The long term threat to science

Props to Nick Anthis and PZ for addressing the animal rights vs animal welfare issue in science.

In particular this statement from PZ, "Once we've defeated the creationists (hah!), we're going to have to manage the next problem: well-meaning but ill-informed animal rights activists."

That sounds about right. If things in the United States follow the trends in Europe and Britain, the long-term and far more dangerous threat to biological science will be animal rights extremism. There is good discussion in both of these articles so check them out.

More like this

Remember earlier this week when we were discussing some of the positions people might hold with respect to the use of animals in research?
Today at the University of California at Los Angeles, a rally is planned to raise awareness about the value of responsible animal research and to denounce acts of terrorism toward animal researchers and their families.
Many of my ScienceBloglings have rightly called out animal rights terrorists who target researchers' children. They are absolutely right to do so.
Yesterday, as part of ongoing follow up on my story in this week's New York Times Magazine, I posted about