gene defects in the pancreas.

If we accept an average rate of .095% or .00095 for ALL cohorts, there
would be potentially 1052 [(1/.00095) - 1] donors to support every
diabetic.  The proportion of people that die *in* hospitals is pretty small
(around 20%).  This would reduce the potential donors to 210 per diabetic. 
If the average diabetic acquired the disease at age 10, required 1.5 doses
per day, and had an average life expectancy of 75 years, they would require
(65 X 1.5 X 365.25) or 35612 doses in a lifetime.  The bottom line would be
if pancreata from 210 hospital deaths could provide 35612 doses of insulin.
 This would require 170 doses per extractable pancreas.  Given the
inevitable losses during purification, and the fast turnover (half-life =
2-5 minutes) of insulin _in vivo_, I seriously doubt that 170 doses could
be purified per extractable human pancreas.  How many doses did Collip
obtain per ox pancreas?  I'll wager it was considerably less than this, and
I'll also wager that ox pancreata are considerably larger than human.

I'm sure you will question these figures.  I can only offer that this
source did not meet the demand for even those few diabetics who had
problems with animal-derived insulin, much less all diabetics.

>ml>I do not imply some moral imperative for anti-vivisectionists to refuse
>ml>medical research.  I do care for humans who oppose animal research as well
>ml>as those who support it.  I merely want antivivisectionists to
>ml>realistically consider the consequences of that for which they are arguing.
>
>How disappointing. Nothing in here to argue with, though it reads rather 
>different than your earlier statements. If this is what you've been trying to 
>say all along then I have no quarrel.

Russell Lawrence introduced and persisted with the notion of information
being "tainted."  Perhaps you confuse my statements with his.

I have not changed my position.  Those who would argue that animal research
is  unnecessary should demonstrate how unnecessary it is by refusing those
medical treatments developed with animals.  This does not imply that there
is any moral imperative to do so.

>ml>By not refuting my statement about humans being speciesist, may I infer
>ml>that you do not disagree? 
>
>Absolutely. Our speciesist tendencies are at the root of the evils the AR 
>movement seeks to eliminate. I was more interested in what point you were 
>trying to make. I still haven't figured it out.

My main point is that *all* species are speciesist, even the ones you wish
to protect at the expense of humans.  If all species are speciesist, is it
truly evil?  Speciesism has positive adaptive significance for all species,
even for humans.  If the animal "rights" movement somehow manages to
encourage humans to forsake speciesism, it will have negative consequences
for humans as it would for any species.

If you believe that all animal species have "rights," would you argue that
all species should likewise forsake their speciesist tendencies?  Is this
possible?

>ml>It seems far-fetched for anyone to argue that
>ml>killing animals for food is unethical when so many species do it.  It also
>ml>seems silly to me to suggest, based simply on the ability to perceive pain,
>ml>that killing plants for food is more ethical than killing animals.  All
>ml>living beings have an equal capacity to suffer death.
>
>This was dealt with on the Universal Ethic and Meating thread. Given only the 
>assumption that one of the ethics in our collection is:
>
>  "The less unwanted pain I inflict, the better.",
>
>all comers were invited to posit additional ethics which would refute the 
>conclusion: 
>
> Eating meat is less ethical than not eating meat. 
> 
>I think those that tried to do so found it quite difficult. If you want I can 
>e-mail you a copy of the thread so you can reach your own conclusions.

I remember the thread.  I am not a philosopher, but, because you ask, I
will give you my layman's perspective.

The reason that others have had such a difficult time refuting your
conclusion is because it was preordained.  You knew, in advance, that
selecting "pain" as a criterion would allow you to conclude that it would
be OK to kill plants, but not OK to kill animals.

I feel that your premise, rather than your conclusion, is faulty.  Because
many species cannot (and need not) sense pain, your "universal ethic" is
not truly universal.  Universal is an absolute term, so a "universal ethic"
must encompass all life forms.  Your premise has excluded a significant
number of the life forms of which we are aware, and would not apply to
artificial life forms that we could concoct, unless we purposefully build
in a "sentience" function.

Because you give credence to the concept of speciesism (though I don't),
allow me to suggest that using pain as a criterion for your "universal
ethic" is speciesist in itself, because it ignores the fact that all living
organisms have an equal capacity to suffer death.

