daifu said:
"it can be assumned that they don't feel pain on a conscious level"
So my dear "scientist": in science you do not assume. An economist assumes. In science you have a result. It is reproducable. You draw conclusions. It is when you are not abel to draw conclusions, that you "assume".
I love assumptions. They permitt what so ever. But they are not science.

It is the old problem you know. Gra** is green. But the question is WHAT do you perceive as GREEN.
You actually not know. Science does not answer this problem. I cannot know that what you are seing is the same thing I do. I can only deduct that every human being is defining a wavelength with the name of a colour. But I do not kow that they see the same thing. I therefore assume.......that we are all seing different things. What is red for me is green for you. But we do not notice the difference because we are reacting exactly on the same stimulations.
So my "assumption" is scientifically sound?

Please. This is what I mean it is a flame. You are mixing scientific evidence with methods of philosophy and religious argumentations.
Why I refer to old scientific evidence and fashism? Well, because when I read the way you argue, I have a "deja vue".

And if you do not understand the HIV thing....I assume I cannot help you on that. For me case closed.

alexkidd said:
you assume they can't feel pain....
ok why do we feel pain then?
where does that come from and what is it for that we have attained it and animals havn't.

if you believe in science i can assume you believe in some of the core concepts of evolution.
animals are not so seperate from us.

arcades said:
Well first off it's immoral to kill certain animals because there exstinction effects us. Same with the need to keep there habitat clean. We use it to. As far as your first paragraph goes we do these things because it effects us. Not so much because it's immoral to them.

If animals were truly able to suffer then, sinse alot of people assume they do truly suffer already and still leave them to there own ways nothing would change. Nore should it because even in the case of these semi-sentiant animals there mental and emotional development is like a small child. If a 4 yr old shoots and kills somone we look to the parents and other associations to blame. For these semi-sentient animals morals still have no meaning and they cant be held resonsible for there actions.

thefourfoldroot said:
Humans do not feel pain consciously either. They only acknowledge it consciously after the fact. Just because an animal does not have a concept of itself as seperate doesn't mean it doesn't feel pain. Pain is as evolutionarily useful to another animal as it is to us. And btw, who's to say that seperating anything in terms of the individual is the 'correct' way of looking at the world.

Animals do not have ethics because they are not self-aware, this does not mean that it ethical from a human perspective to cause harm; true, this is a rather self-indulgent human perspective to take, but to extend the idea that we can forego ethics in animals as it is only humans who are ethically bound is neither moral nor logical to me

This is not to say i disagree with animal testing, but that is because 1) i feel we have a higher moral duty to our own species and 2) Overall more suffering will be prevented by saving from disease long living humans throughout the generations than short lived animals

sango said:
This was taken from Wikipedia, concerning the Mirror Test:

"There is some debate in the scientific community as to the value and interpretation of results of the mirror test. While this test has been extensively conducted on primates, there is also debate as to the value of the test as applied to animals who rely primarily on senses other than vision, such as dogs. As dogs have very poor visual resolution and acuity with red/green blindness, they have little chance of recognizing themselves or a dot (commonly red) in a mirror. However, dogs do recognize their own scent invariably with 40x more neurons than humans dedicated to processing smell. The key point being that the mirror test is only a measure of ability closely matching humans, not a statement of consciousness, as is popularly believed. Additionally, as mentioned with gorillas, many animals may regard eye contact as a threatening gesture, so the application of the mirror test is unclear. Some mammalian species do not have stereoscopic vision, including rabbits and deer, which may be a factor in determining the value of the test."



With that being said, the very credibility of the mirror test is substandard at best. With so many things factoring in on the mirror test, and it being reliable only on a few senses, it's easy to say that the mirror test can be discredited right off the bat.
Now, even so, if the mirror test were correct, it shouldn't have any effect on what kind of treatment you think animals are subject to.

Did you read that children under the age of 2 also fail the mirror test? Does that make them any less susceptable to moral and ethic treatment? What about mentally disabled people? Even well past the age of 2 most of them are unable to pa** the mirror test as well, does this make them and less susceptable to moral and ethical treatment? On a whole, most people would say no, right?
So what would be the difference between the afore mentioned and all the other animals that did not pa** the test? There is also the fact, that many of the animals that were not mentioned are more aggressive animals, that may instead attack their reflection, thinking it to be another of their kind, protective of their territory. It doesn't mean they aren't self aware, it means they take the reaction most common to them and administer it first.

Our choice, (and yes I mean our choice because believe it or not, sadly it's true) to keep animals from going extinct should not be based on what it will do to us if they're gone. It should be based off the fact that the animal deserves to live every bit as much as you do.

buffalobill90 said:
Sorry, but making an assumtption based on scientific evidence is perfectly logical. It is reasonable to assume, based on the evidence, that Earth is spherical. This is an assumption, because there is no proof, but since there is extremely strong evidence to suggest it, it would be very unreasonable to assume our planet is any other shape.

buffalobill90 said:
What the hell's going on here? Have any of you read my posts?

newlander said:


It is NEVER reasonable to assume when trying to argue a point as you leave yourself wide open to holes being picked in you theory, as what is happening to you.

To say that we assume the Earth is spherical as there is no proof is just laughable and weakens you stance even further.

You try to defend you view point for disabled people being exempt from your theory through respect for their family? Think thats what you said, well thats an emotional view point, one that should be discounted from your scientific views. So grow some balls and stand by your arguement and say that we should be allowed to experiment on the disabled as well. (this is NOT my view point).

Anyway everyone seems to have gotten side tracked from the point of your post which is that animal testing is ok.

This is the only point that i agree with you on, but i would clarify that i only agree with vivisection.

buffalobill90 said:
What are you talking about? Why is it not reasonable to ever make assumptions when you have based them on strong evidence? Why is it laughable that there is no proof of the Earth's true shape? There isn't, there's just very strong evidence. It's the same with the Big Bang theory, or geological estimations of the age of Earth. There's no infallible proof in these areas, just very strong evidence on which to base reasonable assumptions.

As with disabled people - like I said (maybe you didn't read it), virtually all disabled people are no less than fully self-aware. Even in the cases where someone is so severely disabled they have no awareness of their own existence, they are still loved by their family and friends, who do deserve respect themselves. Furthermore, using humans for involuntary experimentation devalues humanity and dignity, which is immoral (as is valuing unintelligent, mindless, primitive beasts above people).