(Hemera)
Billions upon billions of animals are used every year for the purposes of scientific experimentation. It’s actually hard to think of another practice that’s as commonplace as it is controversial (biotechnology, perhaps?). It goes without saying that many of these experiments are a waste of time and resources. The NIH, for example, recently spent about $4 million exploring how the menstrual cycles of monkeys were influenced by cocaine, meth, and heroin. Other animal-based experiments, however, appear to have genuine utilitarian value, contributing useful information to our knowledge of Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and several cancers. Delve into this issue and you’ll find that only one thing is certain: clear answers aren’t forthcoming.
I generally believe that animal experimentation is a morally flawed way to accumulate scientific knowledge. That said, I plead agnosticism when it comes to rare cases of direct benefit to human life. I’m sure that if one of my children were afflicted with a life threatening disease and experimentation on monkeys had a plausible chance of finding a cure, I’d reluctantly support that research. As much as I’d like to be consistent on this issue–as I’m able to be with, say, my diet–I’m afraid I must take convenient refuge in Emerson’s saying about foolish consistency and little minds. As I said, nothing about the morality of animal experimentation is easy.
Perhaps one way to come to terms with this conundrum is to consider animal experimentation in more abstract terms, rather than on a case-by-case basis (with many of those “cases” being purely hypothetical). As I see it, one point in particular transcends specific examples of animal experimentation to suggest that we should be doing everything possible to eliminate the practice altogether–except perhaps in the most extreme cases of direct human benefit.
The point has to do with the fact that, as scientists use animals to further scientific knowledge, they do so without a full, or even half-full, understanding of the animals they’re exploiting. Animal experimentation has been happening for hundreds of years, but the field of animal ethology–the study of animal behavior and mentality–is relatively new. Because the cart of experimentation has been put before the horse of knowledge, scientists routinely end up not only inadvertently harming animals, but unknowingly executing flawed experiments bound to yield inconsistent, and thus ultimately useless, results.
Animals, unlike objects, have emotions. Mice, rats, birds, or apes kept under one set of conditions will react differently to the same experimental stimuli than will mice, rats, birds, or apes kept under another set of conditions. Only now, however, are we coming to realize how incredibly sensitive experimental animals are to differential experimental environments, handlers, and procedures. The implications of this sensitivity have radical implications for every experiment done on an animal.
A couple of real life examples, both taken from Bernard Rollin’s insightful book Animal Rights and Human Morality, highlight the problem. The first involves mice and the experience of shock. In order to gain insight into the human experience of shock, scientists have long traumatized mice and studied their “microcirculatory shock profile.” Put aside for now the question of the experiment’s utility, and consider something even more problematic: scientists simply assumed that all mice yet to be traumatized by the scientists were starting from the same emotional/physiological baseline. In essence, that they were all passive objects awaiting human action within the framework of an experiment designed to induce trauma.
In point of fact, as Rollin himself, a philosopher no less, had to remind members of the Shock Society (yes, there’s a Shock Society), the mere act of picking up a mouse and shifting it a few feet into position initiates a shock response. Scientists who might have been rearranging animal subjects for clinical traumatization would have been unwittingly already traumatizing their subjects, thereby screwing up the results and rendering the entire experiment, not to mention the harsh treatment of the rodents, totally pointless.
Hence we come to what may very well be the inherent problem of animal experimentation: because we can never predict how an inarticulate animal capable of experiencing fear or pain or distress will react to the almost incalculable and endlessly subtle stimuli of any scientific environment, we can never fully trust the experimental results.
As this next example illustrates, the assumption of animal objectivity, and the concomitant failure to consider the extraordinary emotional responsiveness of animals, can be hideously callous. Scientists have long wanted to understand the nature of deer mule starvation. Again, let’s ignore the utility question and get to the execution of the experiment (and, I guess, the mule deer).
In an infamous experiment, the researcher simply placed a mule deer in a cage and withheld food, taking chemical readings of its rumen until it died. Remarkably, the scientist’s control group–mule deer that were fed–were housed in a cage adjacent to the starving deer, affording the tormented creature olfactory and visual exposure to the food it was being denied. Putting aside the obvious stupidity of the experiment, the stomach secretions emitted by the starving deer were completely driven by the control group, thus rendering the results useless. And all because the researcher failed to understand a basic principle of animal ethology.
The rationale for all animal experimentation is, if you think about it abstractly, troublesome. Scientists use animals because they’re physically similar enough to humans for results to have possible meaning. At the same time, they use animals because they are–so we have long thought–cognitively and emotionally different enough from humans for our exploitation of them to be morally justified. But the more we learn about animals, the more we are realizing, as Darwin himself explained (in Rollin’s summary): “thought and feeling in animals [is] an inevitable consequence of phylogenic continuity. If morphological and physiological traits are evolutionarily continuous, so, too, are psychological ones.”
This sobering scientific reality, at the least, demands that we take a much closer look at how and why–and to what effect– we use animals to serve the interests of science. My sense is that, the closer we look at non-human animals, and the more we learn about them, the harder it will be to understand their behavior and, in turn, justify our own.
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I’ll admit that I have a very personal stake in this debate, as I’ve been doing animal research for nearly a decade. I understand the moral issues people have with this, but usually those people are not fully aware of the process, care, or importance of that research. I was extremely disappointed that this post was clearly written from the perspective of someone with so little understanding of how animal research works.
Despite that flaw, the logic used in the post was terrible – as stated in the last paragraph, how is studying an organism going to make it harder to understand? And if you wanted to “consider animal experimentation in more abstract terms, rather than on a case-by-case basis,” then why did you specifically pick two cases to talk about? (One of which – the one about a fear response – is a common protocol and is generally preceded by extensive handling of the animals so that contact with humans doesn’t, in fact, scare them).
Even though I am an animal researcher, I don’t mind debates on this topic. Of course we should continue to consider the efficacy of animal use, and scientists are always searching for alternatives to animal use and ways to design experiments to reduce animal use. But if we’re going to have a debate, at least attempt to legitimately learn what you’re talking about before you come out here and vilify a practice you clearly know nothing about.
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Looking at the comments scientists seem to think, they are beyond reproach and to resent outside criticism.
I say “outside” criticism because to witness animal experimentation you either have to be an assignment or lab assistant because they are not open to the general public.
Nobody is “fully aware with process, care, or importance of the research” including any biologist. Applying that standard to disqualify opposing arguments is ridiculous.
“My sense is that, the closer we look at non-human animals, and the more we learn about them, the harder it will be to understand their behavior and, in turn, justify our own.”
Means the more we learn, the more we learn we don’t know – how can any scientist not claim to have heard words to that effect?
I agree with stopping animal testing, especially when our prison system houses a population much more deserving of the pains that it causes and that will show much more accurate result.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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I would not want to live in a country with a pure retributive justice system.
What you are suggesting makes a pure retributive justice system sound like disney land.
I would say that I hope you are falsely imprisoned one day but unlike you I wish injustice on nobody.
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If what I’m suggesting is too harsh for guilty criminals, then it is certainly too harsh for innocent animals. I understand the ethics, but a lot of the animal testing is just nonsensical (like the starving deer) or shows a great arrogance and vanity in the human race (cosmetic testing) – probably 90+ percent needs to be made illegal.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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As a scientist and someone who cares deeply about animal welfare, I found this article naive, superficial, and agenda-driven. Having working with a variety of animals, from wild primates in Africa to transgenic mice for cancer research, I have experienced first-hand the bureaucratic and ethical issues associated with using animal models. The vast majority of scientists care about their animals and aim to do no more harm than necessary. This is a deeply complicated issue that unfortunately has not been addressed clearly or objectively in this post.
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Had to check the calendar to be sure this wasn’t April 1st. Who is driving the Freakonomics bus – and could they please swerve back onto the pavement?
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IDEA….
We have thousands of terminal patients who, out of options, are willing to serve as human test subjects for new medications in the hope of a cure, or, if nothing else, as least adding to the body of knowledge that might help future sufferers.
I know this sounds quite cold, but when you realize that such a program would be at the patients’ prerogative, might extend their lives, and in any case would give us much-needed information that could advance medicine, it might be the way forward.
Further, unlike animals, these patient’s could make their own choices, even leaving the program, if they desired. Moreover, as one poster pointed out, this would add in the psychological element that is missing in animal trials.
I know that if I knew I had three months to live, I would likely be willing to try any number of experimental drugs. If one worked, it would not only change my life, but could change the lives of millions after me.
But barring that, I do not find it morally repugnant to perform tests on a mouse in order to eradicate some dread disease. What I DO find morally repugnant is testing the latest lipstick or cosmetic on an animal. The survival of our species calls for sacrifices, but the vanity of our species justifies no such thing.
Just a thought.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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“We have thousands of terminal patients who, out of options, are willing to serve as human test subjects for new medications in the hope of a cure, or, if nothing else, as least adding to the body of knowledge that might help future sufferers.”
Where did you ever hear something like that? If we’re all just making stuff up, how about we start making up fantasies about how we have a cure for all cancers.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Several of the many issues of trying to perform studies this way:
1. No experimental control (variables like comorbid diseases, history, etc.) Research animals are all basically genetically identical, which allows us to assume that any differences we see between them are due to the experimental variable.
2. Totally impractical (travel around the country to give individual doses at each hospital?)
3. Perhaps most importantly, most scientists I know wouldn’t want to be responsible for ending a human life (this is why some of us are in research to begin with). Believe it or not, most scientists are incredibly ethically and morally responsible people!
So while I appreciate the fact that you’d be willing to put yourself in that position, there are many reasons why clinical trials are one of the very last steps in getting a drug approved!
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HB, you’ve touched on the major reason (as I see it) for animal experiments…you simply could never control an experiment on humans. HIPAA privacy laws would restrict access to background information you’d need, and of course genetic manipulation (cloned knockout mice, anyone?) would never be allowed on humans. For an example of what you CAN do with knockout mice, see US patent #7912717.
Please note that not all treatments have the same effect in each person.
Now consider what happens if a drug doesn’t work on the first ‘terminally ill test subject’. What do you tell the second?
I mean, besides the points made by DanSanto and HB, every experiment needs to be repeated in order to find consistent (relevant) results.
I have no problem with the human race exploiting animals with the proviso that that if we claim the right to exploit animals we have to take on board some responsibility.
My contempt is reserved for those who only consider the issue superficially and are against animal testing because the human race inherently loves animals. For them, if so, why does the number of unwanted pets destroyed each year outnumber those used in animal testing by a large margin?
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“…if so, why does the number of unwanted pets destroyed each year outnumber those used in animal testing by a large margin?”
Answer: They don’t.
Approximately 4 million shelter animals are euthanized each year. Approximately 1 million animals are used in biomedical research. HOWEVER, the number of animals used in research does not include mice and rats – the most commonly used animals in research. (The Animal Welfare Act – the federal law that governs the humane care, handling, treatment and transportation of animals in research – does not define mice and rats as “animals”.) Therefore, the actual number of animals used in research is unknown; but estimates put the number closer to 26 million. Many, many more than animals euthanized in shelters.
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And this has …. what? to do with economics? And as is so often the case, this ‘article’ is horribly, horribly misinformed. The author doesn’t know the first thing about the topic he’s writing about except what he has maybe gotten off the Internet.
Send him over to my university where there is actual animal testing going on and he’ll learn he REALLY needs to either stick with economics or actually learn something for real before spouting off clueless nonsense. Why you let these people post these horribly incorrect ‘articles’ when it’s obviously FAR outside their area of knowledge is beyond me.
Stick with economics, and if you want to have other topics mentioned on this site, GET SOMEONE WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT THEY’RE WRITING.
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Animal testing is more related to environmental ethics than economics. The economic ties are to the profits from companies manufacturing goods for human use.
This is quite simply one of the worst Freakonomics blog posts I’ve ever read… Your arguments are not based on statistical evidence, just a few anecdotes. It makes no sense to decry a whole practice based on a few examples where the effort failed. And who’s to say what’s a worthwhile animal experiment??
” I’m sure that if one of my children were afflicted with a life threatening disease and experimentation on monkeys had a plausible chance of finding a cure, I’d reluctantly support that research. ”
This says it all for me… ok if you can’t understand the point of some research, but that doesn’t mean you should be selfish about it.
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