[4 of 6] āWhat conditions would trigger a move from foundational research to applied work?ā
I really do like arbitrary binaries for things that obviously arenāt that simple (āall models are wrong, but some are usefulā!), but in this particular case I think the binary might actually be too reductive to be useful. Still, Iāll attempt to give a direct answer once Iāve done some quibbling.
First of all, applied work is already happening. There are many things people are doing to wild animals (typically for anthropocentric or biodiversity conservation reasons) that seem quite plausibly helpful for welfare (e.g., continuing to reduce the range of the New World screwworm). The difficulty is in determining whether these these interventions have net-positive effects once indirect effects on non-target species are accounted for. However, that doesnāt mean we shouldnāt do anything for wild animals until weāre absolutely certain about the nature of the impact weāre having. After all, everything that changes human or animal populations (e.g., distributing anti-malarial bednets, reducing factory farming) also has indirect effects on wild animals. So I think itās best to think of applied work not as something that will suddenly become possible, but rather something weāll gradually be able to do more strategically, confidently, and cost-effectively as science progresses.
Secondly, the need for foundational research wonāt necessarily go down for a long time, because answering some foundational questions will make it newly possible to address other foundational questions. Implementing progressively more ambitious interventions will certainly raise plenty of applied questions, which might themselves expose important gaps in foundational knowledge. While I realize this sounds like the classic researcher whose head is so far up their own ass the only words they can still get out are āmore research is needed!ā, my thinking on this is actually more informed by my experience as an animal activist and what Iāve read about the history of the movement. As its focus shifted from pets to lab animals to farmed vertebrates to farmed invertebrates, the animal advocacy movement has repeatedly needed to consult more areas of science to inform its goals and tactics. I donāt have a good sense of how often that raised truly foundational scientific questions, but at least right now the movement is greatly constrained by the lack of basic scientific (and even philosophical!) understanding of the nature of sentience, which seems extremely important to determining which invertebrates fall within the moral circle.
Iām not saying thereās an infinite need for more research. Rather, I think we should acknowledge that research is likely to be a core function of the wild animal advocacy for the foreseeable future, and we shouldnāt expect the need for foundational research to consistently go down as the opportunities for applied work increase.
For Wild Animal Initiativeās part, we plan to continue pursuing both basic and applied research for the foreseeable future, and we hope the amount of resources devoted to that will continue to increase in absolute terms. In relative terms, we hope the proportion of the movementās resources spent on research generally declines over time, as research reveals more and more pathways for applied work. But we think most of that work should be done by other organizations. As a scientific organization that isnāt part of an academic institution, itās essential for us to maintain credible in the eyes of scientists, and tying ourselves to particular campaigns or policies increases the risk that we will be seen as putting āan agendaā ahead of the pursuit of the truth. That risk could be mitigated, so we continue to explore strategies that involve us branching out. Our rule of thumb for now is we want to be involved in applied work when we can clearly position ourselves as scientific advisors to a project others are leading, as weāre currently doing in our collaborations with Conservation X Labs (which will lead the rodent fertility control open innovation challenge, funding permitting) and the NYU WILD Lab (which works at the intersection of wild animal welfare science and municipal policymaking).
Finally, my attempt to answer your question directly: Given the aforebabbledabout fuzziness of the boundary between foundational and applied work, perhaps it would be useful to reformulate the question along these lines: āUnder what conditions would we want the movement to be applying the majority of its resources to choosing and implementing interventions, rather than doing research that isnāt directly targeted at specific interventions?ā
Perhaps those conditions would include:
We have methods to empirically measure welfare within enough precision across a broad enough range of species that we can confidently make habitat-level land management decisions (i.e., is the total wellbeing of all the animals higher in cropland A or cropland B, forest C or forest D, cropland A or forest C, etc.). This isnāt strictly necessary to take action, but it would open up such a huge category of tractable actions that applied work would likely be able to absorb more resources than foundational work.
Within wild animal welfare science and adjacent academic communities, there is a common understanding of welfare as something that is distinct from biodiversity, naturalness, economic value, or other values traditionally pursued by conservationists and other land managers. This would represent a major milestone on the path to a society that understands and values wild animal welfare enough for welfare to be a common consideration in policy discussions (similar to how ideas like biodiversity, carbon sequestration, or environmental justice factor into policy discussions now: rarely the single highest priority, but widely understood and treated as good things to advance when possible). Again, this isnāt necessary to take action, but the more widely welfare is understood and valued, the more likely it is that efforts to improve wild animal welfare will have positive long-term effects on social norms, which makes it more worthwhile to take action even if the short-term effects are uncertain.
