# Science or Ignorance of Animal Welfare? A Case Study: Scientific Reports Published in Preparation for the First European Directive on Animal Welfare (1979-1980)

Sam Ducourant

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Sam Ducourant. Science or Ignorance of Animal Welfare? A Case Study: Scientific Reports Published in Preparation for the First European Directive on Animal Welfare (1979-1980). Science, Technology, and Human Values, 2021, 48 (1), pp.139-166. 10.1177/01622439211040179. hal-05335181

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# Science or ignorance of animal welfare?

A case study: scientific reports published in preparation for the first
European directive on animal welfare (1979-1980)

## 1 Introduction

If scientific communities attempt to address disinformation with more scientific information, however well articulated, while ignoring the social and political dimensions of the question at stake, that effort is likely to fail. (Oreskes 2015, 16)

On 18 September 1979, the Council of the European Communities (CEC, the executive body of Europe under construction), “declare[d] its intention to no longer authorize the keeping of laying hens in cages,” from 1980 onwards (Council of the European Communities 1979, 6; Council of Europe and Permanent Committee for the Protection of Farm Animals 1983, 6–7). One short year later, on 22 July 1980, the CEC decided instead to pass a directive for the protection of laying hens raised in battery cages (Council of the European Communities 1980), meaning that the Council abandoned the ban.

What caused such a turnaround? In this paper, I examine the hypothesis that this setback was caused by a type of ignorance production that has not yet been studied by ignorance studies: disciplinary identity stakes led scientists to adopt a double standard about the welfare of laying hens. Between 1979 and 1980, indeed, most of the CEC's action on the subject of animal welfare consisted in mandating scientists to “back up the directive with scientific knowledge” (Council of Europe and Permanent Committee for the Protection of Farm Animals 1983, 6; Commission of the European Communities and Tarrant 1984). However, shortly after having organized a symposium of poultry experts, the Commission reported the lack of solid data, the struggle to reach a conclusion, and therefore the impossibility of legislating against battery cages (Commission of the European
Communities and Gundelach 1980, 4–5). Thus, the 1980 scientific panels and proceedings should be read as events that produce both knowledge *and* doubt. And this doubt, in turn, inhibited the legislative process *i.e.*, decision-making. In other words, science ultimately became a pretext for those who had interest in doubting, just as in Proctor’s famous study of postwar oncology (Proctor 1995) and tobacco industry (Proctor 2012).

Examining this legislative setback, this paper provides an empirical case study for sharpening our understanding of the relationship between science and ignorance production. It is divided into five parts. The first part situates animal studies with respect to Science and Technology Studies (STS). The second part presents the case study (the battery cages debate), the archives, and the methodology used in this paper. The third, fourth, and fifth sections each examine the three main levers that allowed ignorance—instead of knowledge—production: first, the mission given by the Commission to scientists was an inconsistent one (section 3); second, variability of measurements undermined welfare sciences as a discipline, and lead scientists to believe in adaptation as a techno-scientific promise (section 4); last, not least, the very use of measurement units show that battery cages permitted standardization of laying hens as scientific and industrial objects, and eventually were the point where science and industry met (section 5). In the conclusion (section 6), I provide new insights into Proctor’s agnotological typology by demonstrating that scientists did not need external pressures such as lobbying to align themselves with industrialists: animal welfare scientists’ need for a standard, isolated object led them to believe in the promise of genetic adaptation, and therefore to favor cage systems. Finally, I suggest that the key issue in this type of ignorance production lies in the concern that a discipline (here animal welfare studies) has for its own scientific identity: there is something epistemological in the alignment between science and politics.
## 1.1 Science and the production of ignorance

In his introduction to *Agnotology: The Making and Unmaking of Ignorance*, Proctor roughly distinguishes between three types of ignorance (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 10–16). In this paper, I use these categories as operative concepts, calling them *prospective, selective and strategic ignorance*. *Prospective ignorance* is “a resource”: it is the unknown that scientists define at the beginning of their research, and that they explicitly aim at discovering. It functions as a resource since it allows scientists to keep on researching, though they already have reached results (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 10–12; McGoey 2012b). *Selective ignorance* results from “selective choice” of what to know and what to leave unknown (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 13–15; Elliott 2013, 239; Levidow, Birch, and Papaioannou 2013). It is at the root of undone science (Hess 2015; Frickel et al. 2010). Finally, *strategic ignorance* results from “strategic ploy” and corresponds to the conscious hiding of knowledge in order to defend particular interests that would be hindered by the revelation of such knowledge (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 16; Oreskes and Conway 2010; McGoey 2012a; Slater 2014). Though over-simplistic, this typology helps me clarify the issues at stake: I therefore extensively use these concepts as operative ones, and discuss them in the conclusion.

