Animal Rights

Baratunde Thurston and Zanny Minton Bedoes react to a particularly ignorant bit of antivaccine misinformation by Bill Maher on Real Time With Bill Maher. (February 13, 2015) I really don't want Mondays to be come "let's refute and make fun of the conspiratorial antivaccine nonsense Bill Maher said on his show Friday night." I really don't. However, I figured that I might have to devote Monday to that one more time this week after Maher really let his antivaccine freak flag fly again for the first time in five years on his February 6 show. As a result of the criticism, Maher apologists…
I had originally planned on writing about a different topic today, but, as is so often the case in blogging, something came up that caught my attention, much as the errant thought of a squirrel distracts Dug the Dog. Well, actually, I had to go to an evening meeting for work last night and by the time I came home even the Plexiglass box of blinking lights didn't have enough of a charge left to deliver up fresh Insolence. Fortunately, there's some almost fresh Insolence from the other day that can be repurposed, something that seems imperative since one of the targets of today's Insolence is…
Here we go again. One of the greatest threats to biomedical research, in the U.S. at least, is the truly crappy research funding environment, a situation that hasn't been this bad for at least 20 years. Labs are closing; investigators are giving up; and fewer of our young best and brightest are interested in a career in biomedical research. However, there are other threats. Although they're not as big a threat in the US as they are in Europe, animal rights activists have nonetheless managed to intimidate scientists here, harass idealistic young students interested in a career in science in a…
It's no secret that I have little but contempt for radical animal rights activists. I make no apologies for this and, quite frankly, consider my contempt for them well-justified based on their behavior and words. Be it their fetishization of violence against researchers who use animals, their threatening of students in order to frighten them away from careers in scientific research that might involve the use of animals (for example, Alena Rodriguez), intimidating researchers by declaring their children as "not off limits," trying to burn investigators' houses down, harassing researchers, and…
In it's increasingly bizarre need to inflict it's animal rights morality on everybody, PETA's Ingrid Newkirk has criticized Jennifer Lawrence for scenes in Winter's Bone and the Hunger Games, which show her hunting and eating animals. The actress was dubbed "the coolest chick in Hollywood" by Rolling Stone, and in the magazine's latest issue she recounts her on-screen squirrel-skinning scene in the 2010 movie "Winter's Bone." "I should say it wasn't real, for PETA. But screw PETA," she told the magazine. In response to the actress's comment, PETA president Ingrid Newkirk told Gothamist, "[…
Maybe my email worked? I got a one sentence reply from Max last night saying he agreed, and today Tucker Max says hellz no to PETA and instead wants to give to a local shelter: I do not agree AT ALL with the mission of PETA. ... If we're talking about what an awful organization PETA is, that's really just the beginning. They're so ridiculous, they compared the holocaust to killing chickens. Not only that, but they have a history of shitting on celebrities they've worked with in the past. And perhaps worst of all, they are the ones that think violence against women is OK. Their stated…
You may have heard about Planned Parenthood turning down Tucker Max's 500k charitable donation on the grounds his misogynistic past marred the gift. Now PETA is asking for the donation. Let's beg him not to do this. Instead of giving money to the dog-killing animal rightsists, how about a donation to pro-test and put a thumb in the eye of the anti-research pet killers? Send him a message, donate the money to a pro-science group. Here's my email to Tucker: Hey, I hear you're looking to give a charitable donation and now PETA is saying they'd be happy to receive it. As a pet owner, doctor…
Our initial optimism over Huffpo science being a haven for reason in a den of disease-promotion and quackery appears now to be misplaced. It appears the animal rights cranks have made inroads with Bruce Friedrich, a member of PETA and advocate of animal liberation, who has jumped from Huffpo "green" to Huffpo "science". The science gatekeepers at Huffpo have clearly failed. Writing about "Speciesism: The Movie", he exposes the anti-science ideology of the animal rights movement, and Huffpo science doesn't seem to have noticed: Every now and then, a movie comes along that is capable of…
Years ago, I read an old newspaper account of chaos in 19th century New York City; A storm damaged many of the cages at the Central Zoo, and most of the wild animals got out. The next day or two was spent rounding up the animals, and even the mayor and the governor, who were experienced big game hunters, got involved in tracking down the rhino and the hippo and the lions and the rest of them. A few months ago, for some reason, that story re-emerged in my memory for the first time in decades, so I went and looked it up and found out that it was a hoax. I don't remember if I knew it was a hoax…
Last week, my SciBling Jason Goldman interviewed me for his blog. The questions were not so much about blogging, journalism, Open Access and PLoS (except a little bit at the end) but more about science - how I got into it, what are my grad school experiences, what I think about doing research on animals, and such stuff. Jason posted the interview here, on his blog, on Friday, and he also let me repost it here on my blog as well, under the fold: Here at Thoughtful Animal headquarters, we're starting a new series of seven-question interviews with people who are doing or have done animal…
tags: The Truth About HSUS, pets, animals, animal rights, wingnuts, cults, Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, streaming video The real agenda of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is to remove money from your wallet and put it into their CEOs' retirement funds, to ignore animal shelters, and to forever destroy your ability to live with animals.
