Animal Writings

This in my initial response to a wretched pro-vivisection article, which contains the ignorant and self-flattering notion that if you're against vivisection, you're against "progress" -- or you're a "misanthropist."

• For the same reason that opposition to slavery is not anti-white. We derived benefits from that cruel institution also, and slaveholders often claimed that the slaves were well-treated and happy.


• Hate the sin, love the sinner. Inflicting unnecessary harm — at times, severe, protracted torture — on living creatures is wrong. Lying about it, profiting financially from it, and making self-serving excuses for it violates a multitude of deadly sins and basic ethical principles. Animal advocates have faith that humanity can realize the error of its ways and improve itself, as it did by abolishing slavery. That's not misanthropy.


• The animal advocates I know (and I know quite a few) identify with all victims of exploitation, and are generally more concerned than the population at large about human rights. Do a test: correlate willingness to avoid sweatshop stores or boycott products made from slave labor with attitudes about animal welfare and animal rights. You'll also find a correlation between moral concern for animals and acceptance of gays and minorities—you won't find homophobic animal rights activists. On the other hand, criminologists and psychologists have long known about the link between cruelty to animals and cruelty to people.


• Animal experiments hurt humans. Extrapolation and artifact errors are notorious and inherent in animal-modeled research. Response to a given medication, pathogen, chemical, or environmental factor tends to be species-specific. AIDS research on primates has squandered scarce resources, since non-humans do not get AIDS. Animal tests led us to believe that smoking, arsenic, thalidomide, Vioxx, phen-phen, and about a thousand other drugs were safe. Animals delayed the use of penicillin by a decade. Animal data led us to believe that diabetes was a disease of the liver and that polio entered through the nasal passage and attacked neural tissue (which delayed work on a vaccine). Animals are poor predictors of carcinogeneity in humans. In fact, the respective responses of rats and mice don't agree 30 to 50 percent of the time. Animal experiments, like most large government programs, persist mainly because of inertia. And money. The claims of its saving lives are just marketing. The multi-billion dollar vivisection industry depends on the public being misinformed. They're scared that animal rights activists will expose both the horrific cruelties in animal labs and the lack of scientific basis for animal-modeled research in the 21st century, and public support will dry up. Animal rights advocates vigorously support ethical, scientifically sound medical research.


• A common way of evading accountability is to recast criticisms of one's moral transgressions and specific actions and statements as an attack on one's ethnic group. Despite the critic's well-reasoned case and mountain of evidence, the accused who plays this game—who often has no real defense for his or her actions— can do no better than respond with "you just hate all <fill in the blank>." Playing the misanthropy card is a variation of playing the race card. Ironically, in this case, the critic's charge is speciesism, and some of those who don't like the charge, who treat non-humans as disposable property, use the speciesism charge in reverse (though without basis) when it suits their purposes.


• Some uses of animals, such as subjecting them to learned helplessness and maternal deprivation, are nothing more than sadism. To take part in such atrocities brings us all down.

The author of the article claims that to assert that rats have rights is misanthropic. If this is an indication of his reasoning, he's no fan of sound science. Rats deserve rights for the same reason we deserve rights: because they suffer. Codifying rudimentary respect does not amount to misanthropy; that's twisted logic or emotional panic. Maybe guilt.

Actually his exact words were: "one of the protesters on the anti-lab demo, who was wearing a badge that said 'Rats have rights'; how misanthropic can you get?"

Well.. The dairy industry basing a nationwide "drink milk, lose weight" campaign on an 11-person study funded by the dairy industry. The same industry insulting our intelligence and showing contempt for morals with "happy cow" ads. Meatpacking companies denying health coverage to new employees doing one of the most dangerous jobs in America. Animal agriculture allies proposing a state constitutional amendment to permanently thwart the will of the voting public. Using scarce AIDS research money trying in vain to reproduce the disease in monkeys and chimpanzees, and lying about the lack of success. Squandering taxpayers' money on blatantly unscientific anorexia nervosa "studies" in rats. Pharmaceutical companies colluding with the FDA to put unsafe (but profitable) drugs on the market. Food lobbying groups claiming the obesity crisis is all hype. Fast-food corporations promoting fat-laden, nutritionally weak foods in poor neighborhoods. How about the Chinese officials who tried to make companion dogs less popular by stealing them for biomedical research? What about Al Queda? Stalin? Jack the Ripper? The Unabomber? Aryan Nations? This could be a mighty long list.

To be an animal rights advocate is to see past present-day cruelties and have confidence that humanity can improve, that it will continue to morally progress. Otherwise, why be an activist? We once widely thought that slaves were here to serve their masters. Then, as now, we imposed arbitrary, selfish limits on moral inclusion. But we overcame our white male-centric view of the world, just as we can and will overcome our human-centric worldview. To admonish one's fellow humans for moral transgressions is to express care for them, to hold them to a higher standard, to walk one's talk about creating a peaceable kingdom where every living creature is shown compassion and respect.

One last comment: the author's "human-centered morality" is a politically correct name for "might makes right."

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(The article is filled with false premises, fallacies, faulty conclusions, myths, delusions, and insults, and I may respond to more of them in future posts.)