## 1.2 Animal welfare science and agnotology

Agnotology is a blind spot in the history and philosophy of animal welfare science (Fraser
1999; 2008; Rollin 1995; Gonyou 1994). Conversely, in the field of agnotology, little attention has
been paid to animal sciences. However, a dense literature exists on controversies in agricultural
science, e.g., controversies over plant breeding and genetics (Bonneuil, Mayaud, and Denis 2008;
Bonneuil and Thomas 2009), or over the green revolution, sustainability and globalization
(Dahlberg 1979; Thompson and Stout 1991; Patel 2007). These works focus mainly on external
uses of science (i.e., how knowledge or ignorance is thereafter used by non-scientists, such as
industrialists or politics), or on science as discussed in public debates, rather than on the production
of ignorance internal to the practice of science. The most recent agnotology studies about the agro-food system were done in the field of investigative journalism (Horel 2018; Casalegno and Laske 2016; Malet 2017).

Though animal welfare science was not yet studied precisely in agnotological terms, Lawrence M. Busch and Paul B. Thompson observed ignorance production in the more general field of agricultural science, since at least the early 1980's.

First, Lawrence M. Busch, along with William B. Lacy and Carolyn Sachs, showed how problem choice and agenda setting in agricultural sciences were linked to political economy issues in postwar United States of America (Busch, Lacy, and Sachs 1983; Busch and Lacy 1983). More precisely, Busch's analysis of standard-setting in terms of shaping as well as distorting reality (Busch 2010), and his work on supply chain management as enforcing standards on every actor of the supply chain (Busch 2018), showed how the organization of the global agricultural system relied heavily on ideology, that is on strategic uses of knowledge and ignorance. In collaboration with Frederick H. Buttel, Busch showed how knowledge and ignorance production were intertwined with broader policy setting issues, in the specific context of the Land Grant university system (Buttel and Busch 1988). Last, not last, in 2011 Busch showed that animal welfare standards were used to shape realities, i.e., to justify power relationships, and that knowledge was then strategically employed (Busch 2011a; 2011b).

Second, Paul B. Thompson gave a critical lecture on sustainability and coined the term "knowledge gap" to describe the difference between expert and lay understanding of genetics, in the context of conflicts between politics and the public in standardization or law-making processes (Thompson 2010). In this work, he showed that two research programs were in competition about the definition of sustainability, that these two were linked to different farming practices, and that they could in turn influence scientific as well as agricultural policy setting. Drawing on Smithson's
work on ignorance in science, he argued that interdisciplinary work was necessary in order to minimize strategic uses of ignorance by these two disciplinary fields (Smithson 1993; Thompson 1997). Moreover, Thompson applied his analyses of sustainability to the precise context of egg production (Swanson, Mench, and Thompson 2011; Swanson et al. 2011; Thompson et al. 2011).

Ignorance in agricultural sciences has therefore already been studied, but these studies did not use the conceptual frame of agnotology, nor did they focus on ignorance production *specifically inherent to scientific practice*. In the following case study on animal welfare sciences, I attempt to fill this gap.

# 2 Case study, materials and methods

## 2.1 General chronology

The 1979 and 1980 CEC declarations serve as landmarks for this study. The initial CEC declaration (September 18, 1979) intended to ban battery cages. Though given up in 1980 with the CEC second declaration, the process nevertheless ran its course until 1986, when the “European directive on the protection of laying hens raised in battery cages” was laid down (Council of the European Communities 1986).

In the European Research program, the main step was the symposium organized on March 11-13, 1980 at Luxembourg, coordinated by René Moss and Valerie Fischbach. Proceedings were published straight after at the address of the Commission (Moss 1980), who in turn provided two reports to the CEC (Commission of the European Communities and Gundelach 1980; Commission of the European Communities and Dalsager 1981). These reports were the basis for the CEC second declaration that lead to giving up the ban.
## 2.2 Materials and methods

In this paper, I compare the way scientists presented their own results, what normative conclusions Commissioners drew therefrom, and what the CEC finally legislated. In order to account for this first layer of archival work, one must first understand the implicit interests and constraints at stake in this process: as a background of this paper, I crossed archival funds from the CEC (Historical Archives of the Commission, “COM Documents” Collection, 1958-1986) and from the European Council, i.e., a non-executive council, not an organ of the European Community, therefore not equivalent to the CEC (Council of Europe and Permanent Committee for the Protection of Farm Animals 1979).

Drawing from these archives, I contend that such setbacks were more a question of science and knowledge rather than one of economic interests. I can make such contention because the main executive action of the 1979 CEC declaration was to order the Commission to set up a research program, the first at a European scale on this topic (Commission of the European Communities and Tarrant 1984). Other factors, such as economic interests and social demand, were definitely at stake even before 1979, and surely played a role in the 1980 CEC decision. But the 1980-1981 Commission reports and CEC declaration solely mention scientific reasons for not taking legislative action. It is only after 1981 that the Economic and Social Committee, as well as agricultural lobbies<fnref n="1" />, were asked their opinion, in parallel with the European Parliament. Thus between the chronological landmarks, these non-scientific interests just play an implicit role. I therefore propose to read the scientific symposium, proceedings and reports in terms of their *alignability* to these implicit interests *i.e.*, serving as *explicit* reasons to defend *implicit* interests, regardless of the experts' results and opinions about battery cages.

