University of Wisconsin to reprise controversial monkey studies | Hacker News Reader

University of Wisconsin to reprise controversial monkey studies

wisconsinwatch.org

41 points__Joker46 comments

In the time it took you to read that article about 20 Rhesus monkeys who will be cared for in the most humane way possible given the study parameters, roughly 1000 pigs and 300 cows were slaughtered in the USA, many living in ghastly conditions. The Rhesus monkeys will perish so that we can improve treatment for millions of people suffering from anxiety and depression. The cows and pigs died so you can eat a bacon cheeseburger.

I'm not a vegetarian, because bacon cheeseburgers are delicious, but I don't understand why we insist on being so morally inconsistent.

likely cause we're further genetically and emotionally removed from farm animals than from primates.

i don't think many will consider the use of pesticides an inhumane way to kill insects (even though it likely is). the word itself (humane) implies a standard derived from/for humans.

> I don't understand why we insist on being so morally inconsistent

Where is this inconsistency? Both are bad. Are you not aware of people who object to consumption of animals?

The 'ethical treatment' of animals includes respect for their natural diets. A significant portion of the bio-mass of the planet is genetically architected to consume other animals--they are true carnivores. You might as well go feed the bears in yosemtie a snickers bar. Its not consistent (morally or scientifically) to pretend the world is designed another way. In the same way its not consistent to feed (even) omnivores human-junk-food.

Not sure I follow.

Where did you get lost?

Where you leaped from vegetarianism to preventing carnivores from eating animals.

Logically, preventing carnivores from eating other animals would have a similar effect on animal suffering as humans not eating other animals. This is not a valid argument against vegetarianism unless you think we should do things just because other animals do (I’m not currently a vegetarian, but a lot of their arguments do make sense). The easiest way to do this would be to kill all the carnivores (as opposed to trying to create and feed them all nutritionally-complete tofu-based meat substitutes), and while that would be an unusual action to take from the perspective of usual environmentalism with the goal of protecting species diversity, it might actually be the case that it would reduce the total amount of animal suffering, if we had a way to measure and quantify suffering.

You and many others may very well be morally consistent on this point, and yet I suspect that more than half of the people outraged by this will eat meat this week without even thinking about it.

if not for that "moral inconsistency" we would still be cutting live dogs without anesthesia in the name of scientific research.

> The Rhesus monkeys will perish so that we can improve treatment for millions of people suffering from anxiety and depression

moral ends where horsetrading starts.

Three-fold:

1) Killing animals for food is something that happens in nature.

2) The purpose of this study is to inflict psychological damage. Death isn't the worst possible thing.

3) Monkeys are a lot more intelligent. Indeed, that's why the researchers are studying monkey psychology instead of pig psychology.

I'm no vegetarian either, but I think looking back 50 years from now, we'll look back regretfully at how we treat certain higher functioning animals like primates and cetaceans today.

How does the intelligence of an animal effect how that living creature should be treated? For example, do you think it is appropriate to treat a monkey better then one should treat a dog or cat simply because a monkey has a higher mental capacity?

Isn’t that the basic justification for why we treat humans much differently than other animals? I think this is because we each know we’re capable of suffering and assume other humans are as well, and in the lack of other evidence, assume that animals with brains more similar to humans’ are more capable of suffering than less intelligent animals. I also think this reasoning is a major reason why research into differences in human intelligence between individuals is so controversial.

I think that could be one reason/assumption. Though I think generally humans think that living creatures can all suffer. After that it comes down to acceptability and return.

Why does it matter if something happens in nature? Do you think animals don’t suffer in the process of being killed by other animals? I’m not necessarily saying that we should all be vegetarians (what if we raise and slaughter animals so that they experience less suffering than wild animals do?), only that this is a lousy argument.

Veganism is a logically consistent answer to this question.

Be interesting to see if UK animal rights tactics are exported to the US.

Protestors ignore the actual department doing the research but unleash a shitstorm of protest over anyone providing services to that department.

As more and more service companies decline the contracts the costs for the department go up and up.

UK groups were very effective at this, but there were also unacceptable forms of protest involving violence. And UK government had weird ideas about right to peaceful protest being wrong if it was effective at making people change their behavior. Thus animal rights groups are sometimes terrorist organisations (to be fair, a few of them did dig up corpses and other really unpleasant thing).

