I’ve never killed anybody either so I’m good on that front…well except during the Gulf War but that was a war.

And the car isn’t yours so you have no right to burn it. Neither were the homes set ablaze, nor the labs. In your twisted little mind it’s OK to threaten people that you disagree with because the ends justify the means. In the end, that philosophy doesn’t usually work out so well. Typically what happens is exactly what is happening now. Those that are targeted eventually stand up and face the bullies.

I salute the SoR people for playing this game of Whack-a-Mole as each old lie raises its ugly head once again.

With respect to what research is “trivial”, I agree that this is a legitimate discussion to have. The trouble is, Will, that people of your bent are never discussing this in good faith, it is a mere tactic in your larger agenda which finds *all* research with animals to be unjustified. So I would suggest to Jack that it is not that Will and his fellows are ignorant of science…they may or may not be. They are unwilling to integrate your arguments into their thinking, no matter *what* you may say. Completely and utterly unwilling to consider any other viewpoints in their singleminded, cultish pursuit of their pre-existing faith based ideology. Can you logically argue the religiously devout out of their beliefs? This is what you are dealing with here.

As you know vivisectors publish the details of their “work” on a regular basis including who they killed, how they killed, and what procedures may have been performed along the way.

If vivisectors do not publish these details, they are often available through public records requests. There is no need for anyone to rely on Steve Best for information.

By the way, how many individuals have been killed by Steve Best? None. A claim that vivisectors cannot make.

Be clear, the violence that occurs in the course of this dispute is overwhelmingly committed by vivisectors against animals…virtually without exception. Yet vivisectors have the audacity to claim victimhood if a car gets set on fire…or a blog posts an unpleasant blurb about them.

You really don’t have any idea how animal research really works do you? You have absolutely no idea what goes on in an animal facility and as far as I can tell can only spout off what you’ve heard elsewhere. Ever thought about questioning the sources of your information? Just because some lunatic like Steve Best says we do certain things doesn’t mean it’s true.

I think the womb transplant is a good example because it is, as you suggest, not quite so trivial. But neither is the act of maiming and killing animals. The most trivial examples (i.e. baldness) are really just the thin edge of the wedge so to speak.

If the benefit to humans is supposed to be balanced against the cost to animals then seemingly there will be times when non-trivial benefits to humans will be precluded because the non-trivial harm to animals will outweigh them.

As to baldness cures I covered that topic a couple of years back on the Pro-Test blog http://www.pro-test.org.uk/b2evo/index.php?blog=7&title=more_than_cure_for_baldness&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1

Sometimes research isn’t quite as trivial as it first appears.

I have say that when I saw the womb transplant story it did strike me as a little pointless. I wouldn’t say that it is trivial, like it or not having children is very, very important to many people*, but I’d prefer to have seen the grant money go to Alzheimers research.

* Having children is also not important to a lot of people, which is also fine. People on both sides of the baby argument tend to be very judgemental in a way that is very counter productive in our overpopulated, but in some societies also aging, world.

David, do you think that there is any human health affliction that is too trivial to warrant the confinment of animals, invasive experiments on animals, and/or the death of animals?

For example, do you believe that a sure-fire cure for baldness would warrant killing animals? How about an erectile dysfunction drug? Womb transplants have been in the news lately (and the animal deaths that go along with pursuing the development of such a procedure) yet individuals who would be candidates for a womb transplant could always adopt!

It strikes me as though there are many problems that are too trivial to warrant animal research (I realize that this is a partial argument that does not address all research…it is not intended to)

Anecdotes are problematic for many reasons – first and foremost because they rarely give one an accurate picture of the more general phenomenon they are argued to represent. The behavior of one scientist, once upon a time (while potentially useful for metaphorical purposes) simply does not necessarily give one an accurate view of the way the field works. This is certainly true when one undertakes the biased approach of picking and choosing candidates to begin with. The real question is not how one person acts but how the scientific collective acts. I – and many others like me – argue that the collective starts with benevolent intentions (the betterment of the world), uses considered and refined approaches and keeps the welfare of their subjects (whether human or animal) in the forefront of their considerations at all times.

What we should concern ourselves with is how scientific research works today, how it benefits animals and humans, what mechanisms are drawn upon to afford optimal care for the animals and where we can go in the future to further improvements in these areas.

For me, anyway, there is a difference between animals and people. Certainly there have been horrific experiments done on humans in the past (the Tuskegee Experiments for example) and there have been horrible experiments done with animals. I don’t think you would find many scientists that would dispute that. However, Paul makes an excellent point that animal research continues to improve medical knowledge and are you willing to forgo the benefits that may result from such research?