tags: The Truth About HSUS, pets, animals, animal rights, wingnuts, cults, Wayne Pacelle, Humane Society of the United States, HSUS, streaming video The real agenda of the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is to remove money from your wallet and put it into their CEOs' retirement funds, to ignore animal shelters, and to forever destroy your ability to live with animals.
Making good ethical choices in the real world is hard, in large part because it requires us to find the best balance in responding to interested parties whose legitimate interests pull in different directions. The situation is further complicated by the fact that as we are trying to make the best ethical decision we can, or evaluating the ethical decision-making of others, we can't help but notice that there is not universal agreement about who counts as a party with legitimate interests that ought to be taken into account, let alone about how to weight the competing interests in the ethical…
Today, the UCLA chapter of Pro-Test held its second rally in support of animal research. With as many as 400 or so supporters in attendance, it looks like it was another great success! Here are a couple of early reports on the event: Tom Holder of Speaking of Research: On a beautiful sunny day in Los Angeles, Pro-Test for Science organizers arrived at the junction of Le Conte and Westwood, on the edge of the UCLA campus, with armfuls of placards in support of animal research. Within ten minutes every placard had found a new owner as hundreds of scientists, students and members of the public…
The UCLA chapter of the pro-science organization Pro-Test has announced its second major rally to show support for science and to stand up against the ongoing campaign of intimidation being waged by animal rights activists. The organization originated in Oxford in 2006 during a streak of particularly nasty actions by animal extremists, and the UCLA chapter held their first rally about a year ago in response to the escalating threats and destruction of property aimed at animal researchers in the US. The next rally is scheduled to start at 11:30 am, on Thursday, April 8th. It will convene on…
"But Dr. Zaius, the benefits to apedom far outweigh this animal's suffering."Image: Planet of the Apes Greg Laden has posted three parts (with more on the way) of a series that looks at how we should decide what animals have rights, what those rights should be, and how we weigh those considerations against the benefits of animal testing: It is not entirely unreasonable to view the question of what humans can do to other species with suspicion. This would be the same kind of suspicion that a parole board would level against an inmate asking for release. We are a species with a record, and we…
tags: animal rights, vegans, musical instruments, lamb-gut violin strings, education, streaming video The best violinists rely on strings that are made from the guts of lambs that are no more than 4 months old at slaughter. Kinda makes you wonder how many vegans and animal rights wingnuts have given up playing and listening to orchestral and other music that relies on gut strings?
Continued from Part 1 ... Animal rights are arbitrarily granted or assumed If human rights are arbitrarily assigned, so are animal rights. The argument has been made that animals with certain properties ... sentience (the definition of which moves somewhat), phylogenetic closeness to humans, or the ability to feel pain, etc. ... should share some protections against painful procedures, death, or being caged because of those properties. Sorry, but no. While it could be argued that the more human a non-human animal is the more like humans they should be treated, that simplistic view in and of…
What rights should be afforded non-human animals, to which animals, under what circumstances, and why? What are the criteria for such decisions? What should those who disagree with the status quo do? In my view, some rights should be given to some animals, depending on circumstances. I believe the criteria for this decision are more arbitrary than one might think, but a phylogenetic (anthrocentric) model is arguably useful for some, but not all decisions. Individuals involved in the discussion often inappropriately characterize the positions of others at the expense of reaching some kind…
In a post last month, I noted that not all (maybe even not many) supporters of animal rights are violent extremists, and that Bruins for Animals is a group committed to the animal rights position that was happy to take a public stand against the use of violence and intimidation to further the cause of animal liberation. On Wednesday, Kristy Anderson (the co-founder of Bruins for Animals), Ashley Smith (the president), and Jill Ryther (the group's advisor) posted a critical response to my post. In the spirit of continuing dialogue, I'd like to respond to that response. They write: AR…