Tl:dr don't stand outside the monkey experiment department waving placards; go to the place that takes their garbage or provides their lunches or does the cleaning or the gardening or the stationery.

>UK government had weird ideas about right to peaceful protest being wrong if it was effective at making people change their behavior. Thus animal rights groups are sometimes terrorist organisations

check out AETA laws in states.

This is pretty sickening. I have spent a lot of time around various monkey species, including the Rhesus Macaque, and the amount of emotional awareness and sensitivity they have is comparable to that in humans. To subject such intelligent and sensitive animals to such fear and cruelty, at such a young age, and then to euthanize them afterwards, in a reprise of past experiments, is beyond senseless.

Well, a committee of scientists that know better than you think results will be worthwhile and disagree.

I'll take their word over uneducated ethical argument. I apologize for being presumptuous about your occupation and field of research.

> Well, a committee of scientists that know better than you think results will be worthwhile and disagree.

The article stressed that green lighting the research was a hugely controversial decision. I'm also pretty certain there are a huge number of scientists who do research on animals are wouldn't be comfortable with this research.

Also, I think the parent was rejecting the deontological framework in which the decision was made, rather than calling into question the resulting calculation by the ethics board. So an appeal to the expertise of the panel doesn't make much sense.

So what if it was controversial? Some decisions are controversial. This one received more discussion, input, and thought than most other plans. Just because it did it doesn't make that decisions wrong or unethical.

Another committee of scientists -- another IRB board -- probably would have not allowed the study.

Therefore, the parent's appeal to the IRB process as the harbinger of ethics is misguided.

If any IRB would deem a study ethical, then there's probably consensus among the scientific community on the cost-benefit tradeoff of the study. If one IRB deemed the study ethical, and if there're probably a lot of other potential IRBs that would not, then appealing to some sort of scientific consensus on the matter is a misnomer.

What makes you think that "scientists" have any better ethics than anyone else? Given past examples, I really don't trust them to look beyond their own self interest. Besides, this particular experiment would be much more useful if performed with "scientists" children.

I assume your joking about doing an equivalent experiment with human beings, right?

He’s not saying it should be done on human beings, he’s arguing it’s also wrong to do it on monkeys for the same reason it’s wrong to do on humans. You, and many other people, are making an argument that I find at least somewhat uncomfortable that it’s OK to treat animals, even those very similar to humans, much worse than humans because they’re of a different species. Can you articulate why you believe that, and how comfortable are you with your reasoning?

Under that line of reasoning there could be no science done involving any type of living creature, both big and small (like bacteria), unless it was purely non-contact observational.

Monkeys are much more similar to humans, and presumably much more able to experience suffering, than bacteria are. People like to draw an arbitrary line between humans and other animals, and there are good reasons for that in a lot of cases (e.g., should we give chimpanzees the right to vote in government elections, or start giving them drivers’ licenses?), but that might not be the most relevant line to draw in terms of ability to experience suffering. Many people clearly experience some cognitive dissonance when deciding how to treat animals: for example, many people treat pet dogs as family members but eat other animals like pigs, even though dogs and pigs probably aren’t really very different in any ethically relevant way.

Ethical concerns should trump all. How and why are the two most important questions when conducting research.

And besides, animal suffering matters to many people, often more than the answer itself matters.

Must I have a degree in the field of research related to this study in order to have a valid opinion on the torment, suffering, and eventual euthanization of 20 innocent monkeys?

Likely. You have to be able to see the trade offs and cascading effects. It is similar to the ethical question where if you reroute the train track it kills someone and if you don't it kills two.

Of course, it is more hairy than that. There is an estimate of the number of people on the original track as well as a probability that the reroute does not save them.

The ends don't justify the means for me. The study hopes to gain a better understanding of the early causes of anxiety and depression. We're not saving the human race here, we're not necessarily even saving lives.

Even if a new treatment for depression were developed due to this research (which it probably won't), and you were clinically depressed, would you want to receive it knowing it was came about after the torture and eventual deaths of 20 baby monkeys? I wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

If it developed a better treatment or prevention for depression, lives would be saved.

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with taking said treatment, but I know that others may have different feelings about that. The ends don't justify the means is a very valid ethical opinion, how relatively extreme it is in this case depends on the size of the possible award vs. the trade-off, which takes professional knowledge to properly estimate.

