HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg)
Subject: Re: Humans on the food chain
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chemical Engineering
Date: 12 Jan 93 09:16:52 CST
In-reply-to: farm@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca's message of Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:43:40 GMT

In article <C0qwws.LBL@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> farm@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (B. Munroe) writes:

   It seems a common argument for justifying the eating of meat is that
   the animals we eat are lower than us on the food chain and we (humans)
   therefore have the right to eat them.  From what I can tell, we share the
   upper echelon of the food chain with other large carnivores, such as
   lions, tigers, sharks, bears, etc.  Why is it that, when we eat other
   animals on the food chain, it is OK, but when other animals eat humans
   we are shocked and outraged (e.g. "Man Eating Shark Kills Surfer" 
   "Blood Thirsty Bear Ravages Campers").  If we are to accept our place
   on the food chain, doesn't that mean we sometimes have to be food?

Sometimes, maybe.  But usually it is a case of self defense.  Consider
this extreme scenario.  A lion enters a preschool and starts eating
the children.  He is by the door so the kids can't get out.  Would it
be ethically wrong to kill the lion rather than waiting for a
tranquilizer to arrive?  IMHO, kill the lion!

On the other extreme, consider a hiker that wanders into a small cave
containing a bear and her cubs.  She eats him.  Should we try to track
her down and kill her?  IMHO, it's evolution in action.  let the bear
be. 

The difficult part of this discussion is that clearcut examples like
those above are not the norm.  In the case of a bear eating hikers in
a very remote location, I think the bear should be left alone.  In the
case of a sick bear feeding on the kids in a  rural community, I think
the bear should be killed or moved.

Self defense justifies some shootings.  However, some predation on
humans is natural law.  Each incident must be examined individually to
determine where it lies.

tim
--
    ...  Then they came for me,
	   and by that time there was no one
	     left to speak up for me. (Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca ()
Subject: Re: why hunting is unethical
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 10:01:40 GMT

In <1993Jan11.062609.12319@beaver.cs.washington.edu> nick@skate.cs.washington.edu (Nicholas Kushmerick) writes:


>   my fundamental claim: it is unethical to kill sentient beings
>   just for the satisfaction of killing them

This is repeatedly stated as an axiom. Restating something doesn't
justify it. _What_ makes it unethical? And anyway, the 'just for
satisfaction' excludes most hunters.

>So tell me why you disagree with this statement, 

Since killing animals is already accepted, the onus is on you
to tell us why we should agree with the statement. 

>and how this meshes
>with your belief that, say, humans shouldn't murder one another.

Just the same way you mesh your belief that it's OK to kill
animals to avoid starvation, with your (presumed) belief that it's
not OK to kill humans for food.

Werner
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals,talk.environment,sci.environment
From: donb@igor.tamri.com (Don Baldwin)
Subject: Re: Alaska Wolf Killing Suspended / interventionist conservation
Organization: TOSHIBA America MRI, South San Francisco, CA
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 23:08:03 GMT

In article <1hsqc2INNlqr@agate.berkeley.edu> sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu
(Gregory Sherwin) writes:
>It addressed the issue of interventionist conservation,
>which takes many forms and I think needs ethical evaluation.  An example
>that may seem less objectionable to many on the surface is the California
>Marine Mammal Center and similar organizations, which have noble ends but
>I think questionable means.

Let's see, what could you mean...

>Unlike killing wolves in the name of "conservation" of caribou, the California
>Marine Mammal Center basically cares fort sick and injured pinnepeds - seals,
>sea lions, etc.  It is a noble cause and one to be taken seriously, yet
>they practice capturing pinnepeds from the shore - most sick or orphaned,
>but some overzealous volunteers bring up the healthy ones as well.  Then
>at the center they are fed, given medical care, and kept in pens until later
>released.
>
>The problem I see here is that as in the case of the wolves, two ethical
>questions arise.
>
>1 - do we as humans REALLY know what is in the best interests of another
>    species?
>2 - do we ethically have the RIGHT to impose these beliefs upon another
>    species?
>
>Care for the sick an injured is an almost universal humanitarian ethic -
>save for some Church of Science groups and others.  However, the validity
>of this ethic becomes blurred when we as humans try to enforce it on
>another species.  Why?  Well - for one, we assume a lot (such as the two
>questions stated previously).  It is one thing to provide care for the
>sick an injured, but it is another when animals are involuntarily subjected
>to capture, detainment, and human contact.  The MMC itself detained many
>healthy seals last summer because of the fear that El Nino - an offshore,
>seasonal weather current in the Pacific - depleted their natural food supply
>by sending fish elsewhere.  If we did the same to sick and injured humans
>in some cases it might be felony kidnapping and imprisonment and involuntary
>subjection to medical treatment.

