New CP, new person - same old arguments!
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To celebrate my 1,000th post, and that I am therefore due to be granted a personality by thr Great Bob in the Cybersky, I thought I'd give you a break from Global Warming and cough-syrup and treat you instead to MY favourite rant... yeah, you guessed it... [I actually posted this on Monday, saw it here, then before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the site went down for the rest of the day... coincidence? Surely... it has been barely usable since then in the UK, but seems to be back now, though my post seems to have vanished and my count still shows 999... so here we go... (btw, heartfelt congrats and sympathies to Chris and team - what a few days you must have had - ouch!)] Anyway... yes, vivisection. It still just amazes me that anyone with half a brain still falls for this nonsense. How can testing drug A on animal N in a laboratory and observing result R tell you ANYTHING useful about how drug A will react in person X in the real world? Or person Y? I mean, it so obviously illogical, such obvious bad science, I have to wonder why it is that people cannot or will not see it... if my arch-nemesis 73Zeppelin wasn't so blinded by his preconceptions I'm sure he'd have some pyschological insights into it, but my suspicion is it's to do with peoples' fear of death, and their insatiable need to find some "answers" - some turn to priests in grey robes, and others to scientists in white coats.... and never mind the truth. There are countless examples of tragic and misleading results from vivisection, and any "success" is nothing more than co-incidence and chance. The point is, you cannot know what the results of human trials are until you try them - meanwhile your animals tests have told you nothing that you can rely on - if they were reliable there woudn't have been the catalogue of human disasters there have been, but simplre logic and clear thinking will tell you that such tests cannot possibly be reliable. And the eveidence backs this up. (I have posted up some examples of this in the past, and will again if anyone wants but a) you can Google this stuff for yourself if you want, and b) I really want you to just consider the simple logic - or illogic - of the vivisectionists' claims, as in para 3 above.) There was a story in the news just recently about how some new mouse experiment was going to lead to a revolutionary cure for cancer in a few years. Oh yawn, please. This nonsense is trotted out religiously every few years to keep you hooked and their money reeling in. I have lost c
Fred, I'm honoured you think of me as your "arch-nemesis", but truth be told I am against vivisection. However, what I cannot so easily dismiss are the other medical research aspects like cancer studies. I agree with you that it's horrible for rats to be injected with cancer cells, etc.. but there really are no other viable ways of studying such diseases without animal trials. It's an unfortunate situation and the higher up the evolutionary tree one goes, the harder it is for me to justify. For example, many diabetics owe their lives to dogs on which insulin was tested. It's a difficult ethical dilemma, to be sure and I don't take such things lightly. Anyways, I have not and would not vivisect an animal, but it's also difficult to deny the many medical advances that have been brought about by animal trials. And in case you think I'm heartless, every year I go to Samos in Greece and when I return to Europe I always transport rescued dogs that are exported from Greece to Europe in order that they can be given homes. The Greeks have a terrible problem with homeless animals. All you have to be willing to do is have the dog/cat checked in under your name. It's then flown from Greece to Europe where it's unloaded and taken to a shelter for adoption. Many people don't know about it, but there's no cost involved, just a willingness to transport the animal. Anyways, that is all.
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Fred, I'm honoured you think of me as your "arch-nemesis", but truth be told I am against vivisection. However, what I cannot so easily dismiss are the other medical research aspects like cancer studies. I agree with you that it's horrible for rats to be injected with cancer cells, etc.. but there really are no other viable ways of studying such diseases without animal trials. It's an unfortunate situation and the higher up the evolutionary tree one goes, the harder it is for me to justify. For example, many diabetics owe their lives to dogs on which insulin was tested. It's a difficult ethical dilemma, to be sure and I don't take such things lightly. Anyways, I have not and would not vivisect an animal, but it's also difficult to deny the many medical advances that have been brought about by animal trials. And in case you think I'm heartless, every year I go to Samos in Greece and when I return to Europe I always transport rescued dogs that are exported from Greece to Europe in order that they can be given homes. The Greeks have a terrible problem with homeless animals. All you have to be willing to do is have the dog/cat checked in under your name. It's then flown from Greece to Europe where it's unloaded and taken to a shelter for adoption. Many people don't know about it, but there's no cost involved, just a willingness to transport the animal. Anyways, that is all.
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Fred_Smith wrote:
What is your take on this[^]?