Scientists don't get to write the rules about what is and isn't morally acceptable in society.

The University of Wisconsin has a reputation for being unusually liberal for a Midwest campus.

I can assure you that the Madison Veterinary school is far removed from that liberal slant.

There are several intensive essays involved in the Vet school application process, and if they get a hint that you are applying because you've "always loved animals" and/or you "want to help ease their suffering", your application gets tossed fast.

That vet school is a serious business for serious professionals.

Maybe they are all like that - I don't know.

I have a feeling it's because the Midwest has such a strong farming background that the kids are already used to the animals getting slaughtered at the end of the season.

The corporations know the hardcore testing/experimentation is necessary, so they help make the school successful and also help mold the students' attitudes while they are young.

It's like being a soldier.

The rest of the world can argue about what's morally right or wrong, but you do your job, stay professional, push the boundaries, make discoveries and help mankind.

At the end of every experiment, the subjects get euthanized. SOP. Do it until it doesn't bother you anymore.

Start with mice/rats. Move up to rabbits/pigs/dogs, then on to monkeys.

It's hardcore, but somebody has to do it. (Or maybe not. But what do I know?)

I can tell you with 100% certainty that Madison in general is one of the most left of center, left leaning (more liberal than liberal), cities in the country, not just the midwest. I can also tell you with 100% certainty that the University is even more left than the city. I think the difference here is that this is an example of people seeing how their hot dogs and hamburgers are made and they are not used to it. Its messy and sometimes unpleasant. The people at the UW are highly ethical, talented, dedicated professional scientists who are doing their best give as much dignity to these test subjects as possible while at the same time trying to further science and the betterment of mankind.

> Start with mice/rats. Move up to rabbits/pigs/dogs, then on to monkeys.

Why not move on to humans afterward? If it's okay to perform unethical experiments as a means to an end, then why not perform them on humans for the maximum benefit? Unit 731's experiments provided agreeably valuable evidence, demonstrating the value in human experimentation; and it's hotly debated that many tests on animals are applicable to humans to begin with, demonstrating the overstated value of animal experimentation. So if it's true that knowledge trumps morality, we're not taking advantage of that fact.

Where in this article did it state that the experiment was unethical?

Only 2 people objected over what was essentially 2 different committees (with different people on those committees). Both committees approved two different, yet closely similar, plans. The person they quoted, who objected on the similar plan 2 years ago, seemed to object based on nothing but his feelings. In the article he stated, “We’re killing baby monkeys.” That is not anything near a reasoned, logical, scientifically backed statement on why their plan was unethical. Would it have been ethical if they proceeded with their plan, let it run its course for the year, then let the monkeys live until their natural deaths?

Sorry, I thought it was implied. Like an article about baby eating or something. If your argument is that you're a nihilist and don't value life (be it baby monkey or human) then that's something I can reason with, but if you're saying it's ethical to kill baby monkeys and not humans, re-read my post.

If your day-to-day job consists of inflicting harm on animals, you should be tested for psychopathic tendencies. It should be mandatory.

For what purpose?

Suppose this test indicated that one of the lab workers had 'psychopathic tendencies', what do you propose happens next?

Remove them from the job? I work in a company that does animal experiments and I have noticed that some of the scientists don't seem to have any empathy with the animals. They treat them like any other device they work with. In my view they could treat the animals much better without having a negative impact on the study but it's just not a concern for management or scientists.

I think it is a natural human reaction to physiologically distance yourself. If you didn't then there would be no scientific progress. That being said if a person were to go out of their way to be especially cruel or sadistic or unethical (obviously it depends on your definition of cruel) then I would say that the person needs to be removed and if necessary charged with a crime.

It's a coping strategy, that indicates that they aren't psychopaths.

People who deal in harsh conditions become more clinical and detached. Farmers, doctors, soldiers and call center agents all share similar behaviors in this area.

I never thought it about as a coping strategy. It's an interesting thought though. I know quite a few people who couldn't deal with animal testing anymore and did something else. I guess that leaves a certain kind of people. I still think there should be stronger rules for animal testing and how the animals are being kept. The cost for better treatment would be small compared to all other costs. I bet somewhen in the future people will look at animal cruelty (animal testing and meat production) the same way we look at things like slavery or chopping off a thief's hands now.

Facebook might be interested in them. Not as good raw material as live humans, but hey, if it works, it works.

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