<footnote n="1">1 The two main agricultural lobbies in that period were the Comité des Organisations Professionnelles Agricoles (COPA, the European Farmers Union) and the Confédération Générale de la Coopération Agricole (COGECA, the agro-industrial cooperatives Confederation). Cf. below, section 5.5.</footnote>
## 2.3 Safeguards and stakes

So I contend that agricultural scientists produced ignorance rather than knowledge in these debates. The following contextual elements clarify this argument and will work as safeguards against anachronism.

First, agricultural science is an applied science: this means that it is by definition linked to production, and thus to social, economic and political issues. Not only are its results applied to breeding systems, therefore having effects on the industry and the social bonds between humans and animals, but the very practice of agricultural research also integrates these dimensions (Rastoin 2000; Cornu, Valceschini, and Maeght-Bournay 2018). More specifically, zootechnics, i.e., the sub-field of animal science that focuses on farm animals raised for production, is explicitly applied to industry and production (Landais and Bonnemaire 1996). Inside the scope of agricultural science, studies on animal welfare are even more tightly linked to political issues: the very concept of animal welfare was indeed first set up as a means to scientifically ground advocacy against cruelty to laboratory animals (Haynes 2010). Nowadays, the concept of animal welfare is even more at the crossroads between this politically-based research program on the one hand, and sciences as applied to production on the other hand (Sayer 2008; Ouédraogo and Le Neindre 2000). My aim in this paper is therefore not to show how this inherent link to non-scientific fields creates vested interests or conflicts of interest, that is, strategic ignorance. Rather, I contend that even without such conflicts of interest, ignorance can be produced in science, and I endeavor to show how this happened in the case study.

Moreover, the context of the late 1970's in Europe makes it even more difficult to distinguish economic interests and issues from strictly scientific interests. The period studied was indeed deeply marked by the memory of the Second World War, agricultural underproduction and food rationing. It was therefore considered an adequate task for agricultural scientists to take part in the reduction of food prices (Godley and Williams 2009), and the stabilization of producer incomes (Guter and
Low 1971), especially by committing to scaling up food production, or by enhancing food industrialization. In this context, stating that scientists provided reports that indirectly favored the food industry and disadvantaged farm animals does not imply any anachronistic value judgment, nor does it mean that scientists voluntarily or strategically produced ignorance for industrial interests. On the contrary, my aim in this paper is to provide evidence that some ignorance was produced even without determinants such as economic interests.

Second, one must qualify the statement that animal welfare was disadvantaged by the Council's decision. At a first glance, it may seem obvious that animal welfare is poorer in cage systems than in cage-free systems (Heng, Peterson, and Li 2013; Savory 2004). But in the 1970's as well as today, the case of cages is not a trivial one, for two reasons.

First, raising laying hens in large groups induces greater mortality rates, especially because of aggression. The pecking order, i.e., the social hierarchical order among hens, indeed breaks down as group size increases, and this leads to more aggression: hens tend to peck one another's feathers, and this is also correlated with cannibalism (Hughes et al. 1997; Appleby 1998; Duncan 2001a; 2001b). Distributing hens in smaller groups, e.g., by putting them into separate cages, was therefore reasonably considered as a solution to high mortality rates correlated with aggression (2010). It is still the case today that in large-scale i.e., industrial systems, mortality due to aggression is higher in most cage-free systems than in cage systems (Sherwin, Richards, and Nicol 2010; Lay et al. 2011). The issue of cages was—and still is—not a trivial one to solve.

The second reason concerns the more general theoretical context. Certainly, major works in ethology had already been published that showed the correlation between cages and poor welfare (Dawkins 1978) or between intensive systems and poor welfare (Dantzer and Mormède 1979). But in the meantime, animal sentience was far from an obvious question: Donald Griffin's 1976 work stating that animals had consciousness raised passionate debates (Griffin 1976), and it was not until
Allen and Bekoff's 1997 work on cognitive ethology that animal minds (and therefore their ability to suffer) became largely accepted (Allen and Bekoff 1997).

Studying this specific time of agricultural science, one must therefore be cautious not to perpetrate anachronism. My claim is not that relevant knowledge about animal welfare was within reach, and that scientists simply neglected it for unscientific reasons; it is not that knowledge was divided into competing or unrelated disciplinary fields, therefore creating knowledge gaps (Thompson 2010; Allen and Bekoff 1997): rather, I show in the following sections that ignorance was then produced as a corollary of discipline identity construction.

# 3 First problem: an inconsistent task?

The conclusions of the 1980 proceedings as well as all reports submitted to the Commission and to the Council of Europe, are unanimous: no conclusion can be drawn, except that there is a lack of knowledge and that research priorities need to be set. This means that scientists don't know exactly what mission they have been appointed to fulfill. In this section, I show that three missions were given to scientists—filling a knowledge gap, scientifically backing up the ban, and justifying the existing system—, and that they were not exactly consistent with each other— preventing them from taking clear stands about battery cages.

## 3.1 First task: establish prospective ignorance

> Without irrefutable scientific evidence that a particular environmental component or husbandry practice is or is not a source of “welfare,” it would be inappropriate to make specific recommendations or regulations in this area. (Council of Europe and United Kingdom Delegation 1979, 6)

All reports agree that current knowledge is insufficient, and call for further research (Moss 1980, 326). That is, scientists deduce selective ignorance from prospective ignorance. Of course, making a research choice necessarily means choosing to keep on ignoring other aspects. But it also
runs the risk of this original choice becoming permanent: “Research lost is not just research
delayed; it can also be forever marked or never recovered” (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 13).

Now studies on agricultural science showed that though later justified on scientific grounds, such
selective choices may very well be arbitrary (Elliott 2013). And only when later scientists or other
social groups manage to question this first choice, is it considered as undone science, and can it be
selected as a research program again (Frickel et al. 2010).

## 3.2 Second task: scientifically support the ban

According to the evaluation report on the Research Coordination Program, as well as Moss's
inaugural speech, the aim of the 1980 symposium was to provide a scientific basis for animal-
friendly legislation. These two texts quote the Council of Europe Convention for the Protection of
Animals kept for Farming Purposes, 1976, art. 3: the final aim is to ensure

> that animals shall be housed, provided with food, water and care in a manner which -having regard
to their species and to their degree of development, adaptation and domestication- is appropriate to
their physiological and ethological needs in accordance with established experience and scientific
knowledge. (Moss 1980, 7; Commission of the European Communities and Tarrant 1984, 2;
Council of Europe 1976)

The stakes of consulting scientists is therefore *both* to establish knowledge about animal
welfare *and* to apply it in a common legislation. This double aim is never stated, and these two
goals happen to be in competition. Though animal needs were the topic, they did not have priority:
noting how hard it was to agree on a figure for minimum cage size, Moss ended the discussion by
reminding his colleagues that

> this is a scientific meeting, designed to look at the needs of research and development. Let us forget
> for the time being that sooner or later someone is going to ask about a figure. (Moss 1980, 97)

Although the two needs were ambiguous but not contradictory, Moss gave priority to research
needs over animal needs. Considering the title of the EEC Research program and of the symposium,
which both mention animal welfare, how come that Moss's colleagues did not oppose his short-
cutting the conversation? How come, more generally, they neither remarked nor opposed such an
ambiguity?

The answer might very well be that this symposium was actually part of an EEC program of research coordination that provided a new, not national, source of funding. Though a part of a scientific research program, the symposium had its questions asked first by the Commission. Moreover, it was the Commission that decided the symposium research directions, and it was its commissioner that selected the final arguments in the 1980 and 1981 reports. This is how scientific and agricultural interests aligned: the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) was a funding source for scientists who helped its implementation (Bedessem 2018; Galison 2008, 119; Hess 2009; Hill 1984; Geuna 2001; Pavitt 1998; 2000; Luukkonen 2014). Scientists' lack of reaction means that science, in this case, was over-determined by those who financed it. This suggests that animal welfare served as a pretext in order to better coordinate research programs, and to organize funding at the community level.

3.3 Third task: justify the existing system

Our responsibility as research scientists is to obtain as much reliable information as possible, to
allow extension workers, manufacturers and farmers to develop and install systems which allow an
acceptable compromise between profitability (and so the price of eggs to the consumer) and the
often ill-defined concepts of animal welfare that we have been discussing (British delegate
W. F. Raymond, in Moss 1980, 324)

In addition to animal and research needs, scientists were supposed to meet a third type of
needs. The Research Coordination Program rapporteur explained that the aim of this program was
"to contribute to the efficiency and effectiveness of the Common Agricultural Policy"(Commission
of the European Communities and Tarrant 1984, 3). In Dalsager's words, this policy targeted
"animal production systems efficiency": scientific debates were therefore all about disturbing the
existing system as little as possible.
The implicit question asked to scientists in Luxembourg does not concern veterinary, physiological or ethological fields, but rather agricultural economics and societal priorities. This is quite clear in Moss' remark, cutting short (again) a debate about the aforementioned cage surface:

> Perhaps the advice that has to be given from this scientific symposium is that it is impossible to give a figure, except in relation to Dr. Brantas' point of 1ha. That, of course, would be unacceptable. (Moss 1980, 97)

Gerard C. Brantas' point of 1 hectare was that, contrary to all his colleagues, he considered his results to be positive enough: when left free of movement, laying hens grouped in small flocks (3 to 5 hens) and each flock ended up occupying a territory of 1 hectare (Brantas 1977; Moss 1980, 93). Brantas was the only scientist who claimed an actual scientific result about the welfare of laying hens. Now, if the symposium is a scientific one, and if some positive conclusions are drawn, then why is it “unacceptable”? Moss and his colleagues do not only deal with prospective ignorance and selective ignorance, but also with implicit economic and social factors that reduce the scope of possible conclusions. This does not necessarily mean that strategic ignorance is here at work. It means that not only do scientists have some implicit knowledge of the socioeconomic and industrial context: they also take this context into account, when considering what figures to give to the European Commission.

## 4 Second problem: the threat of variability

The reports are unanimous: it is hard to give conclusions about animal welfare, because of the diversity and imperfection of animal welfare measures (Webster 1998; Vandenheede 2003). Finding an adequate measure is a problem inherent to scientific practice, as well as prospective ignorance is. But in the case of animal welfare sciences in the 1970's, I argue in this section that this multiplicity of measures led scientists to twist the concept of animal welfare by adopting the concept of genetic adaptation. And that left room for an epistemological double standard: that is, they required two
different degrees of proof, depending on the type of conclusion (political decision or scientific result) to draw.

## 4.1 Variability as a disciplinary threat

The major problem, in the eyes of the scientists debating, is that all these measures, beyond their perfectibility, are made on farm animals, artificially selected with a strong selection pressure in favor of productivity (Vandenheede 2003):

> There is no such thing as a “normal” environment for them [...] In another 50 years the normal environment of the laying hen could be the battery cage, if we continue selecting along these lines.
> 
> (Moss 1980, 161)

This selection pressure means that two generations of the same species are genetically so different that they can no longer be studied as one and the same breed. First consequence: this calls into question the very object of study itself, and by extension disciplinary boundaries, eventually affecting the credibility of farm animal welfare science as a whole. Second consequence: farm animals cannot be known *per se*, but always in relation to the breeding system in which they live, as well as in relation to the breeders' and integrated firms' selection criteria. This means that laying hens, as referred to in the 1979 ECC resolution, cannot be studied without reference to the battery cage — which was nevertheless supposed to be in question.

## 4.2 Descriptive measurements, normative measures

As genetic variability is a major concern, it rapidly polarizes research effort and discussions. I propose here that this threat is the reason why scientists shifted from a multifarious animal welfare concept to the conceptual network of adaptation (Haynes 2010; Ducourant 2020). Welfare becomes easier to tackle and define when understood as a situation where the animal is “well adapted to its environment.” Poultry welfare is therefore defined as the adaptation of hens to battery cages. So much so, that in the long-term caged hens may no longer be adapted to live outside cages (Moss 1980, 161).
Within this specific framework, genetic measures of animal welfare developed. In order to distinguish between innate and acquired traits, scientists in 1980 repeatedly attempted to establish the “heritability” of traits. “The level of heritability gives some indication of the possibility of changing things” (J. Fris Jensen, in Moss 1980, 311). Unlike physiological and ethological measures, so-called genetic measures did not describe a condition, but indicate the feasibility of change. It was no longer a question of descriptively measuring a state of well-being, but of taking normative measures, adapting an animal to an environment that had been imposed on it. This shift from descriptive to normative happens because, in the field of zootechny and genetic ecology, measures study how breeds i.e., lineages adapt in view of selecting those that best adapt to the new system (Landais and Bonnemaire 1996; Edelson 1979; Muir and Craig 1998).

One major problem of rearing laying hens in cages was aggressive behaviors, such as feather-
pecking and cannibalism (McBride 1958; Hughes et al. 1997). Now, according to Dutch delegate
Schenk, aggression was strongly correlated with the rearing system, since hens in individual cages
had very little aggressive behavior (Moss 1980, 60). But he also showed that artificial selection
could modify aggression rates, and concluded that some breeds were more adaptable to cages than
others (Moss 1980, 33–38). Here the ambiguity of the word “welfare” is clear: the general
framework is not so much a concern for animals and their living conditions than the search for a
technical solution to the issue of adapting a lineage to an industrialized production system.

4.3 The double standard

This research orientation was undoubtedly scientifically justified in those researchers' eyes.
But this shift towards "genetic variability" allowed scientists to hold together two hitherto
contradictory attitudes: on the one hand, radical humility as to the representativeness of the results
already acquired; and on the other hand, confidence that they would find a solution to the welfare
problem. Brantas said it, not without sarcasm:
I am quite sure that in the future, we agriculturists, we physiologists, we ethologists, and so on, can
make it possible to keep birds in such conditions [360cm2 per hen] with profit —also in conditions
of 290cm2 or even less. (Moss 1980, 93)

However, Zanforlin Faure and Signoret answered and showed how this double standard
worked. Their argument was twofold: on the one hand, it was impossible to draw the least
conclusion, therefore no measures could be adopted whatsoever. On the other hand, thanks to
adaptation, everything was rendered possible. Zanforlin explained the general law of species
adaptation to their environment:

> Whatever the species you catch in the wild and bring into close confinement, you observe a general law. There is a very high mortality for the first few generations and then productivity starts to increase as the animal adapts itself to its new environment. (Moss 1980, 95)

and Signoret concluded that “this variability could be used for animal breeders” (Moss 1980, 96).
By saying this, scientists minimized their epistemological strengths, i.e., the results already acquired
and their ability to reduce prospective ignorance, while maximizing their technical strengths, i.e.,
their ability to change their object of study. We observe here a drastic change in the prerogatives
that scientists allotted themselves: unable to know their object since it was too variable, they
nevertheless had to be able to transform and adapt it to the environment of industrial integrated
firms.

## 4.4 Variability: from threat to promise

As opposed to the soundness of the measures available at that time, this shift can be
considered as a semantic reduction of the concept of animal welfare. Why did scientists agree with
this reduction, though several of them came from ethology, physiology, and though some (including
Brantas, Duncan and Svedberg) were even explicitly opposed to industrial animal husbandry? I
propose that the theory of adaptation, as applied to animal welfare *via* genetic selection, had a
function of promise. A promise that scientists made to themselves and to each other, believed, and
shared with the legislator. I argue that it proved so efficient because it aligned scientific, political
and industrial interests in the direction of not banning battery cages, but of working towards their
enhancement.

In his 2013 article, Bernard Joly introduced “regimes of economics of techno-scientific promises” (Joly 2013). These regimes are sets of formal and informal rules linked to the historical development of disciplines. He said they were “economic” because promises are not just speeches or representations, but relate to concrete exchanges, exploration or experimentation practices, investments, or resources. In 1980, such tangible exchanges took place when scientists and commissioners shared techniques and results (via scientific reports and symposia proceedings) or set up research contracts between laboratories and the Commission. According to Joly, the more urgent and recognized the problem, the more attractive the promise. In the case of laying hens, the problem was urgent and recognized, as it stemmed from a widespread social demand and a legitimate ethical concern. Moreover, the more attractive the promise, the more legitimate the actions undertaken to keep it; according to Joly, this legitimacy is always reinforced in proportion to the number of resources mobilized.

Here, the link with selective ignorance is essential: the promise implies that one future is better than other possible futures, and therefore strategic choices must be made in the present to make these happen. This makes it possible to accept descriptive uncertainty, while postponing the question of the feasibility of normative measures; more concretely, this promise focuses both scientists' attention (on a conceptual network) and European investments (on animal welfare science, defined on the yardstick of adaptation). In the next section, I show how this conceptual change and the promise that came with it eventually aligned scientific and economic i.e., industrial interests (Marcus 1995; Fortun and Fortun 2005).
# 5 Third problem: Science or the industry, who chose the unit?

How could they align, for no representative of industrial interests took part in the debates? I contend here that the industry did not need to be present or to practice lobbying, in order to see its interests defended. Selective ignorance resulted of an alliance of scientists with the industry, because both groups needed to use battery cages, as the very practical side of the techno-scientific promise. This ultimately produced a new type of strategic ignorance.

## 5.1 Measuring units and tools

During an intermediate discussion, Commissioner W. Goldhorn summarized the existing knowledge in terms of the surface area required for each hen, as follows:

> Dr. Petersen said that the absolute minimum of space is about 340 cm² per bird because below this figure, there is a dramatic decrease in production and viability. Then we heard from Dr. Hughes that from about 400 - 580 cm², there is an increase in egg production. Does this not mean that between 400 and 580 cm² there is an effect, at least, on welfare? (Moss 1980, 91)

B. O. Hughes then qualified Petersen's results, arguing that there was no reason that a threshold should be observed above 580 cm². That is, the correlation between productivity and surface that he had observed between 400 and 580 cm², had no reason to stop for larger spaces, though it hadn't been thoroughly studied because such larger spaces were not used in existing systems.

Goldhorn then mentioned Bogner's reference work, measuring the floor surface used by a standing still hen:

> [a hen occupies] at least 450 cm², and for the most primitive movements it needs at least 480 cm². So merely from the physiological point of view I think 340 cm² is not acceptable. It should be at least 450, or even 500 cm² as an absolute minimum. Is this right? (Moss 1980, 91)
The discussion therefore seemed to lead to the conclusion that 450 $cm^2$ was a minimum for survival, but that it was not compatible with welfare.

## 5.2 $Cm^2$ per hen, or $m^2$ per building?

But in his 1981 report, Commissioner Dalsager gave another account of the situation. It had not been presented in the 1980 Gundelach report, probably because the data had not yet been collected (Commission of the European Communities and Dalsager 1981). According to him, in 1979, 80% of the hens kept in cages had a space of 400 $cm^2$ (light breeds) and 450 $cm^2$ (heavy breeds): this is exactly the threshold above which egg productivity per hen begins to increase, as Goldhorn pointed out in 1980. This simply signifies that breeders had not waited for scientific measurements to fine-tune space allowances — even though extremes also existed, e.g., the minimum surface area per hen in Denmark was already 600 $cm^2$ in 1980, whereas the minimum observed in Europe was 320 $cm^2$.

Looking at the 1980 conference results, one might wonder why the average was not closer to 580 $cm^2$ per hen, since it had already been proven that productivity was clearly better with this figure. Dalsager's report gives an enlightening explanation: in overcrowded cages, the egg production rates *per hen* decreases, but "the maximum production *per m*² of building was obtained by stocking cages at 450 $cm^2$ per bird" (Commission of the European Communities and Dalsager 1981, my italics). Crossing figures given by Moss, 1980 and by Dalsager, 1981, it is clear that the aim was not the best production per hen, though is was supposed to be a corollary of better welfare. The aim was rather the best production per $m^2$ of building, i.e., the ratio of productivity per hen to number of hens per building. Thus optimum productivity (here 400 to 450 $cm^2$) was not correlated with optimum welfare.

The welfarist argument (as opposed to the abolitionist) states that there is a correlation between welfare and thriving (animals that experience welfare produce more), and therefore alleges that it is possible to align industrial and animal interests (Fraser 2008; Porcher 2004; Mench 2018).
Yet this position is falsified by the very choice of measure units. This proves that from the very first scientific debates, animal welfare was not at stake at all, but productivity was. The animal was an adjustment variable in the management of a production building.

## 5.3 The one hectare argument

During the 1980 discussion, C. C. Brantas made an argument that radically challenged these conclusions, giving a critical look at the use of square centimeters as a measure unit:

> I think that the only minimum we can talk about is 1 hectare, because when the laying hens are raised in totally free conditions, they gather and live in an area of about 1 hectare. The minimum is therefore 1 hectare. Keeping these animals in less space means depressing their welfare. This is the only measure we can have: one hectare. (Moss 1980, 93)

Considering that one hectare equals one million square centimeters, it is obvious that at this point, Brantas radically disagreed with figures ranging from 360 to even 600cm².

But this goes further than a mere disagreement on figures: Brantas added that the very measure used (area per hen) was not relevant, since hens live in groups, move continuously around their territory, and since the population density varies along their diurnal activities. So why was the area per hen initially chosen as relevant, when in fact it was not? I propose two correlated answers: first, this measurement unit choice means that scientists *a priori* think in the context of domesticity and not in that of the natural behavior of the animals, *i.e.*, their research question excludes the possibility of drastically modifying, or even stopping, husbandry. Secondly, this measurement unit choice means that scientists have an interest in using cages, as it allows them to isolate hens.

## 5.4 Battery Cages: objective science, at last

At that time, scientific studies of laying hens belonged to a theoretical framework where such measures as cm²/hen were considered relevant. This measure has an implicit prerequisite: counting an area *per hen* implies that one is able to *isolate* hens. As Brantas pointed, wild hens do not isolate themselves, but live in flocks. Now what allows humans to isolate domesticated animals from one
another? Cages. An underlying hypothesis of this paper is that the main reason for using cages was
never protection (e.g., against predators or diseases), but because they permitted to assign hens both
an individual surface area and an individual index of productivity. Further historical studies should
be undertaken to qualify that; but the use of "trap nests," first patented in the early twentieth
century, were designed as a means to set up rigorous laying tables (Charon 1929, 49-58). They are
the technical ancestors of battery cages, and technical filiation clearly weighs in favor of this
hypothesis.

The possibility of isolating individuals is precisely the solution to the problem of variability,
so troublesome to scientists. The techno-scientific promise of adapting animals to the farming
environment can work if, and only if, animals are standardized (Sayer 2008; Jayne 2019; García-
Sancho and Myelnikov 2019). What undermines the scientific project, according to the 1979 and
1980 reports, is the absence of an animal that can serve as a scientific model, i.e., an animal reduced
to the strict minimum of variability, especially genetic variability (Bolduc 2009, 93-104). What
cage promises, as a technical design used in parallel with genetic selection, is that scientists will
eventually dispose of such a model, allowing them to practice objective science at last.

Thus the cage is the critical, indispensable tool to keep the techno-scientific promise of animal
welfare sciences. As this promise was at the foundation of the animal welfare scientists' identity,
and as this identity was consolidated by an alliance with politics, then using cm² as the unit of
measurement, and therefore the cage as a tool of measurement, was an over-determined decision.

