And yes, scale matters. To reduce animal suffering on a global scale, the obvious target are the meat factories. That doesn't mean, that avoiding animal suffering here isn't something that should be done as well. And when there was unnecessary testing, it clearly was unnecessary animal suffering.
The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute, when in fact nobody does that or believes in that (apart form militant vegans perhaps).
There is a lot of biomedical research out there killing a lot of animals. Most of it is of dubious utility-- most of the low level stuff can be done in simpler organisms or simulation, lots of it is highly speculative with no applications in sight.
This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms. I do agree that it could probably have been done more carefully or more slowly and saved a few animal lives, but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this.
"The problem I have with this discussion is it pretends to treat animal welfare as an absolute"
I don't see, where I did this. I clearly stated that I eat meat and I know that this means animal suffering. It is all about the relative suffering to me aka avoiding unnecessary suffering or finding better ways (simulations) wherever possible.
"but I am certain that this is a long long /long/ way from the worst example of this. "
And there surely are worse examples. So what? This is about this concrete example. Unnecessary animal suffering to meet some arbitary deadlines. Not to save the world from a pandemic or alike.
"This research has a very high expected return, and it can't be done in simpler organisms."
My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not?
Apes are indeed quite close to us (so are pigs) and I think drawing a line along "with that species really anything is allowed as they cannot speak" to "they can speak, we have to take every caution with them" is just strange to me, or rather plain wrong.
So to be clear, I never said animal testing is never allright. But I do think the reasoning of "anything is allowed with animals" is very wrong.
I wasn't calling out you specifically, more explaining my attitude here in general. Sorry for not being more clear about that.
> My question would be, why not use humans? At what point would the "very high expected return" justify this? Never? Why not?
Very good question! Obviously we are heading into sci-fi territory now, but in a world where all suffering was valued according to some agreed-upon objective metric I would suggest the following:
- yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc.
- in such a world testing would presumably be much more expensive, so they could afford more complex research substrates that we don't bother with because we can just use animals
- eg. lots of brain organoids and other synthetic experimental substrates
And for the record, I do think such a world would either be some sort of anarchocapitalist chaos or painfully slow to develop. But at least it would be morally coherent!
Joking aside I guess my only real message here is, people who find this stuff disgusting should think about their dinner plates. In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products.
"yes much more human testing, especially volunteers who are terminally ill/suicidal etc."
Basically, it is already done, when late stage cancer patients agree to the very latest, risky treatments.
But I would extend it with say, granting death row canditates certain privileges, when they agree for some risky tests. But that is a very grey area with lots of room for turning into dystopia (but you can argue death row prisoners are living there anyway).
Also the problem with proper testing is, that you need healthy subjects which are as similar as possible. So that would mean breeding or cloning humans as test subjects. I fear this is secretly already done or planned, for very promising stem cell research/gene therapies/enhanced babies.
"In my ideal world, we use approximately 50% as much animal testing and 0.1% as many animal food products. "
And in my ideal world, we do not do animal testing at all anymore, but since I have not a working replacement avaiable, your numbers sound agreeable.
This is the key factor for me.
And yes, scale matters. To reduce animal suffering on a global scale, the obvious target are the meat factories. That doesn't mean, that avoiding animal suffering here isn't something that should be done as well. And when there was unnecessary testing, it clearly was unnecessary animal suffering.