On Science Experimenting on Life
Published on SepĀ 10, 2015 (updated FebĀ 5, 2024), filed under philosophy, advocacy (feed). (Share this on Mastodon orĀ Bluesky?)
No matter what information or data you receive as the result of animal experimentation or dissection for scientific purposes, and no matter how valuable the results appear to be, the consequences of such methods are so distorted that you comprehend less of life than you did before.
āJane Roberts: The Nature of the Psyche.
According to PETA, more than 100 million mice and rats are killed in U.S. laboratories every year. More than 100 million. In the United States alone.
This looks sick to me. This looks to me like torture and murder on a mass, mass, mass scale.
Experimenting with and killing of life seems to be one of the fundamental problems with how we do science.
Just as with humans, we need to stop all this torturing.
Just as with humans, we need to stop all this killing.
Neither from a logical nor a philosophical angle can we understand life by enslaving, violating, and killing it. Itās impossible. Enslaved ā free. Violated ā respected. Dead ā alive.
Itās not just that there should or must be a clear boundary that lifeāany lifeāmay not be experimented on, tortured, and killed⦠but that there is a clear boundary.
The end does not justify the means.
There cannot be science that plays with and murders life.
And we donāt have to present science with choices here, for the respectful treatment of life must be non-negotiable.
Indeed, again thereās more to say. But that does apply less to exceptions which weāll still, after most careful consideration, have to grant, than to our philosophical understanding. Most notably, we approach science, in particular the medical sciences, as if diseases were all āevil.ā They come with value judgments, and we donāt considerāconsiderāthat diseases may also be a choice. Once we explore, and actually understand, other angles at the problems our research attempts to solve, we may make most insightful discoveries. But, thereās more to say, and Iām learning just as we all do.
About Me
Iām Jens (long: Jens Oliver Meiert), and Iām a web developer, manager, and author. Iāve been working as a technical lead and engineering manager for companies youāve never heard of and companies you use every day, Iām an occasional contributor to web standards (like HTML, CSS, WCAG), and I write and review books for OāReilly and Frontend Dogma.
I love trying things, not only in web development and engineering management, but also in other areas like philosophy. Here on meiert.com I share some of my experiences and views. (I value you being critical, interpreting charitably, and giving feedback.)