[4 of 6] āWhat conditions would trigger a move from foundational research to applied work?ā
I really do like arbitrary binaries for things that obviously arenāt that simple (āall models are wrong, but some are usefulā!), but in this particular case I think the binary might actually be too reductive to be useful. Still, Iāll attempt to give a direct answer once Iāve done some quibbling.
First of all, applied work is already happening. There are many things people are doing to wild animals (typically for anthropocentric or biodiversity conservation reasons) that seem quite plausibly helpful for welfare (e.g., continuing to reduce the range of the New World screwworm). The difficulty is in determining whether these these interventions have net-positive effects once indirect effects on non-target species are accounted for. However, that doesnāt mean we shouldnāt do anything for wild animals until weāre absolutely certain about the nature of the impact weāre having. After all, everything that changes human or animal populations (e.g., distributing anti-malarial bednets, reducing factory farming) also has indirect effects on wild animals. So I think itās best to think of applied work not as something that will suddenly become possible, but rather something weāll gradually be able to do more strategically, confidently, and cost-effectively as science progresses.
Secondly, the need for foundational research wonāt necessarily go down for a long time, because answering some foundational questions will make it newly possible to address other foundational questions. Implementing progressively more ambitious interventions will certainly raise plenty of applied questions, which might themselves expose important gaps in foundational knowledge. While I realize this sounds like the classic researcher whose head is so far up their own ass the only words they can still get out are āmore research is needed!ā, my thinking on this is actually more informed by my experience as an animal activist and what Iāve read about the history of the movement. As its focus shifted from pets to lab animals to farmed vertebrates to farmed invertebrates, the animal advocacy movement has repeatedly needed to consult more areas of science to inform its goals and tactics. I donāt have a good sense of how often that raised truly foundational scientific questions, but at least right now the movement is greatly constrained by the lack of basic scientific (and even philosophical!) understanding of the nature of sentience, which seems extremely important to determining which invertebrates fall within the moral circle.
Iām not saying thereās an infinite need for more research. Rather, I think we should acknowledge that research is likely to be a core function of the wild animal advocacy for the foreseeable future, and we shouldnāt expect the need for foundational research to consistently go down as the opportunities for applied work increase.
For Wild Animal Initiativeās part, we plan to continue pursuing both basic and applied research for the foreseeable future, and we hope the amount of resources devoted to that will continue to increase in absolute terms. In relative terms, we hope the proportion of the movementās resources spent on research generally declines over time, as research reveals more and more pathways for applied work. But we think most of that work should be done by other organizations. As a scientific organization that isnāt part of an academic institution, itās essential for us to maintain credible in the eyes of scientists, and tying ourselves to particular campaigns or policies increases the risk that we will be seen as putting āan agendaā ahead of the pursuit of the truth. That risk could be mitigated, so we continue to explore strategies that involve us branching out. Our rule of thumb for now is we want to be involved in applied work when we can clearly position ourselves as scientific advisors to a project others are leading, as weāre currently doing in our collaborations with Conservation X Labs (which will lead the rodent fertility control open innovation challenge, funding permitting) and the NYU WILD Lab (which works at the intersection of wild animal welfare science and municipal policymaking).
Finally, my attempt to answer your question directly: Given the aforebabbledabout fuzziness of the boundary between foundational and applied work, perhaps it would be useful to reformulate the question along these lines: āUnder what conditions would we want the movement to be applying the majority of its resources to choosing and implementing interventions, rather than doing research that isnāt directly targeted at specific interventions?ā
Perhaps those conditions would include:
We have methods to empirically measure welfare within enough precision across a broad enough range of species that we can confidently make habitat-level land management decisions (i.e., is the total wellbeing of all the animals higher in cropland A or cropland B, forest C or forest D, cropland A or forest C, etc.). This isnāt strictly necessary to take action, but it would open up such a huge category of tractable actions that applied work would likely be able to absorb more resources than foundational work.
Within wild animal welfare science and adjacent academic communities, there is a common understanding of welfare as something that is distinct from biodiversity, naturalness, economic value, or other values traditionally pursued by conservationists and other land managers. This would represent a major milestone on the path to a society that understands and values wild animal welfare enough for welfare to be a common consideration in policy discussions (similar to how ideas like biodiversity, carbon sequestration, or environmental justice factor into policy discussions now: rarely the single highest priority, but widely understood and treated as good things to advance when possible). Again, this isnāt necessary to take action, but the more widely welfare is understood and valued, the more likely it is that efforts to improve wild animal welfare will have positive long-term effects on social norms, which makes it more worthwhile to take action even if the short-term effects are uncertain.