5.5 The obligatory meeting point of science and industry

This means that the alliance between scientists and the legislator was doubled with an alliance
between scientists and industrial breeders. It shouldn't be *a priori* excluded that industrial pressures
were already producing strategic ignorance, even before the 1980 symposium, e.g., in the funding
of national research programs. But it is hard to assess such influences since archives of the
agricultural lobbies in Europe at the time, as well as those of egg industrial firms, are not open. Few
studies of these agricultural lobbies and influence groups have appeared (Borcherding and Dorosh 1981; Balsiger 2016; Sarasúa and Scholliers 2005; A. John Webster 2001; Schulze and Deimel 2012; Kasa 2008) but the Historical Archives of the European Commission recently digitized COPA and COGECA papers, which calls for further studies (Comité général de la coopération agricole des pays de la CEE (COGECA) 1967). The main conclusion of this paper is that scientists did *not* need such external pressures as lobbying or conspiracies, to align themselves with the industrial state of affairs. On the contrary, their identity and epistemological interests were aligned with those of industrialists by means of the techno-scientific promise of genetic adaptation, and through the use of cages as a measurement tool.

In other words, the cage was an “obligatory passage point,” such as defined by Callon (Callon 1986; Law and Callon 1992): it allowed a new social group (scientific, political and industrial interests) to emerge and to set up an action program, which consisted in the EEC research program on animal welfare, the European series of directives on animal welfare (from 1988 to 1999), the general CAP integration process, and industrial strategies. By allowing such constructions, the promise and the cage indeed crystallized as a common ground one had to accept in order to enter the group or take part in the action program.

# 6 Conclusion

According to Proctor, selective ignorance is “an over-determined mix of deliberate and inadvertent neglect” (Proctor and Schiebinger 2008, 15). In this paper, I qualified this neglect by revealing its specific levers and hinges. Drawing on Thompson’s argument that interdisciplinary work is necessary in order to counter effects of disciplinary competition causing ignorance growth (Thompson 1997), and on Elliot’s work on selective ignorance (Elliott 2013), I gave a more detailed account of the intertwined disciplinary levers that cause ignorance and inhibit political decision. I showed that the 1980 symposium was an event of ignorance production, strictly internal to scientific practice (i.e., not directly caused by external, non-scientific actors), that it was the result
of worries about disciplinary identity, and that its main lever was a techno-scientific promise. This specific case study allowed me to show how a technological object, such as the battery cage, can very well play the role of an obligatory passage point between disciplinary and professional groups.

The main reason why legislative action was so hindered in the early 1980's is less a kind of "neglect," than the construction of disciplinary identity, which lies *between* selective and strategic ignorance. In this specific case, scientific alignment to industrial interests consisted neither in an "inadvertent neglect" for some aspects of animal welfare, nor in a voluntary attempt at ignoring or doubting, caused by external pressures such as lobbying. However, as Proctor proposes, this ignorance production was indeed "over-determined." But the determinant is a complex one, made of the history and structure of agricultural sciences, of the role of animal welfare science as political counselor, and of specific identity stakes and promises given to animal welfare disciplines. Animal welfare science's need for a standard, isolated object of study that resists variability meets interests for the promise of genetic adaptation and the use of cages. Here, I suggest that the key issue in this type of ignorance production lies in the concern that a discipline has for its own scientific identity: it is a sociological determinant rather than an individual neglect.

I showed how agnotology could be used as an analytical tool for science studies, and put forward this specific case in order to foster works on an understudied domain of agricultural science. I now contend that this analytical lens should inform future research on animal welfare science and policy, as well as current debates on animal welfare. On June 30th, 2021, the European Commission responded positively to the European Citizen's Initiative "End the Cage Age," and therefore committed to phase out the use of cage systems for laying hens and other farm animals (European Commission 2021). In this process, scientists, politics and citizens all alike could make proper use of their knowledge of the 1979-1980 setback, as well as of the specific factors that led scientists towards using a double standard. This knowledge is indeed the first step to clarifying implicit interests and political decisions, which would otherwise pass off as scientifically-based, or unquestionable facts.
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**Author biography:** Samuel Ducourant is a Ph.D. student at École Normale Supérieure (Paris, France) under supervision of Prof. Florence Burgat and Prof. Sophie Roux. His Ph.D. work is on the emergence and dynamics of the concept of Animal Welfare, with a History and Philosophy of Sciences approach, questioning interactions between scientific and political personnels, as well as production of ignorance. He also teaches History and Philosophy of Sciences at Paris Sciences Lettres (PSL) University.

**Acknowledgments:** I thank Julie Beauté, Prof. Florence Burgat, Jeanne Etelain, Lucie Fabry, Igor Galligo, Doris Gruel, Benoit Lépinat, Louis Pijaudier-Cabot, Tal Piterbraut-Merx, Ange Pottin, Prof. Sophie Roux, Prof. Peter Sandøe and Dr. Carlotta Santini for their careful proof-reading and helpful comments. I also heartily thank both anonymous reviewers, as well as *Science, Technology, and Human values* Editor and Managing Editor for their detailed and useful comments.