And if I squashed a human the way I squash flies, I'd be in jail.  So
what?

   don
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg)
Subject: Re: Deer Population Control Mechanisms
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chemical Engineering
Date: 12 Jan 93 08:03:24 CST
In-reply-to: tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com's message of 12 Jan 93 03:36:59 GMT

In article <72z502xZ31s101@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com (Ted Robinson) writes:


    Looking at how prey herd sizes are regulated in nature (i.e. where
   no human intervention has occurred) I can think of 3 primary
   mechanisms that might apply: 

   1. Killings by predators.
   2. Starvation due to insufficient food.
   3. Decreased fertility due to insufficient food.

You forgot perhaps the most important mechanism: disease.  A stressed
herd (from any number of causes) is much more susceptible to disease.

Car/deer collisions are also a major mortality factor in some places.

   [Lots deleted]

   Summary:

   Food source as a controlling mechanism, either through starvation
   or through fertility regulation, provides a *restoring* mechanism
   that drives the population back to the equilibrium point. Predator
   control, on the other hand, exacerbates the problem, leading to a
   divergence from the equilibrium point. Viewed this way, predator
   control would seem to be a really shitty way
   to maintain equilibrium - Nature usually does better than this. 

   Comments?

I agree.  Predator control in most situations is not the best
alternative.   However, all this means nothing in most of the US.
Predators have been pushed out or removed from nearly all areas.  So,
the real interactions are between deer, food supply and humans (cars,
development, etc).

tim
--
    ...  Then they came for me,
	   and by that time there was no one
	     left to speak up for me. (Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals,alt.peeves
From: z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson -- Cereal Killer)
Subject: Re: Alaska Wolf Killing Suspended / interventionist conservation
Organization: John Deere Product Development and Pathology Lab
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 23:37:37 GMT

sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin) writes:

>So from this I can infer that you believe that the ability to find eigenvectors
>for a linear system and to talk about them makes humans separate from the
>animal kingdom.  Right.  Then what were we circa 1000 B.C. (as in 'before
>calculus') -- were we just a *little* more like animals then?  Or how about
>say 20,000 B.C. - we might have had some interesting grunts which you might
>want to call language, but where do you draw the line for when humans
>became this "extra-special" supplement to the animal kingdom - and no
>longer part of it?

	I'd think it became obvious when humans figured out the thighbone
of an antelope was a suitable club and used it to kill other critters.
With the possible exception of a few primitive uses of rocks or sticks,
we are the only animals to use tools.  To make it even more simple for
the purposes of debate, we are the only animals that *make* tools.  If
you want to know what separates us from animals, it's this skill we alone
have achieved.  Whether a flint axe or a 80 megaton nuke, we made and no
other animal can lay claim to this feat.

	I'd say superior firepower arising through the creation of tools
is a legitimate claim to superiority with respect to the rest of the
animal kingdom.

	Peeve: that the obvious is so difficult to see for some.




--
< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "Are you *SURE* he's worth a Harley-Davidson?" -- my grandmother  >
< to my girlfriend, about me.  "I'd better not say" -- my girlfriend >
From: rms@acsu.buffalo.edu (Robert M. Straubinger)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Medical research has not "added 20 yrs to our lives"
Date: 12 Jan 93 06:19:18 GMT
Organization: SUNY/Buffalo Pharmaceutics

In article <1993Jan11.222329.18743@informix.com> proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts) writes:
    [deletions]
>OK, here's the reference I promised:
>            TRENDS IN DEATH AND DISEASE AND THE CONTIBUTIONS
>                          OF MEDICAL MEASURES
>                      John B. McKinlay, PhD .... [et al] ...
>  Chapter to appear in Handbook of Medical Sociology, Fourth Edition,
>  Edited by H.E. Freeman, and S. Levine, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1986.
    [some excerpts from the book:]
> p4: " 3.5 percent probably represents a reasonable upper-limit estimate 
>       of the total contribution of medical measures to the decline in 
>       infectious disease morbidity in the United States since 1900. "
>
>     " ... any recent improvements with respect to these major chronic
>       diseases are still erroneously to specific medical interventions. "

 Which diseases are "these" ?

Bob Straubinger
Pharmaceutics
SUNY Buffalo
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: motto@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (mary.rita.otto)
Subject: Re: Colorado Hunters under attack
Organization: AT&T
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 17:02:06 GMT

In article <1iaid3INNjkd@agate.berkeley.edu> sherw@ocf.berkeley.edu (Gregory Sherwin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan4.221422.26200@Firewall.Nielsen.Com> jkapson@ad-29.Naitc.Com (John Kapson) writes:
>>Nonsense.  Hunting is a means to put food on my table economically and I
>>don't consider that a sport.
>
>Okay - then if this is the true purpose of hunting for you, then I have no
>complaint.  I think that is a perfectly valid reason.  However, you made no
>claims to some sort of "heritage" nor are you doing it for recreational
>purposes - which I think is true of a good majority of hunters I know.
>That is the sport - the reason for many magazines, for gun sales in sporting
>goods stores (eg. Sportmart), etc. - and the reason I don't find hunting ethical
>for the most part.  By using hunting for a means of sustenance, you
>are an exception to that.
>
>greg

Mr. Sherwin,  (no sarcasm, just differentiation from Mr. Popken, aka Greg, too)

You certainly have an interesting sense of the ethical.  If I may take your
ethical example, and summarize it, I would say that it states, in short,
that hunting is not ethical since it is enjoyable and not necessary for
survival.

Using that same ethical evaluation, sexual intercourse for any purpose
other than reproduction (a survival chore) is unethical since it is
enjoyable and not necessary for survival.

Using that same ethical evaluation, drinking beer is unethical since
it is enjoyable and not necessary for survival.


As I said, a rather interesting sense of the ethical.

Do you also object to these things that people do?  If not, why do you
object to hunting?


Mary Otto
From: banta@abingdon.Eng.Sun.COM (242 lbs before cooking)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: A rat is a pig-headed moron is a ...
Date: 9 Jan 1993 16:35:42 GMT
Organization: FizzBall Racing
NNTP-Posting-Host: abingdon

In article <C0KvDA.BLs@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
>Do you understand why our legal system makes a distinction between
>"major" and "minor" persons?

Yes, I do.  Do you understand why animals are not treated as "minor"
persons, yet?  Keep workin' on it.

>> "The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
>>  by those who have not got it."
>>                                 -- George Bernard Shaw
>
>"Animals are my friends; I don't eat my friends." 
>                                  -- George Bernard Shaw

One of the more obvious reasons why Shaw was respected as a
professional cynic, not a professional vegetarian.

drew
banta@abingdon.sun.com
--
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism
 by those who have not got it."
                                -- George Bernard Shaw
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca ()
Subject: Re: Silver Spring monkeys
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:14:31 GMT

In <1993Jan10.011625.26956@informix.com> proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts) writes:

>I would suggest that you are mistaken. I don't believe that any
>significant number of people do associate these things with the
>AR movement, despite the best efforts of a few individuals to
>promote the idea.

>Many people have become polarised against the idea? Seems to be
>that by any conceivable measure, the Animal Rights movement has
>gained tremedously in strength and numbers over the last decade,
>say.

Yet leather clothing is more popular than ever.

Werner

Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: jhoskins@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (James M Hoskins)
Subject: Re: Silver Spring monkeys
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 15:56:40 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.220333.1320@informix.com> proberts@informix.com (Paul Robe
rts) writes:

>In article <1993Jan5.192739.27311@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> jhoskins@magnus.a
cs.ohio-state.edu (James M Hoskins) writes:
>>
>>I still have problems with the ethics of Alex's actions.  He permitted,
>>apparently, the monkeys to suffer under unethical conditions for four
>>months.  (I realize this interpretation is open to question; important
>>here is Alex's perception)
>>
>>Anyway, there's a larger issue here than why he didn't notify authorities.
>>According to Russell, this Taub monkey business has become something of a
>>cause celebre and served to clean-up the acts of numerous animal research
>>laboratories during the past 10 years.  In your opinion, Bob, was the
>>unnecessary and unethical suffering of the monkeys during this four month
>>period, their individual suffering, worth it given the net result?
>>
>
>Well, I am not Bob, but: had he not waited as long as it took to
>build up a body of evidence, then the monkey's suffering would
>have gone on much longer, because the authorities would not have
>shut down Taub's operation.
>
>I think you are presenting a false choice.
>
>Paul


If I read in between the lines of your above statement, you seem
to be saying that the proper end result of Alex's four month stay
in Taub's lab was the complete discontinuation of the research program,
rather than immediate amelioration of the monkeys' suffering.

I'm open to the possibility that all invasive primate research should
be banned; is that your position?



:
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence)
Subject: Re: Silver Spring monkeys
Organization: WP Group
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 21:28:50 GMT

From article <C0oqM7.DJz@ccu.umanitoba.ca>, by ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca ():
> In <C0ntrA.284@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
>>>>Perhaps your values are determined by convention, but I make an
>>>>effort to base my values on my observations of facts.  
> 
>>As an example, would it be a "good" thing for my friends and I to torture 
>>you for our own personal pleasure if all of us (except you, of course) 
>>agreed that it's socially acceptable to do so?
> 
> No, but then it wouldn't be socially acceptable either just because you
> and you friends agreed that it was.

How many friends would it take to transform your torture from a "bad"
undertaking into a socially acceptable, "good" experience?

> Now if I were raised in a society that considered suffering pain
> necessary for a person's well-being, and if they therefore considered
> it beneficial to inflict pain occasionally, and if all the people I
> knew believed that it was so, I have no doubt I would accept the
> conventional wisdom. And I'd lay heavy odds that you would too. We
> would only have had to live 100 years earlier when "spare the rod,
> spoil the child" was a nearly universally held tenet.

Is there a difference between beliefs and truths?  For example, 
if 99% of a particular society believe the earth to be a flat object 
mounted on the back of a giant turtle, would we insist that such 
beliefs are accurate representations of reality?  

Perhaps we should focus on the underlying facts and reasons of 
ethical decision-making, rather accepting conventional wisdom at
face-value.

> [...]
>>I don't think you could find many dentists and pregnant women who would
>>disagree with my statement that "pain is bad". 
> 
> That's true. Are you appealing to convention here?

:-) Not exactly.  I'm pointing to evidence supporting the claim 
that pain is "bad" rather than "good".

-- 
Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000
russ@wpg.com   uunet!wpg!russ
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: rigg@osnome.che.wisc.edu (Tim Rigg)
Subject: Re: Colorado Hunters under attack
Organization: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Chemical Engineering
Date: 8 Jan 93 15:17:38 CST
	<1icqm0INN8ke@agate.berkeley.edu> <1993Jan6.201532.15874@wam.umd.edu>
In-reply-to: bast@wam.umd.edu's message of Wed, 6 Jan 1993 20:15:32 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.201532.15874@wam.umd.edu> bast@wam.umd.edu (Jaguar) writes:
   I am opposed to sport hunting, and the hunting of non-prey species.
   If you are not going to eat/use it, do not kill it. Trophy hunting
   to my mind does not qualify as justifiable hunting.

I think you are in agreement with the vast majority of hunters.
Trophy hunting doesn't really exist, except for things like canned
hunts for african game in Texas and the like.  Do you really think
deer hunters just keep the antlers (and/or head) of a nice buck?

   [Lot's deleted]
   Never mind hunters shoot each other, and many other humans each year, 
   far greater in number than a predator attacking a human.

This is a strawman.  A recent post by an AR activist was touting the
number of injuries from this fall's hunting seasons.  The total was "a
few dozen".  Even a 30 injuries and deaths is remarkably low
considering around 10 million people were hunting.  It is more
dangerous to drive to deer camp than to hunt there.