You were perhaps inspired by Singer, who also selected the speciesist
criterion of sentience to advance his agenda of vegetarianism.  I confess
that I have not finished reading Singer's original _Animal Liberation_, but
his purpose was clear to me early on (at about page 25-30).  He discussed
an example of a boy walking down the road, and kicking a stone.  He
indicated that the stone would have no interest or concern (I do not recall
his exact words) in being kicked down the road, but that a frog would.  He
suggested that the concern should be about the relative "capacity to
suffer"  that the rock & frog possessed.

The fallacy here is that Singer ignored the "capacity to suffer" that a
weed, fungus, or insect would also possess in this instance.  Singer
thereafter makes a HUGE leap from "suffering" to "pain," as though the two
are synonymous.  Singer is not arguing for "equal consideration" of *all*
species, but only those who may sense pain.

A truly "universal" alternative would instead be :

"The less suffering I cause, the better."

Given this alternative ethic, it would be debatable whether killing and
consuming any organism for personal nutriture would be ethical.  If we
wanted to deny the innate instincts of all carnivorous, omnivorous and
herbivorous species, we could conclude:

"Killing for food is less ethical that not killing for food."

Vegans often argue that their diet is "non-violent."  This is simply not
true.  Fruitarian or lactofruitarian dietary regimes are the only ones that
are properly classified as such.

I imagine that my argument above is not bulletproof, but I would be
interested to see how you or others would refute it.

>ml>How did you obtain insight as to my "approach to issues" from the above
>ml>statement?  I hope that you are not inferring that I do not value logical
>ml>arguments, for I am not implying such. 
>
>Something like that. I'm inferring that you personally focus more on the 
>political aspects of a discussion than on the logical aspects. This is a 
>pattern I've seen elsewhere in your writing, making me more confident in my 
>inference.    

If you are so confident about your inference, please provide more
information so that I might correct my "erroneous" ways.  I hope to learn
more about logic myself, and perhaps teach others about the role of animals
in research.  I believe that, thus far, I have provided more useful info
about animals in research that I have received about logic.  For example,
you and others have repeatedly questioned my logic without providing
concrete explanations.

If I had repeatedly said, "You are wrong about animal research.  It is
good."  to participants without providing any further information, then I
would have provided exactly the same level of information that I have
recieved about my logic.

>[...]
>I wear t-shirts to work. My favorites are AR shirts, and my PETA shirt is one 
>of my favoritest. I sent away for it just so I could wear it to work and let 
>everyone know I'm a member. Of course, you've already shown a willingness to 
>posit theories about my behavior from long distance, so I guess you can now 
>cast me as a compulsive liar.

If you wear your PETA shirts to work, I am truly wrong about you.  See
below. 

>[...]
>My sarcasm (which I now regret) was borne of frustration caused by:
>
>1. Ever getting into this discussion. Borrowing a page right out of a 
>politician's playbook, you've taken an irrelevancy and tried to make it an 
>issue in an attempt to divert attention from more substantial concerns. In 
>deciding to respond to your original challenge I inadvertently helped 
>validate it, thereby falling into the trap. 

I admit that this was what I did, but confess that I was not doing it for
such clever reasons as you suggest.  I was simply using you to vent my
frustration at the animal "rights" movement.  Sorry.

>2. The insipidity of your last "submission". It was transparently obvious 
>long ago that you were trying to infer shame from a reluctance to affiliate. 
>I told you once why the inference was dead wrong, at least in my case, yet 
>you persist in telling me the motives underlying my own actions. (See above, 
>"t-shirts", for your succes rate in this area.) What do I do now, reiterate a 
>statement which you refuse to understand or believe?  Perhaps you could just 
>post "Are too!" and I could post "Am not!" and we could repeat this ad 
>nauseum.  

I'm not quite that hard-headed.  I concur that this aspect of our
discussion is of no value.  I regret making assumptions about you values
outside of UseNet based simply on your participation there.  My apologies.

--
mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu                      Society for Neuroscience
Martin G. Hulsey                              National Rifle Association
Dept. Foods & Nutrition      Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior
University of Ga.    North American Association for the Study of Obesity
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals