Can they suffer

View Large Image | Download PowerPoint SlideSince the passing of the Animal Welfare Act in 1966, it has been incumbent on researchers working with animals to consider their methods and strive to treat their animal subjects as humanely as possible. Of course, the Animal Welfare Act has its limitations. Not all animals are protected and some animals are afforded more or less protection than others; a determination based primarily on the presumed intelligence of the species in question. In his latest book, Marc Bekoff argues passionately that the status quo largely ignores the mental complexity of most animals, thus allowing severely unethical treatment in our laboratories, our farms and our zoos.Bekoff's thesis is that animals, from fish to mammals, have rich emotional lives and knowledge of this will change the way people ‘view, represent and treat our fellow beings’. Drawing from Darwin, he claims that differences in human and (nonhuman) animal emotions are differences merely in degree, not in kind. Throughout the book, Bekoff seeks to demonstrate, through anecdotes and scientific research, that animals display a wide range of emotions. These include, but Bekoff feels are not limited to, anger, happiness, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, embarrassment, empathy and love. He also spends a good deal of time defending the field of cognitive ethology, although not always very effectively.This is not a book intended for a scientific audience, nor will it be particularly convincing to skeptics, although this is clearly one of Bekoff's intentions. It is rather odd, in fact, that Bekoff has made the deliberate decision to weight his prose with a heavy dose of anecdote and only a smattering of scientific research. Perhaps he felt this approach would make the material more accessible to non-scientists. If this is the case, then he is guilty of condescending in the worst way. When writing for non-scientists, it is even more important to present the scientific support for your argument clearly and thoroughly because this is likely to be the only source your readers have on the subject. Yes, anecdotes can be useful in illustrating the larger point; however, it is hugely misleading to suggest that a collection of stories gleaned from many different animal species, let alone different contexts, is equivalent to the knowledge gained from a well designed experiment or meticulous observation.In addition, Bekoff is guilty of several contradictions (cognitive ethology is hard science that does not rely on anecdote in Chapter 2 but in Chapter 5 an entire section is devoted to defending the use of anecdotes in research; animals’ emotions are ‘raw, unfiltered, and uncontrolled’, yet they are also ‘cunning and deceitful’) and a bit of over-reaching (‘behavioral flexibility displays consciousness and passion’ – emphasis mine).Given Bekoff's thesis, one expects the concluding chapter to include several concrete examples of how we can change the way we do research on animals. But here, again, the reader is disappointed. In an earlier chapter, Bekoff does spend some time describing the ways in which field research can be useful and non-manipulative as well as rigorous, although his only solution for laboratory research seems to be functional magnetic fluorescence resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET) scans. He offers no real solutions for biomedical researchers and, although he does not state this outright, one is left with the impression that he believes the whole enterprise should be scrapped. Indeed, the great irony of this book is that the majority of scientific research that Bekoff actually does use to support his claims would fall into his category of unethical research.Although it is a light and fluffy read intended for a light and fluffy audience, it is not a book entirely without merit. The question of ethical treatment of animals and how we decide which animals are worthy of protection is an important one. In the end, however, one is left feeling that, to paraphrase Jeremy Bentham, the question is not: can they love? Nor can they laugh? But can they suffer? As fascinating as the wealth of animal emotions is, it is really only this last question that matters when we (re)consider our treatment of animals.