I think that's a misrepresentation of the discovery of insulin. Banting and Best discovered insulin by analysing the pancreases of dogs. Insulin was discovered in 1922. Prior to 1922, nobody knew of it - if you want to be pedantic, in 1919 a Romanian basically isolated insulin, but was unable to fully understand what he had. History contradicts what is written in the site you linked to. If what that site claims was true, then by now (in modern times) there would be a cure for diabetes rather than treatment with insulin. Such is not the case because the disease is quite complex. It is also very easy to make these claims in retrospect. At the time, the situation was not so clear.
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To celebrate my 1,000th post, and that I am therefore due to be granted a personality by thr Great Bob in the Cybersky, I thought I'd give you a break from Global Warming and cough-syrup and treat you instead to MY favourite rant... yeah, you guessed it... [I actually posted this on Monday, saw it here, then before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the site went down for the rest of the day... coincidence? Surely... it has been barely usable since then in the UK, but seems to be back now, though my post seems to have vanished and my count still shows 999... so here we go... (btw, heartfelt congrats and sympathies to Chris and team - what a few days you must have had - ouch!)] Anyway... yes, vivisection. It still just amazes me that anyone with half a brain still falls for this nonsense. How can testing drug A on animal N in a laboratory and observing result R tell you ANYTHING useful about how drug A will react in person X in the real world? Or person Y? I mean, it so obviously illogical, such obvious bad science, I have to wonder why it is that people cannot or will not see it... if my arch-nemesis 73Zeppelin wasn't so blinded by his preconceptions I'm sure he'd have some pyschological insights into it, but my suspicion is it's to do with peoples' fear of death, and their insatiable need to find some "answers" - some turn to priests in grey robes, and others to scientists in white coats.... and never mind the truth. There are countless examples of tragic and misleading results from vivisection, and any "success" is nothing more than co-incidence and chance. The point is, you cannot know what the results of human trials are until you try them - meanwhile your animals tests have told you nothing that you can rely on - if they were reliable there woudn't have been the catalogue of human disasters there have been, but simplre logic and clear thinking will tell you that such tests cannot possibly be reliable. And the eveidence backs this up. (I have posted up some examples of this in the past, and will again if anyone wants but a) you can Google this stuff for yourself if you want, and b) I really want you to just consider the simple logic - or illogic - of the vivisectionists' claims, as in para 3 above.) There was a story in the news just recently about how some new mouse experiment was going to lead to a revolutionary cure for cancer in a few years. Oh yawn, please. This nonsense is trotted out religiously every few years to keep you hooked and their money reeling in. I have lost c
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To celebrate my 1,000th post, and that I am therefore due to be granted a personality by thr Great Bob in the Cybersky, I thought I'd give you a break from Global Warming and cough-syrup and treat you instead to MY favourite rant... yeah, you guessed it... [I actually posted this on Monday, saw it here, then before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the site went down for the rest of the day... coincidence? Surely... it has been barely usable since then in the UK, but seems to be back now, though my post seems to have vanished and my count still shows 999... so here we go... (btw, heartfelt congrats and sympathies to Chris and team - what a few days you must have had - ouch!)] Anyway... yes, vivisection. It still just amazes me that anyone with half a brain still falls for this nonsense. How can testing drug A on animal N in a laboratory and observing result R tell you ANYTHING useful about how drug A will react in person X in the real world? Or person Y? I mean, it so obviously illogical, such obvious bad science, I have to wonder why it is that people cannot or will not see it... if my arch-nemesis 73Zeppelin wasn't so blinded by his preconceptions I'm sure he'd have some pyschological insights into it, but my suspicion is it's to do with peoples' fear of death, and their insatiable need to find some "answers" - some turn to priests in grey robes, and others to scientists in white coats.... and never mind the truth. There are countless examples of tragic and misleading results from vivisection, and any "success" is nothing more than co-incidence and chance. The point is, you cannot know what the results of human trials are until you try them - meanwhile your animals tests have told you nothing that you can rely on - if they were reliable there woudn't have been the catalogue of human disasters there have been, but simplre logic and clear thinking will tell you that such tests cannot possibly be reliable. And the eveidence backs this up. (I have posted up some examples of this in the past, and will again if anyone wants but a) you can Google this stuff for yourself if you want, and b) I really want you to just consider the simple logic - or illogic - of the vivisectionists' claims, as in para 3 above.) There was a story in the news just recently about how some new mouse experiment was going to lead to a revolutionary cure for cancer in a few years. Oh yawn, please. This nonsense is trotted out religiously every few years to keep you hooked and their money reeling in. I have lost c
I agree with you. If we have the audacity to synthesize these strange and mysterious chemicals that require research and testing, then we should test it on our selves, unless of course the substance is for an animal to begin with. If it is too dangerous to test on a descent human then we should dig up a piece of shit from prison and make it useful to society. Someone who is getting the death penalty or one who is in for life would make a perfect candidate.
Word, write letters and sh*t yo.
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To celebrate my 1,000th post, and that I am therefore due to be granted a personality by thr Great Bob in the Cybersky, I thought I'd give you a break from Global Warming and cough-syrup and treat you instead to MY favourite rant... yeah, you guessed it... [I actually posted this on Monday, saw it here, then before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the site went down for the rest of the day... coincidence? Surely... it has been barely usable since then in the UK, but seems to be back now, though my post seems to have vanished and my count still shows 999... so here we go... (btw, heartfelt congrats and sympathies to Chris and team - what a few days you must have had - ouch!)] Anyway... yes, vivisection. It still just amazes me that anyone with half a brain still falls for this nonsense. How can testing drug A on animal N in a laboratory and observing result R tell you ANYTHING useful about how drug A will react in person X in the real world? Or person Y? I mean, it so obviously illogical, such obvious bad science, I have to wonder why it is that people cannot or will not see it... if my arch-nemesis 73Zeppelin wasn't so blinded by his preconceptions I'm sure he'd have some pyschological insights into it, but my suspicion is it's to do with peoples' fear of death, and their insatiable need to find some "answers" - some turn to priests in grey robes, and others to scientists in white coats.... and never mind the truth. There are countless examples of tragic and misleading results from vivisection, and any "success" is nothing more than co-incidence and chance. The point is, you cannot know what the results of human trials are until you try them - meanwhile your animals tests have told you nothing that you can rely on - if they were reliable there woudn't have been the catalogue of human disasters there have been, but simplre logic and clear thinking will tell you that such tests cannot possibly be reliable. And the eveidence backs this up. (I have posted up some examples of this in the past, and will again if anyone wants but a) you can Google this stuff for yourself if you want, and b) I really want you to just consider the simple logic - or illogic - of the vivisectionists' claims, as in para 3 above.) There was a story in the news just recently about how some new mouse experiment was going to lead to a revolutionary cure for cancer in a few years. Oh yawn, please. This nonsense is trotted out religiously every few years to keep you hooked and their money reeling in. I have lost c
We humans have used animals for our own benefit in one way or another for ever. The lives and wellbeing of humans has always been put before those of animals and Im ok with that. I dont buy the whole pharma companies = global conspiracy to keep scientists in work theory. If someone thinks they may have a compound that could be beneficial as a treatment for some medical issue and they kill 5000 mice to discover they were wrong thats perfectly ok with me. I think this is an interesting discussion in that it shows how drastic some changes in attitudes have been in the first world over the last 150 years. If you told a farmer in 1850 that its wrong to whip his ox you'd be put in an asylum. Today your called an "eco warrior".
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We humans have used animals for our own benefit in one way or another for ever. The lives and wellbeing of humans has always been put before those of animals and Im ok with that. I dont buy the whole pharma companies = global conspiracy to keep scientists in work theory. If someone thinks they may have a compound that could be beneficial as a treatment for some medical issue and they kill 5000 mice to discover they were wrong thats perfectly ok with me. I think this is an interesting discussion in that it shows how drastic some changes in attitudes have been in the first world over the last 150 years. If you told a farmer in 1850 that its wrong to whip his ox you'd be put in an asylum. Today your called an "eco warrior".
Josh Gray wrote:
The lives and wellbeing of humans has always been put before those of animals and Im ok with that.
Thats kind of like how when slave owners would justify owning slaves. We are animals by the way.
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Josh Gray wrote:
The lives and wellbeing of humans has always been put before those of animals and Im ok with that.
Thats kind of like how when slave owners would justify owning slaves. We are animals by the way.
CataclysmicQuantums wrote:
Thats kind of like how when slave owners would justify owning slaves.
Do you not keep a dog for your own pleasure?
CataclysmicQuantums wrote:
We are animals by the way.
Yes we are and you yourself advocated using humans for medical experiments in your post above.
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I agree with you. If we have the audacity to synthesize these strange and mysterious chemicals that require research and testing, then we should test it on our selves, unless of course the substance is for an animal to begin with. If it is too dangerous to test on a descent human then we should dig up a piece of shit from prison and make it useful to society. Someone who is getting the death penalty or one who is in for life would make a perfect candidate.
