We tend to think that if the goal is to find a single proxy, something like encephalization quotient might be the best bet. It’s imperfect in various ways, but at least it corrects for differences in body size, which means that it doesn’t discount many animals nearly as aggressively as neuron counts do. (While we don’t have EQs for every species of interest, they’re calculable in principle.)
Finally, we’ve also developed some models to generate values that can be plugged into cost-benefit analyses. We’ll post those in January. Hope they’re useful!
Thank you, this is very helpful and I definitely agree that EQs are available/practical enough to use in most cases. Really looking forward to seeing the new models in January!
Hi Monica! We hear you about wanting a table with those results. We’ve tried to provide one here for 11 farmed species: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/tnSg6o7crcHFLc395/the-welfare-range-table
We tend to think that if the goal is to find a single proxy, something like encephalization quotient might be the best bet. It’s imperfect in various ways, but at least it corrects for differences in body size, which means that it doesn’t discount many animals nearly as aggressively as neuron counts do. (While we don’t have EQs for every species of interest, they’re calculable in principle.)
Finally, we’ve also developed some models to generate values that can be plugged into cost-benefit analyses. We’ll post those in January. Hope they’re useful!
Thank you, this is very helpful and I definitely agree that EQs are available/practical enough to use in most cases. Really looking forward to seeing the new models in January!