From: hulsey@athena.cs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Animals in research
Date: 29 Sep 92 22:58:40 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Georgia, Athens

In article <1a79a5INNgbb@agate.berkeley.edu>, zabriskie.berkeley.edu!spp 
(Steve Pope) writes:
>
>>> the minute you lose sight of the fact that you're working in a 
>>> need-filling discipline, you are no longer doing science.  You 
>>> are doing make-work experiments that might embody the scientific 
>>> method, but are not science.  
>>
>>this is again one of your unsupported opinions.
>
>My philosophy stated above may be an "opinion", but hardly
>an unsupported one.  It happens to be the way I was taught to do 
>science by my learned mentors earlier in life, and the way I've done 
>it ever since.  A grasp of something this basic is, to me, a good
>yardstick of whether a given individual can actually think like a 
>scientist.

What lofty tenets did your mentors teach you that led to your sour 
opinions about animal research?  Don't credit them for your lunacy.  
Consider, instead, that you have been reading too many PETA pamphlets.

Your opinion remains unsupported until you can provide support for it.  
You have demonstrated no ability to support your outrageous positions 
about animal research.  Likewise, you have failed to rebut my positions.

>People who babble on about the virtues of pure research, disconnected 
>from any purpose or direction, are not really scientists.  That is the
>"pop science" paradigm, and it goes over with the public more
>than it does with trained scientitsts.  True science fills a need,
>however broad or subjective.  The purpose of researching
>the Big-Bang theory, for example, is simply to satisfy 
>human curiosity about the past.  It's still a purpose, and from 
>there one follows the scientific method, testing the most likely 
>hypotheses first, to address that purpose.

Investigators who criticize basic research using animals for having no 
immediate practical need fail to realize that this criterion might also 
be applied to their discipline.

For example, a person with consistently strict utilitarian standards 
might also suggest that astronomy and particle physics are "make-work" 
disciplines because they have little immediate practical purpose.

>>Whether an experiment is "need-filling" has nothing to do with whether 
>>it is appropriately called science.  
>
>This really is confirming my worse fears.  The culture of 
>unnecessary make-work experimentation, whose only goal is
>renewal of research monies, has become so strong in the 
>animal experimentation research community that those involved 
>don't even REALIZE they're not behaving like scientists anymore.  
>I find this very, very sad.

What is really sad is your inability to participate in a debate.  You 
cannot find fault with any but the last paragraph of my original post, 
but proceed to regurgitate false charges EXACTLY as I outlined in the 
earlier paragraphs of that same post.

You throw out a lot of unsupported charges, and when I rebut them, you 
ignore my responses.  In Lawrencian fashion (sorry Russell), you now 
attempt to shift from the original topic to a philosophical argument 
about what constitutes science.  Your mentors could have taught you that 
one cannot win a debate by utilizing these tactics.  You obviously 
skipped class that day.

By "need-filling," I mean having an immediate, practical benefit for 
society.  That's how we got started here, wasn't it?  I stand by my 
original statement that the immediate benefits to society play no part 
in whether an experiment is scientific. 

Any endeavor that satisfies humankind's lust for knowledge satisfies the 
basic etymological requirements for a scientific experiment.  To prevent 
spurious findings, appropriate standards of quality control are employed 
in every field of investigation.  Limited resources and the process of 
peer-review assure that only the best projects get funded.

Before being considered for funding, animal researchers must also 
justify their projects in ways that scientists in other fields would 
find hard to fathom:

For example, if the field of computer science were regulated as mine, 
programmers would tediously prepare an application describing in detail 
every routine in every computer program they proposed to develop.  They 
would have to provide evidence that no one had ever written a similar 
program before, and justify why using an abacus, slide rule or 
calculator wouldn't be an effective alternative.  They would have to 
submit the application to a panel of fellow programmers (plus one 
layperson) for approval, thus divulging their programming techniques to 
everyone.

The panel would probably require modifications in their methods before 
they could conduct preliminary coding.  Chances are that they wouldn't 
be allowed write the program as they originally intended.

If their proposal was first rate, and they had direct evidence that 
their programming goals could actually be accomplished, they would then 
have a 25% percent chance of obtaining financial support, from another 
committee of their peers, to perform their development work.  Whether or 
not it was funded, their application would remain on file for opponents 
of data processing (People for the Effective Treatment of Algorithms) to 
use as propaganda tools against their profession.

Beyond these stringent requirements, you want to impose additional 
demands on those who use animals before their work may also be called 
science.  What justification do you have for this?

>It would be bad enough if the only cost of this unnecessary 
>make-work was merely wasted dollars.  But the added cost
>of making animals suffer and die in experments which even
>the researcher admits have no purpose is completely depressing.
>
>My own feeling is that those who conduct animal experiments
>have a lower standard of professional ethics than
>the scientific research community at large; and therefore
>are more prone to fraud, waste, abuse, and obfuscation.  
>IMHO of course.

Your opinions are incorrect.  You will someday eat your Bambiphilic 
words when you become ill or injured.

You exhibit classic arguments of the animal activist, as I previously 
outlined.  You are "depressed" about the alleged suffering and death of 
research animals, but completely disregard the suffering and death of 
your fellow human.  You clearly have greater concern for non-human 
animals than for your fellow human.

You have absolutely no knowledge about animal research, but only 
opinions and "fears."  Before you express critical opinions about animal 
research and testing, I suggest that you learn something about them to 
make your opinions credible.

Martin G. Hulsey (mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu)
Dept. Foods & Nutrition          Support animal research.
University of Georgia            Your life may depend on it.
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals