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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

After much thought and observation, it is clear that animal research is cruel and unethical to the wellbeing of animals which is not morally good for all involved. The collective rewards from animal research do not provide long lasting direct benefits for humans and knowing that together with the age old knowledge that regular physical exercise of at least 20 minutes or more daily with portioned, balanced meals will benefit human health and prevent obesity and chronicity of major diseases will guide all research choices and influence human overpopulation and ethical treatment of all animals.

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Overcoming Bias Commenter's avatar

As a scientist and a vegetarian, let me just say that I kill fewer animals per year than most of you, and the ones I do kill I put to far better use than most of you, and that includes the inconclusive experiments that had to be redone.

Now then, moral equivalence. Moral equivalence to whom? To me? Not morally equivalent. Problem solved. The paradoxical Polyanna bias of this otherwise rational blog notwithstanding, there IS no such thing as universal morality. There are only game-theoretical equilibria. Can animals sign a contract with you and be trusted to hold to it? Can an animal give informed consent? Will they ever mount an organized rebellion against you? Can you mate with an animal and have viable offspring?

Exactly. That's why most of you eat them, why we wear them, and why I kill them in my experiments. We don't mistreat them unnecessarily because it usually detracts from the benefit the animal provides to us, just like we respect each other's rights because doing otherwise detracts from the benefit we can provide each other.

Oh, and the senile/retarded/brain-damaged? It's a gray area, and society seems to have decided to give lip-service to their rights while simultaneously abridging them 'for their own protection'. I'm sure this is the practical thing to do, but the line between human the human species and everything else is a lot less ambiguous than any such lines we are forced by necessity to draw within our species.

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