Hans Ruesch, 1913 - 2007
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Fred_Smith wrote:
I am not intersted in arguing the ethics or morality of this subject, [...] but rather the science of it.
Yeah. I've made it half-way through this thread, and you have yet to argue the science of it. You love the HR book, but most of us haven't read it and you won't quote it; i did do a quick search, and found out a bit about HR's career as a race-car driver, and a few brief mentions of his activism later in life... but nothing to make me stop and take notice. If you want to argue against the bad science of vivisection, then go find some good arguments and come back willing to justify them. If you just want to argue... well, i'm guessing that's where the rest of this thread is leading. :|
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I don't care what you consider witty, but at least I do not blather on posting nonsense like Jim Crafton.
-- Stringcheese, humbled by Crafton's ability to string together multiple sentences
F***s sake, all I did was recommend a book, and give some idea as to my thoughts on it. Amd say that if you want to hear the whole argument GO READ THAT. (Though there are, actually, a few quotes from it dotted throughout this thread if you can be bothered.) I'm sick to death of arguing with people about this, and didn't really want to get drawn into it again. But it just amazes me (well, no, it doesn't actually) the spite and vitriol this subject brings out in people. It really does strike a raw nerve with you all... much more so than I've ever seen any one here display over politics, the GW debate, religion even,... quite interesting that, really...
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F***s sake, all I did was recommend a book, and give some idea as to my thoughts on it. Amd say that if you want to hear the whole argument GO READ THAT. (Though there are, actually, a few quotes from it dotted throughout this thread if you can be bothered.) I'm sick to death of arguing with people about this, and didn't really want to get drawn into it again. But it just amazes me (well, no, it doesn't actually) the spite and vitriol this subject brings out in people. It really does strike a raw nerve with you all... much more so than I've ever seen any one here display over politics, the GW debate, religion even,... quite interesting that, really...
Fred_Smith wrote:
But it just amazes me (well, no, it doesn't actually) the spite and vitriol this subject brings out in people. It really does strike a raw nerve with you all...
Hmm. You know, i've seen more than a little bit of spite - and yes, even vitriol - from you, both in this thread and others into which you've dragged the subject. Somehow, i don't buy the "poor, innocent me, attacked when just recommending a book" line. I applaud your concern for the defenseless. Really, i do. I'm less enthusiastic about the self-righteous attitude. If you're looking for a pat on the back, i'm pretty sure you came to the wrong place. So, yeah. If you ever want to actually discuss this, drop the rhetoric and hyperbole and come prepared. In the meantime... careful not to break an arm.
You must be careful in the forest Broken glass and rusty nails If you're to bring back something for us I have bullets for sale...
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Fred_Smith wrote:
But it just amazes me (well, no, it doesn't actually) the spite and vitriol this subject brings out in people. It really does strike a raw nerve with you all...
Hmm. You know, i've seen more than a little bit of spite - and yes, even vitriol - from you, both in this thread and others into which you've dragged the subject. Somehow, i don't buy the "poor, innocent me, attacked when just recommending a book" line. I applaud your concern for the defenseless. Really, i do. I'm less enthusiastic about the self-righteous attitude. If you're looking for a pat on the back, i'm pretty sure you came to the wrong place. So, yeah. If you ever want to actually discuss this, drop the rhetoric and hyperbole and come prepared. In the meantime... careful not to break an arm.
You must be careful in the forest Broken glass and rusty nails If you're to bring back something for us I have bullets for sale...
Maybe my fault but you misunderstand me - I'm not really complaining about being attacked per se, I just didn't want to get into it today (had too much work on). I know I can get quite heated about this subject, and I know why, where it comes from in me - but what amazes me is how heated others get, people who profess not to give a damn... more than anything else I've come across, people really hate having thier attitudes to eating meat and using animals for medical research questioned - it obviously rasies all sorts of issues in them... It's past my bedtime here in the UK...
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In this respect you could be right. And, I you would probably agree with me that the only 'unalienable rights' we have are those we are prepared to fight for. Its a big fist and a big arm that gives a person rights. Take that away and he has nothing.
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
fat_boy wrote:
Take that away and he has nothing.
Then most of us have nothing, and the few who do were given it. I'm prepared to accept that. Are you?
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
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fat_boy wrote:
Take that away and he has nothing.
Then most of us have nothing, and the few who do were given it. I'm prepared to accept that. Are you?
every night, i kneel at the foot of my bed and thank the Great Overseeing Politicians for protecting my freedoms by reducing their number, as if they were deer in a state park. -- Chris Losinger, Online Poker Players?
Shog9 wrote:
Then most of us have nothing,
Hence strength through unity and the Union movement.
Shog9 wrote:
I'm prepared to accept that. Are you?
Yes. One we see it the way it is, we can then move on to create a set of artifical rights. But those rights must be enforced, or they are nothing.
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
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I recognize and declare the following rights of man and of the citizen: Article I - Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions can be founded only on the common utility. Article II - The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible [i.e., inviolable] rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression. Article III - The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual can exert authority which does not emanate expressly from it. Article IV - Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the enjoyment of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law. Article V - The law has the right to ward [i.e., forbid] only actions [which are] harmful to the society. Any thing which is not warded [i.e., forbidden] by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it [i.e., the law] does not order. Article VI - The law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its formation. It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents. Article VII - No man can be accused, arrested nor detained but in the cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who solicit, dispatch, carry out or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders, must be punished; but any citizen called [i.e., summoned] or seized under the terms of the law must obey at the moment; he renders himself culpable by resistance. Article VIII - The law should establish only strictly and evidently necessary penalties, and no one can be punished but under a law established and promulgated before the offense and [which is] legally applied. Article IX - Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared culpable, if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor [i.e., action] which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be severely reprimanded by the law. Article X - No one may be questioned about his opinions, [and the] same [for] religious [opinions], provided that t
OK, hold on. What I am getting ast is that we have no inherent right to anything. Not evern air, time, life, soil or food. The only rights we have are those we are prepared to fight for. Its nature. Plain and simple.
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
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OK, hold on. What I am getting ast is that we have no inherent right to anything. Not evern air, time, life, soil or food. The only rights we have are those we are prepared to fight for. Its nature. Plain and simple.
Truth is the subjection of reality to an individuals perception
fat_boy wrote:
Its nature.
The basis of the idea of human society is that we go over our natural conditions. Humanity by itself is since it learned how to make fire to change the rules imposed by our environment. We are not only animals, we are thinking ones.
Anyone who is not a misanthropist at 40 never loved men at any time Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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Fred_Smith wrote:
an intelligent scientific argument by a man who spent years researching his subject
Fred, it sure doesn't sound like a scientific argument when you use terms like:
Fred_Smith wrote:
For those that cling to the false belief almost unbelievable abuse sheer scale of the bad science involved all to feed the monetary greed satisfy the depserate need for reassurance
Frankly, this is an ethical argument, not a scientific one. The distinction is important, because scientific information is used to guide ethical decisions, not manufacture them. From my perspective, at this time the gain of animal experimentation far outweighs the cost. However, the literature has many researchers calling for a reform of animal experimentation procedures to ensure that the sacrifice of animal life is made significantly more efficient and productive. For your interest, here's some actual discussion on the issues from the scientific/medical literature.
Pound P, Ebrahim S, Sandercock P, Bracken MB, Roberts I. Where is the evidence that animal research benefits humans? BMJ 2004;328:514-7.
The contribution of animal studies to clinical medicine requires urgent formal evaluation. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the existing animal experiments would represent an important step forward in this process. Systematic reviews (particularly cumulative meta-analyses of ongoing experiments) could more efficiently determine when a valid conclusion has been reached from the animal studies.
This is nevertheless consistent with the fairly ubiquitous assertion of the medical and scientific community, and frankly, anyone who has taken a basic physiology course has benefited from animal research and experimentation: just look at the references in the textbook.
Lemon R, Dunnett SB. Surveying the literature from animal experiments. BMJ 2005;330:977-8.
Almost every form of conventional medical treatment (including most drugs, surgical treatments, and vaccines) was developed with the help of animal research. Most of what we know about the basic workings of the body—in humans and animals—has come to us through two centuries of animal experiments. Each decade of animal research has brought newer and deeper understanding.
A simple review of some su
I think the fundamental argument is how much value you place on life itself. Not just human life. Should any living entity be subject to torture? That's what we're talking about when discussing animal studies. Its inhumane. But if you are of the mind that we are seperate from our environment and the life around us, that its just some mechanistic construct for us to dominate then there is no discussion. I'd rather see human experimentation done with voluntary paid subjects. No animal would volunteer. And to be clear, vivisection is examining a living opened animal. How would you like to be split open and tacked to a table for study while you are awake? It is unethical and I agree that the argument isn't really scientific. But if we place science above ethics we've lost. If we only value human lives and not the lives of other living beings around us then we've lost. That's just flat out arrogant.
This statement was never false.
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Elucidate.
Humans largely, determine their own situation in life. The animals are subject to our whims, in the case of dogs mentioned above, they have no ability to determine their own outcome. I'd rather care about an animal that truly is trapped than one that truly is lazy.
This statement was never false.
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Fred_Smith wrote:
to ignore that of animals
And where is your limit? Will you fight against the extermination of billions of mosquitoes per year? What about the horrible fate of these countless bacterias destroyed by these naughty antibiotics? Or do you limit yourself to the cute, so cute furry-like ones?
Where do you expect us to go when the bombs fall?
Vivisection is cutting open an animal and studying its insides while it is awake. That is torture. Put all the spin you want on it. But it sounds more like human worship. We are one aspect of life, not the only one. Why don't you volunteer since you're so worried about your fellow man. I'm sure that a human subject would offer much more than an animal in terms of relevance to the subject.
This statement was never false.
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Fred_Smith wrote:
I am not anti-human
I think the fact that you oppose the necessary use of animals for medical research demonstrates that you are.
Red Stateler wrote:
I think the fact that you oppose the necessary use of animals
You assume the use is necessary. How about we treat cause instead of symptom...
This statement was never false.
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Fred_Smith wrote:
How does my catching mosquitoes and freeing them make you think there I go from there to a beloef that vivisection is unnecessary?
Because that level of...oddity...indicates that possibly. Just possibly. Your opinion that such research is "unnecessary" is based more on your overzealous desire to ensure humans do not kill animals than it is on level-headedness.
Fred_Smith wrote:
My not wanting to kill any living creature is a personal moral choice. My argument agianst vivisection is a scientific one. You can try (and those on your side of this argument constantly do) to confuse the two, but I am quite clear about the difference. And the reason you (or the vivisectors) do this is because they know, though they won't admit it, that their scientific arguments for it are bogus.
Your rather silly preference not to kill animals (as though animals are immune from premature death in the wild) may be a benign curiosity to those around, but your opinion that research considered valuable by those who conduct it is anything but benign. I also highly doubt that your equally zealous opinion on vivisection is "a scientific one"...Given the fact that you catch mosquitos in jars.
Red Stateler wrote:
desire to ensure humans do not kill animals
They are killing them. They are opening them up and tacking them to a table for study whilst alive. And awake. They can't study life when its dead.
This statement was never false.
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Fred_Smith wrote:
Oh for goodnes sakes - people can die prematurely too, that doesn't gove anyone the rght to murder them does it?
Of course not...Because they're "people". Equating people to animals on a moral level is...odd.
Fred_Smith wrote:
But you are still doing it, despite what I just said in my previous post: trying to confuse my morality with my science. I know the two are separate and if all you can do is try to confuse the two in order to make your point then all I can conclude is that you know you can't win the scientific argument and so have to resort to such diversionary tactics.
Yes, well...I can't help but postulate that since both your views are rather extreme and both cross the same boundary that your "morality" is indeed confused with your "science". My point isn't based on my confusion of the two, but rather your confusion of the two is my point.
Fred_Smith wrote:
Ther IS a good scientific case aginst vivisection. I simply can't post a whole treatise here about it (though I have made a few points elsewhere here)- it takes a book to do it justice, and such a book has been written. I urge you, again, to read it.
Two questions: 1. From which biological science is your PhD? 2. Can you point me to some papers you've published in respected journals on the fruitlessness of vivisection? I want to expand my horizons!
They're beings. But we humans are so arrogant we think we're the only ones. Good thing you don't believe in aliens. If they were above us they might not consider us as people and take to some vivisection in their saucers of discovery.
This statement was never false.
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Vivisection is cutting open an animal and studying its insides while it is awake. That is torture. Put all the spin you want on it. But it sounds more like human worship. We are one aspect of life, not the only one. Why don't you volunteer since you're so worried about your fellow man. I'm sure that a human subject would offer much more than an animal in terms of relevance to the subject.
This statement was never false.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
We are one aspect of life, not the only one.
True. When you cut a carrot, you slices a living being in pieces. Worse, the situation of bonsais. And somebody in this thread already mention the fate of crustaceans boiled alive. And what about all the insects we destroyed by throwing pesticides on crop? They probably die in a horrible way. Hey, and all the animals which die on our roads, tear apart by cars? Don't you drive anymore?
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Why don't you volunteer since you're so worried about your fellow man
I already volunteered for a medical study for skin treatments.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
I'm sure that a human subject would offer much more than an animal in terms of relevance to the subject.
And it happens with volunteer people.
Jouir et faire jouir sans faire de mal ni à toi ni à personne, voilà je crois le fondement de toute morale Fold with us! ¤ flickr
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Chris-Kaiser wrote:
We are one aspect of life, not the only one.
True. When you cut a carrot, you slices a living being in pieces. Worse, the situation of bonsais. And somebody in this thread already mention the fate of crustaceans boiled alive. And what about all the insects we destroyed by throwing pesticides on crop? They probably die in a horrible way. Hey, and all the animals which die on our roads, tear apart by cars? Don't you drive anymore?
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
Why don't you volunteer since you're so worried about your fellow man
I already volunteered for a medical study for skin treatments.
Chris-Kaiser wrote:
I'm sure that a human subject would offer much more than an animal in terms of relevance to the subject.
And it happens with volunteer people.
Jouir et faire jouir sans faire de mal ni à toi ni à personne, voilà je crois le fondement de toute morale Fold with us! ¤ flickr
Hey good for you. I don't use pesticides. Accidents are different than deliberate acts.. but continue trying to justify the act of vivisection. Go for it. You won't convince me. I don't worship humans. But let's take your carrot example... yes there are studies that when you think of harming it, it registers on a meter. But not when you think happy thoughts and actually cut the carrot. What I am leading to is there is a mind in these animals suffering from vivisection. A carrot, as far as I know, is mindless. But whatever. You can continue to justify the practice, and I'll continue to abhor it. And I'm talking about vivisection in particular. I'm not talking about general experimentation. And yes, I eat meat. But meat that is slaughtered humanely and not in a factory lineup. I'm really not that extreme, yet I still find vivisection appalling.
This statement was never false.