BUT, the real kicker was when the AR folks accidentally described the
"hunting related" injuries.  It included things like heart attacks of
old hunters and asphyxiations due to malfunctioning heaters at deer
camp.  The number of accidents where one hunter should another human
is vanishingly small.

tim
--
    ...  Then they came for me,
	   and by that time there was no one
	     left to speak up for me. (Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945)

Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin Hulsey)
Subject: Re: re:rights?
Followup-To: talk.politics.animals
Organization: Dept. Foods & Nutrition, Univ. of GA
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:35:12 GMT

In article <713v02FS31.e01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, tsr00@duts.ccc.amdahl.com
(Ted Robinson) wrote:
> 
>[...]
> The point being that Taub shouldn't be 
> regarded as innocent so much as not guilty of violating the law. 

What do you consider the difference between "innocent" and "not guilty?"
 
> Your first paragraph supports this conclusion.

A jurisdictional technicality was one aspect of the Appeals Court's
decision, but it was not the whole story.

>Indeed, you say any research, 
> no matter how heinously cruel, would've gone unpunished.

No, I did not say that.  I said that Appeals Court opinion clearly states
that biomedical research using animals is considered a "normal human
activity" under Article 59, and the necessary and justifiable pain which
might be inflicted during such activities does not constitute cruelty.

In Maryland, the attempts by animal activists to label animal research as
"heinously cruel" won't fly.

>So where's the 
> distortion you accuse PETA of? I certainly don't see it in the quoted test, 
> perhaps there's more I've missed on this thread.

PETA and its supporters falsely suggest that the Appeals Court's decision
to overturn Taub's conviction was based on a technicality that did not
address the charges against Taub.  In fact, the Opinion noted the potential
for Taub's work to benefit the victims of stroke.

--
mhulsey@hestia.fcs.uga.edu (Martin G. Hulsey)
Neuroscience, NRA-ILA, SSIB, NAASO, IASO
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
From: linan@argon.berkeley.edu (Mike Linan)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: A real head-scratcher (was Re: News Blurbs 8)
Date: 4 Jan 1993 22:39:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
NNTP-Posting-Host: argon.berkeley.edu

In article <C09MBI.A06@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:
>From article <C09B56.ALn@acsu.buffalo.edu>, by rms@acsu.buffalo.edu (Robert M. Straubinger):
>> In article <1992Dec30.162825.3901@super.org> wheeler@super.org (Ferrell S. Wheeler) writes:
>>>+ Investigators report the vehicles General Motors used in
>>>crash tests performed to obtain federal certification may have
>>>been equipped differently than the millions of pickup trucks
>>>actually sold to the public.  The National Highway Traffic
>>>Safety Administration also states General Motors may not have
>>>disclosed information pertaining to fuel tank leakage
>>>resulting from crash tests.  A consumer safety group claims
>>>fuel-fed fires in certain GM truck models have led to the
>>>deaths of at least 300 people and is urging a recall.
 
 
>> What is the relevance of this to t.p.a. ?

>Here's a real head-scratcher:

>Does it take an animal crash-and-burn test to figure out that the 
>gas tank in a pickup truck belongs on the inside of the frame?


I find it very hard to believe that GM uses animals in their truck 
gas tank safety testing.  In fact when the issue was addressed not too
long ago on network news, copies of the film taken during at least a 
few tests were shown and I did not see any people, dummies or animals
in the trucks.  What purpose would it serve to place an animal in such
a situation?  Either the tank ruptures or it doesn't.  If it does, it
doesn't take a genius to realize that occupants are going to die or at
least receive severe burns.  

So, are you claiming that GM actually *did* strap animals in their trucks
while testing their gas tanks?

>Russell Lawrence, WP Group, New Orleans (504) 443-5000


Mike Linan








Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals,talk.bizarre,rec.humor,rec.pets.birds,alt.sex
From: sorlin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Steven J Orlin)
Subject: Re: Turkey sex
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:11:09 GMT


>   In article <GLEASON.93Jan8165158@scf16.scf.loral.com> gleason@scf16.scf.lor
al.c
>
>
>   so stop, this is alt.sex, not alt.turkey.sex
>
>
>
>No, it's not, it is:
>    talk.politics.animals,talk.bizarre,rec.humor,rec.pets.birds,alt.sex
>
I stand corrected

-steve
-- 
"If I wanted your criticism....it was in my former life."
Steven J Orlin                   /\  /\  /\  /\  /\  /\
sorlin@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu/  \/  \/  \/  \/  \/  \
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals