In your note, you state you are uncomfortable with these experiments. Me too. I find them abhorrent. I used to have a couple of pet rats and they are the dearest, sweetest, most curious and intelligent creatures imaginable. The thought that they could have been ‘decortified’ makes me feel sick.
I have spent a lot of time reading on the neuroscience of memory, to develop my understanding of the field, especially relating to the hippocampus. Much understanding here has come from experiments on rats. When/if I finally publish my findings, however, I intend to avoid citing those papers using rat experimentation wherever possible. Imaging technology has advanced to the point where animal lesion studies can gradually take a back seat, and I would hope that eventually they are no longer performed. As Effective Altruists we should be also moving in that direction too, don’t you think? Is examination of consciousness via this type of experiment even at all compatible with the moral standpoint of ‘doing the most good’? I think not.
Once I visited a university physiology lab. The scientists there seemed like nice people. But they thought nothing of turning a gas tap on to kill a vibrant and happy bunch of mice that were extraneous to their experimental needs. The conversation and the laughter went on, while I looked at all those suddenly still, dead little bodies. It was grotesque. Grotesque.
Thanks for highlighting these concerns. This is something I fretted about before writing this, and I condensed my thoughts into footnote 1. Let me expand on them here:
1.) These sorts of studies are long out of vogue. I don’t believe my engaging with them (especially on the EA forum, which confers little academic prestige) will encourage any similar experiments to be carried out in the future. I also don’t think it will affect the status of the researchers or the trajectory of their careers.
2.) There are a huge number of experiments that are callously harmful to sentient creatures like rats, as you note. Decortication studies stand out because they involve harms to bodily and mental integrity, which we find particularly repulsive, but many experiments in psychology, medicine, and neuroscience routinely involve killing their test subjects. I’m hesitant to disengage from such research (or to refuse to benefit from it, or let other animals benefit from it) entirely.
3.) All sorts of work indirectly contributes to animal suffering. It is conceivable to me that more suffering is caused by poisoning rats / mice around your average university building, or to provide food for the average university conference, than was caused by these studies to the animals involved. Avoiding engaging with work that involves avoidable animal suffering is extremely difficult. I don’t think it makes sense to disengage with work just because the harms it causes are more obvious.
4.) Understanding consciousness is important for cause prioritization. These sorts of studies have the potential to tell us a lot that might bear on how we think about projects aiming to benefit fish or insects. If they can help us direct funds more effectively for animals, we should pay attention to them.
5.) Animal activists have a reputation for naivete and credulity. Engaging substantively with science, which necessarily includes studies that cruelly harm animals, may help us to be taken more seriously.
“5.) Animal activists have a reputation for naivete and credulity. Engaging substantively with science, which necessarily includes studies that cruelly harm animals, may help us to be taken more seriously.”
No. ‘Engaging’ with cruel studies and citing them, paying attention to them, means giving them credence. They should be ignored into oblivion. This is a valid standpoint, neither naive nor credulous.
In your note, you state you are uncomfortable with these experiments. Me too. I find them abhorrent. I used to have a couple of pet rats and they are the dearest, sweetest, most curious and intelligent creatures imaginable. The thought that they could have been ‘decortified’ makes me feel sick.
I have spent a lot of time reading on the neuroscience of memory, to develop my understanding of the field, especially relating to the hippocampus. Much understanding here has come from experiments on rats. When/if I finally publish my findings, however, I intend to avoid citing those papers using rat experimentation wherever possible. Imaging technology has advanced to the point where animal lesion studies can gradually take a back seat, and I would hope that eventually they are no longer performed. As Effective Altruists we should be also moving in that direction too, don’t you think? Is examination of consciousness via this type of experiment even at all compatible with the moral standpoint of ‘doing the most good’? I think not.
Once I visited a university physiology lab. The scientists there seemed like nice people. But they thought nothing of turning a gas tap on to kill a vibrant and happy bunch of mice that were extraneous to their experimental needs. The conversation and the laughter went on, while I looked at all those suddenly still, dead little bodies. It was grotesque. Grotesque.
Thanks for highlighting these concerns. This is something I fretted about before writing this, and I condensed my thoughts into footnote 1. Let me expand on them here:
1.) These sorts of studies are long out of vogue. I don’t believe my engaging with them (especially on the EA forum, which confers little academic prestige) will encourage any similar experiments to be carried out in the future. I also don’t think it will affect the status of the researchers or the trajectory of their careers.
2.) There are a huge number of experiments that are callously harmful to sentient creatures like rats, as you note. Decortication studies stand out because they involve harms to bodily and mental integrity, which we find particularly repulsive, but many experiments in psychology, medicine, and neuroscience routinely involve killing their test subjects. I’m hesitant to disengage from such research (or to refuse to benefit from it, or let other animals benefit from it) entirely.
3.) All sorts of work indirectly contributes to animal suffering. It is conceivable to me that more suffering is caused by poisoning rats / mice around your average university building, or to provide food for the average university conference, than was caused by these studies to the animals involved. Avoiding engaging with work that involves avoidable animal suffering is extremely difficult. I don’t think it makes sense to disengage with work just because the harms it causes are more obvious.
4.) Understanding consciousness is important for cause prioritization. These sorts of studies have the potential to tell us a lot that might bear on how we think about projects aiming to benefit fish or insects. If they can help us direct funds more effectively for animals, we should pay attention to them.
5.) Animal activists have a reputation for naivete and credulity. Engaging substantively with science, which necessarily includes studies that cruelly harm animals, may help us to be taken more seriously.
“5.) Animal activists have a reputation for naivete and credulity. Engaging substantively with science, which necessarily includes studies that cruelly harm animals, may help us to be taken more seriously.”
No. ‘Engaging’ with cruel studies and citing them, paying attention to them, means giving them credence. They should be ignored into oblivion. This is a valid standpoint, neither naive nor credulous.