Hacker News Reader

Comment by GordonS | Hacker News Reader

I read a lot of medical research papers, and I've been thinking about this recently. Every time I read about a rat being "euthanized" or "sacrificed", when they have neuropathy induced by toxins, when they have limbs amputated, when they have their spine severed... I can't help but pause for a moment and think about that animal.

I wonder if there are any good estimates of how many rats, rabbits, dogs and otherwise are maimed and killed each year for medical (or cosmetic) research. Is there, realistically, anything that would change this?

View on HN

> It is estimated that the annual use of vertebrate animals—from zebrafish to non-human primates—ranges from tens to more than 100 million.[2] In the European Union, vertebrate species represent 93% of animals used in research, and 11.5 million animals were used there in 2011. By one estimate the number of mice and rats used in the United States alone in 2001 was 80 million.[3] Mice, rats, fish, amphibians and reptiles together account for over 85% of research animals.[4]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_testing

After all this time, I still have no idea how I feel about tortuous animal testing for medical breakthroughs.

It's a trolley problem with an unknown number of people on Track A and an unknown number of animals on Track B.

I don't even know how I feel about replacing animals in these experiments with human violent offenders.

Can we justify experimenting on a known serial killer if the experiment will save a million children's lives in the next 10 years? I don't know.

If an alien species were using us for their medical experiments, under the same circumstances and conditions, then what would I say?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem

Having read a bit about it, my position is something like:

- Experiments are way too common and mostly have useless/unusable outcomes.

- Ethical standards are basically nonexistent.

- Limited animal testing for serious human conditions (cancer, disease, etc.) is justifiable if great care is taken to maximize the benefits and minimize animal suffering.

In the cases where animal testing is justifiable, I would love to see us start funding care for the remainder of the animal's natural life as part of the grant that funds the original research (at least in the cases where the research itself doesn't cause irreparable suffering or risk exposure of some novel pathogen).

At the height of covid, there were a few pigs that were test subjects for ventilators who, after the experiments ended, were sent to an animal sanctuary. I wish we could cut down on animal research by, say, 90% and the remaining 10% could have similar outcomes as those pigs.

I am also all for protecting animals... until grandma is sick and could be cured only if we experiment a little more on rats. When that happens the life of a rat or a million looks disposable.

The thing is, the overwhelming majority of animal testing is not for saving grandma. It's for testing a new brand of makeup.

I'd rather a thousand cute bunnies go blind (or worse) than one woman's eyesight be harmed by dangerous makeup.

On that I can easily disagree. I'd rather we all say: "this makeup cannot be guaranteed to be safe- either outlaw it, skip it, or take your chances" and keep the bunnies alive and unharmed.

It's the medical breakthroughs where I get uncertain. Cosmetics be damned.

> keep the bunnies alive

Sounds nice, but in the real life those lab bunnies wouldn't even have been breed so they aren't alive in fact

Is it okay to not get everything we want? We have limited resources, especially if your care about humanity (or life in general) continuing on for awhile. I for one enjoy thinking about life thousands, millions of years hence, understanding and accepting that this book will probably close.

> Animal testing is bad and must be stopped

>> Here is some animal testing that is good. Could save lives.

> This is not true animal testing. Most animal testing is for lipsticks. I read it in a pamphlet.

If this sounds familiar to you is because is a classic Not true scotsman's fallacy.

> we justify experimenting on a known serial killer if the experiment will save a million children's lives in the next 10 years?

Without hesitation. A serial killer is someone who believes murder is acceptable and turnabout is fair play. Provided they are actually guilty there is little that is unjustified when dealing with willfully violent actors such as that. Add in now this person who has harmed society can be used to repair it and I can't think of anything more fair in a cosmic sense.

"Don't worry, that willcipriano guy we experimented on and murdered was a known serial killer. Never mind that he was a political dissident or whatever."

This is a thought experiment in the real world you wouldn't know for a fact that ten million children would be saved or if the person is actually guilty but if you did the choice is unambiguous.

> Can we justify experimenting on a known serial killer if the experiment will save a million children's lives in the next 10 years?

Not in a civilized society with a rule of law

Any functioning society would gladly sacrifice a serial killer to save millions of innocent children.

Some closely related cases for thought:

How about experimenting on cell cultures harvested from an adult who was executed by the state?

How about experimenting on cell cultures harvested from an aborted human fetus?

In both cases, the source of the cells doesn't give consent, but their designated caretaker does.

> How about experimenting on cell cultures harvested from an adult who was executed by the state?

Like many, I'm against capital punishment and wouldn't live in a jurisdiction that applies it so this is hard for me to even imagine.

I hope though that the philosophical aspect of the question doesn't distract us from the clear practical differences between killing a human being and using cells harvested in a questionable way.

Look up "Henrietta Lacks"

This is a terminological problem then, because many, many people argue "we" are neither civilized nor ruled by law. Furthermore, you could just write a law that says experimenting on serial killers is legal. You'd have to explain how that suddenly makes such a society uncivil, so either civility is the requirement or the law is the requirement, but not both.

So really, you're saying, "not according to our laws" which wasn't the question. It was a moral philosophical question, so your answer doesn't really address the question. It's not even on the same plane. Your answer is just a glib dismissal of the question's philosophical merit.

Sure, so we can't justify it based on our current laws. To change those laws is indirectly up to the people electing lawmakers. So it's up to people's opinion and how they view people who are convicted of serious serious crimes such as murder. Luckily, at least in the countries that I'm familiar with, people still mostly believe in rehabilitation and do not believe in any kind of eye for an eye punishment so I think we're good there. At least for a while.

I don't know how to bridge the gap here. I think I understand what you're saying. You're saying it's not okay because society has said it isn't. You agree with that.

The question is, why do you agree with that? Is it because society says so, or are you deriving that belief based on some principles. If so, what?

What is the underlying fundamental reason you believe it's not okay. I get the sense you think it's not okay to experiment on them, but I don't understand why you believe that. I don't believe you think that because other people think that in a democratic society. I get the sense that if society changed its mind and legalized it, I think you would still say it's not right. You'd go along with it, but you'd believe it is wrong.

Fair disclosure: I think it's wrong too. I am not disagreeing with your opinion, but I'm digging for the explanation you believe it. I think I know why I also believe it, but I don't want to explain why I do, because I think you're on to something, but you have to discover it within yourself.

Maybe you find a society where they are fine to do human experiments. If the tide turns though when you were doing your experiments make sure you still can escape to Argentina to avoid trial. (although after the fall of junta nowadays Argentina might not be safe anymore). Seems like you are just 80 years to late with that idea.

>Can we justify experimenting on a known serial killer if the experiment will save a million children's lives in the next 10 years? I don't know.

How is that a question? Of course it's justifiable. Valuing the life of someone who only sees humans as play things rather than a collective is silly. Remove them for the greater good.

>If an alien species were using us for their medical experiments, under the same circumstances and conditions, then what would I say?

This can be answered with the same logic. I say this with all seriousness, if you are not a speciesist with a heavy bent towards humanity and our continued survival as a group you should really consider scaling back your empathy for the sake of practicality.

Being found guilty of serial murder implies neither actual guilt nor, if actually guilty, that the murderer views other humans as playthings. A murderer may, in fact, believe they themselves are removing such people from the world.

It’s probably also better if potential jurors don’t have the thought, “Well, I have some doubt but if this guy dies and I’m wrong, at least it’ll do a lot of good.”

The parent comment said "known serial killer". There was no discussion of guilt. I may be wrong about the play thing bit so to revise and be more specific in my stance;

1. If they have no issue with killing people.

2. have killed people

3. will continue to kill people

If all or even most of those victims being people who do not harm others then I'm alright with the murderers being used in experiments or killed themselves.

I don't care about them being found guilty or not, this is hypothetical and there are a number of ways that they could be found guilty when they haven't done it or not guilty when they have. Getting to the point where you can know without a single doubt that they in fact are serial killers is a different matter.

I did not get the sense @newsbinator was trying to remove the question to an entirely hypothetical realm, but stipulating that we somehow have this knowledge with hypothetical 100% certainty is fair enough.

(1) is unknowable. (2) and (3) describe many, many people that are not generally considered to be serial killers (e.g., a soldier). If a 'known serial killer' were experimented on and died, (2) and (3) could also describe the researchers doing the experimentation.

We could modify (1) to say, "...and we have 100% certainty of this." But I guess really not certain what value the question has if we basically require 100% certain knowledge of the events and the internal state of the perpetrator. A 'no' answer would mean 'no' in the real world, too, but a 'yes' answer doesn't really tell us anything about the real world.

For the sake of simplicity, I used "known serial killer" to mean somebody we are certain is a serial killer for whatever reason. Let's say they were at a parade, in front of 100 eye-witnesses, and live tv cameras, going around killing people, and then confessed to it to arresting officers and in court.

Somebody who is doubtlessly (and perhaps unrealistically) guilty of committing one of our highest crimes, for the sake of simplifying the question.

> Can we justify experimenting on a known serial killer if the experiment will save a million children's lives in the next 10 years?

I mean, for one thing you can’t breed transgenic killers with a desired genotype by the millions.

> If an alien species were using us for their medical experiments, under the same circumstances and conditions, then what would I say?

That’s too hypothetical. Aliens will be more similar to their native fauna genetically then to us.

Instead of punishing people for crimes they may have not committed (mistakes happen and innocent people go to jail way too often), why not allow altruistic people come forward as volunteers?

I would like to understand downvotes for what seemed like relevant, thoughtful questions posed in this comment.

I had the same thought! Dang repeats the mantra, "bring curiosity" and here is a very curious post being downvoted. Also, the whole point of the downvote is to "disagree" but it doesn't seem to be used that way. Also, down voting limits the ability of the person "disagreed with" to communicate and share their position, which empowers the mob.

And furthermore, even talking about this topic is "meta discussion" which is discouraged here.

What does that say here? Disagreement is suppressed and self-reflection is not appreciated.

Let's just really think about that philosophy. It's an algorithm destined to echo chamber. A lack of diversity of thought.

I would say in the event of experimenting on non-voluntary humans, specifically prisoners, the issue is mostly about the fallibility of the law and setting a dangerous precedent. It's the same reason why the death penalty either needs to be highly restricted or not used altogether. It's too dangerous a power to give to the government lightly due to it's ability to be easily misused or used preemptively.

That’s why there’s a monument to a mouse [0].

> Is there, realistically, anything that would change this?

In all confidence, nothing is going to replace animal models in science for decades to come(at least when we talk about biology). Yes, you can study development and disease in cell culture or organoids to some extent. But those don’t match the dynamics of a fully-functioning organism. Even though findings from mouse experiments often don’t translate well to humans, it’s our best bet. Computational biology can reduce the amount of experiments you need to do. For example, you can try to predict drug toxicity or identify key regulators of a certain cell type. But there’re always false positives(gene-regulatory networks are like 90% FP) and you always need to go back to the lab.

If anything, I hope for more in-vivo experiments with the developments in CRISPR.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_laboratory_mou...

Yea, every time I receive medical care for some amazing drug or whatever, it crosses my mind of how many animals probably suffered getting it to that point.

And I think maybe we should just call it good right now and stop the experimentation. But that's not really realistic either.

I don't know if there is a good solution :(

Other than a solid majority of people being aware of and actively against such practices, I don't see it.

That would cripple science for good and stop the progress. It’s either cancer patients or lab mice.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com