Word, write letters and sh*t yo.
That's so ironic for a hopeless drug addict to advocate human experimentation. That is like an insect advocating the use of bug spray. :laugh:
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That is a terrible excuse for ignoring it! Why does caring about people mean you can't also care about animals? Basically, you don't WANT to, be truthful and admit that's what it comes down to. You don't want to change your eating/living habits, but do want an excuse to feel good about yourself, so you tell yourself what a good person you are because you care about people. What you are doing is using the extreme views of some animal rightists as an excuse to not have to think about this issue. But it's irrelvant - so what if you don't agree with them? Why does that stop you from caring about the abuse of animals? If you want to care about people first and foremost, fine - but you can still care about animal welfare whatever the case, and whatever others do. And one reason some of us are so vocal about it is because the animals cannot speak for themselves. No animal has volunteered to be medically experimented on, or to be killed for your dinner. I don't not care about people - I just know there are plenty of people working and fighting on their behalf, but precious few who will argue the animals' corner. It is a red-herring, a deliberate distraction to move the argument away from animal rights and onto one about who cares most for what.
Fred_Smith wrote:
That is a terrible excuse for ignoring it!
No not ignoring it, otherwise I wouldn't have posted. It's simply not my task, if it's yours then fine. As I said I don't disagree with your basic idea as far as I can see.
Fred_Smith wrote:
You don't want to change your eating/living habits
No I certainly don't and these do not require unnecessary animal experimentation. They do require the use and killing of animals and I have no problem with that. We are permitted to do this, no moral issues there. That we should not waste what we harvest or cause suffering for the sake of it I agree absolutely. I do care about animal welfare but I'll have no truck with animal rights, there are no such things so arguing the animals corner is a moot point, they don't have one. The issue is one of human morality, responsibility and stewardship.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
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Once again my overwhelming ambivalence on this issue comes to the fore. It's not that I disagree with you it's merely that this issue is so far down my list of priority problems in the world that I can't imagine feeling strongly enough to rant about it without my priorities being seriously and badly adjusted. It work out something like this People's eternal wellbeing. People's short term wellbeing Stewardship of the planet to ensure the vaiability of future people's wellbeing Being nice to animals vegtables and minerals The problem is that there are so many things wrong in categories 1-3, billions of souls to save, freedom and democracy to restore to my own people and then hopefully others, food supply, sanitation, education, deforestation, even GW or CC, manmade or otherwise, if it comes to that. When all these things are put to rights and the world is at peace, fed , watered, free and back in a right relationship with God then somehow I think the vivsection thing will have sorted itself out. If not, I'll look into it then I promise ;)
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
It work out something like this People's eternal wellbeing. People's short term wellbeing Stewardship of the planet to ensure the vaiability of future people's wellbeing Being nice to animals vegtables and minerals
Exactly why I have a problem with religious people being in the government, they would sooner advance their religion than conserve the environment.
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CataclysmicQuantums wrote:
Thats kind of like how when slave owners would justify owning slaves.
Do you not keep a dog for your own pleasure?
CataclysmicQuantums wrote:
We are animals by the way.
Yes we are and you yourself advocated using humans for medical experiments in your post above.
Josh Gray wrote:
Do you not keep a dog for your own pleasure?
He is my buddy, he wants to stay with me. He follows me around everywhere and is constantly bugging me. I can't walk 5 feet without him being right behind me. I didn't buy him or anything, he was stolen *cough* rescued from the owners who were abusing him. If it wasn't for the goodness in my heart he wouldn't be here.
Josh Gray wrote:
Yes we are and you yourself advocated using humans for medical experiments in your post above.
Yeah, we have a choice to take it. Testing it on animals that are not human is like testing it on a newborn human baby. Those who are rotting in jail for murder and such make perfect candidates for the involuntary tests. They get what they deserve and are paying their debt to society at the same time.
Word, write letters and sh*t yo.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
It work out something like this People's eternal wellbeing. People's short term wellbeing Stewardship of the planet to ensure the vaiability of future people's wellbeing Being nice to animals vegtables and minerals
Exactly why I have a problem with religious people being in the government, they would sooner advance their religion than conserve the environment.
Demon Possessed wrote:
Exactly why I have a problem with religious people being in the government
Then don't vote for them. If they are elected, however, it would be kind of silly to expect them to do anything but push for legislation in keeping with their conscience.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Elliot Me blog, You read
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Demon Possessed wrote:
Exactly why I have a problem with religious people being in the government
Then don't vote for them. If they are elected, however, it would be kind of silly to expect them to do anything but push for legislation in keeping with their conscience.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. - Jim Elliot Me blog, You read
Exactly. But all the candidates running right now are religious, even Hillary (or so she claims, and not that I would vote for her even if she was an atheist). With 80-90% of the population being religious, do you think a rational thinker would have much of a chance? :)
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We humans have used animals for our own benefit in one way or another for ever. The lives and wellbeing of humans has always been put before those of animals and Im ok with that. I dont buy the whole pharma companies = global conspiracy to keep scientists in work theory. If someone thinks they may have a compound that could be beneficial as a treatment for some medical issue and they kill 5000 mice to discover they were wrong thats perfectly ok with me. I think this is an interesting discussion in that it shows how drastic some changes in attitudes have been in the first world over the last 150 years. If you told a farmer in 1850 that its wrong to whip his ox you'd be put in an asylum. Today your called an "eco warrior".
Josh Gray wrote:
We humans have used animals for our own benefit in one way or another for ever ... it shows how drastic some changes in attitudes have been in the first world
Indeed - our attitudes (on all subjects) change over time much as hair-styles and clothes do. Slavery, nationalism, religion, homosexuality, sex in general, marriage, money (and the pursuit of), hedonism... women... the list is endless, and the changing attitudes to them over time can be quite a fascinating subject in itself. But what this shows up, of course, is that such attitudes are not based on truth or objectivism, but are little more than fashions of the time, or determined by expediency - what profits the society of the day. But generally, throughout history, animals have had a pretty rough time of it. One of the "justifications" for slavery was that negroes were no better than animals... For centuries women were treated as they were (and still are in many parts of the world) because is suited men to believe that they were of inferior intelligence. Unlike blacks and women though, it has never been expedient for the rest of us to think about animals in any way other than for our own selfish desires. And that is what it comes down to: people are inherently selfish. That's ok, at least historically - so is all of nature (and we are animals too, after all...) Until quite recently, and still in a large portion of the globe, life has been tough - damn tough, and people have done whatever they have needed to in order to survive. And that has meant putting their own needs first. Well, who am I to argue with a starving Biafran about that? But I will argue with you lot, because we here in the affluent First World of the 21st century do not have to continue like this. Just as we were forced to re-evaluate our attitudes towards women and blacks, perhaps it's about time we looked again at how we treat other life on this planet, and indeed the planet as a whole. No one - not you, me or any one else - is going to single-handedly change anything; all we can do is make our own idividual choices about how we live. It does not matter whether or not you believe the whole world could survive without exploiting animals - you, personally, can. If you want to, that is. You really can - all you have to do is make that choice. You will not be condemning starving Africans to death by so doing; you will not be telling children with leukemia that you don't care about them. But just like disab
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Fred_Smith wrote:
That is a terrible excuse for ignoring it!
No not ignoring it, otherwise I wouldn't have posted. It's simply not my task, if it's yours then fine. As I said I don't disagree with your basic idea as far as I can see.
Fred_Smith wrote:
You don't want to change your eating/living habits
No I certainly don't and these do not require unnecessary animal experimentation. They do require the use and killing of animals and I have no problem with that. We are permitted to do this, no moral issues there. That we should not waste what we harvest or cause suffering for the sake of it I agree absolutely. I do care about animal welfare but I'll have no truck with animal rights, there are no such things so arguing the animals corner is a moot point, they don't have one. The issue is one of human morality, responsibility and stewardship.
Nothing is exactly what it seems but everything with seems can be unpicked.
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I do care about animal welfare but I'll have no truck with animal rights, there are no such things so arguing the animals corner is a moot point, they don't have one. The issue is one of human morality, responsibility and stewardship.
That is just being pedantic. You do not care about animal welfare - if you did you would be a vegan, plain and simple. Anyone that says they care about animals and isn't vegan is a hypocrite - sorry if that offends you, but if you don't believe me, just open your eyes to what REALLY goes on in farms and factories around the world (including the USA and UK.)
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To celebrate my 1,000th post, and that I am therefore due to be granted a personality by thr Great Bob in the Cybersky, I thought I'd give you a break from Global Warming and cough-syrup and treat you instead to MY favourite rant... yeah, you guessed it... [I actually posted this on Monday, saw it here, then before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the site went down for the rest of the day... coincidence? Surely... it has been barely usable since then in the UK, but seems to be back now, though my post seems to have vanished and my count still shows 999... so here we go... (btw, heartfelt congrats and sympathies to Chris and team - what a few days you must have had - ouch!)] Anyway... yes, vivisection. It still just amazes me that anyone with half a brain still falls for this nonsense. How can testing drug A on animal N in a laboratory and observing result R tell you ANYTHING useful about how drug A will react in person X in the real world? Or person Y? I mean, it so obviously illogical, such obvious bad science, I have to wonder why it is that people cannot or will not see it... if my arch-nemesis 73Zeppelin wasn't so blinded by his preconceptions I'm sure he'd have some pyschological insights into it, but my suspicion is it's to do with peoples' fear of death, and their insatiable need to find some "answers" - some turn to priests in grey robes, and others to scientists in white coats.... and never mind the truth. There are countless examples of tragic and misleading results from vivisection, and any "success" is nothing more than co-incidence and chance. The point is, you cannot know what the results of human trials are until you try them - meanwhile your animals tests have told you nothing that you can rely on - if they were reliable there woudn't have been the catalogue of human disasters there have been, but simplre logic and clear thinking will tell you that such tests cannot possibly be reliable. And the eveidence backs this up. (I have posted up some examples of this in the past, and will again if anyone wants but a) you can Google this stuff for yourself if you want, and b) I really want you to just consider the simple logic - or illogic - of the vivisectionists' claims, as in para 3 above.) There was a story in the news just recently about how some new mouse experiment was going to lead to a revolutionary cure for cancer in a few years. Oh yawn, please. This nonsense is trotted out religiously every few years to keep you hooked and their money reeling in. I have lost c
I would personally kill a million mice if it meant a cure for cancer and leukaemia... Think you picked the wrong example there...
------------------------------------------- Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; Don't walk behind me, I may not lead; Just bugger off and leave me alone!!
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I would personally kill a million mice if it meant a cure for cancer and leukaemia... Think you picked the wrong example there...
------------------------------------------- Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow; Don't walk behind me, I may not lead; Just bugger off and leave me alone!!
_Damian S_ wrote:
I would personally kill a million mice if it meant a cure for cancer and leukaemia
But it won't.
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That's so ironic for a hopeless drug addict to advocate human experimentation. That is like an insect advocating the use of bug spray. :laugh:
Demon Possessed wrote:
That is like an insect advocating the use of bug spray.
Yeah....sure it is.
Word, write letters and sh*t yo.
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Josh Gray wrote:
We humans have used animals for our own benefit in one way or another for ever ... it shows how drastic some changes in attitudes have been in the first world
Indeed - our attitudes (on all subjects) change over time much as hair-styles and clothes do. Slavery, nationalism, religion, homosexuality, sex in general, marriage, money (and the pursuit of), hedonism... women... the list is endless, and the changing attitudes to them over time can be quite a fascinating subject in itself. But what this shows up, of course, is that such attitudes are not based on truth or objectivism, but are little more than fashions of the time, or determined by expediency - what profits the society of the day. But generally, throughout history, animals have had a pretty rough time of it. One of the "justifications" for slavery was that negroes were no better than animals... For centuries women were treated as they were (and still are in many parts of the world) because is suited men to believe that they were of inferior intelligence. Unlike blacks and women though, it has never been expedient for the rest of us to think about animals in any way other than for our own selfish desires. And that is what it comes down to: people are inherently selfish. That's ok, at least historically - so is all of nature (and we are animals too, after all...) Until quite recently, and still in a large portion of the globe, life has been tough - damn tough, and people have done whatever they have needed to in order to survive. And that has meant putting their own needs first. Well, who am I to argue with a starving Biafran about that? But I will argue with you lot, because we here in the affluent First World of the 21st century do not have to continue like this. Just as we were forced to re-evaluate our attitudes towards women and blacks, perhaps it's about time we looked again at how we treat other life on this planet, and indeed the planet as a whole. No one - not you, me or any one else - is going to single-handedly change anything; all we can do is make our own idividual choices about how we live. It does not matter whether or not you believe the whole world could survive without exploiting animals - you, personally, can. If you want to, that is. You really can - all you have to do is make that choice. You will not be condemning starving Africans to death by so doing; you will not be telling children with leukemia that you don't care about them. But just like disab
Im all for looking after and being kind to animals. I've always had pets and have always loved them and looked after them. I think the basic difference in our opinions is that I see value in using animals for medical research. I believe many many people have benifited from this. If a shared your view that this research was pointless I'd agree with you that it should be stopped but I dont.