Animal and Human Rights

i-ce27b1e033be525d787d70135ae8aa47-osubuzz.jpg

Earlier this week on Adventures in Ethics and Science, Dr. Free-Ride reported that a UCLA researcher faces renewed harassment from animal rights activists for talking about his work. Dr. Dario Ringach and his family have been the subject of invasive physical and personal attacks, and Dr. Free-Ride too has now been targeted by the "militant" animal rights group Negotiation is Over. Scicurious on Neurotopia decries these threatening tactics, writing "we shouldn't have to do our work in fear of threats, intimidation, and severe bodily harm." On Good Math, Bad Math Mark Chu-Carroll adds "animal research shouldn't be done for trivial purposes: the work must be important enough to justify subjecting living creatures to it." And DrugMonkey draws the line between human and non-human, asking if it's fair to call animals "sentient." Finally, Eric Michael Johnson offers an opposing viewpoint on The Primate Diaries, writing that vivisection "is a barbaric practice that has led to some necessary medical breakthroughs but has mostly served to profit multinational corporations." When words can be so strong, who needs to be a radical anyway?

Links below the fold.

More like this