You are ignoring the benefit side of a benefit-harm morality analysis.
Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so. However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value. For instance, testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit. Having improper controls, "testing" nonsensical theories, repeating stale results poorly, inadequate data collection, etc. are just a few ways a test procedure can be totally useless or even actively harmful.
This also ignores one of the other aspects of animal testing which is as a dry run or rehearsal for actual application. You do it right in animals so you are practiced at doing it right for when you need to do it right in humans. "Oh yeah, we royally screwed up in every rehearsal, but we will nail it in production." is not an acceptable approach. You look at the care taken during their practiced procedures on less critical subjects to determine if their practiced procedure is adequate for more critical subjects. A process that kills far more test subjects than others or achieves middling results relative to resource expenditure or that treats subjects as disposable for "advancing science" is not a process fit for human subjects. Assuming ingrained cultural process deficiencies will magically disappear when using changing subjects is foolish.
These are just some of the reasons why people eating a ridiculous number of animals does not and should not waive our invalidate concerns about animal testing procedure.
> Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so
It is what comes before the eating that we should think about. We are breeding conscious beings (cattle, pigs, chickens) in harrowing conditions, with second order effects on the environment and plant and animal diversity (by clearing space for feed).
Should we stop eating animals? I don't know.
Should we stop testing on animals? If it meant that we cannot develop certain classes of therapies, then probably not.
Should we level up our compassion and care for animals and the environment even if it means humans have less luxury as long as it doesn't hold back increased life and health span? Probably.
That is almost entirely irrelevant to the point I was making.
I was responding to the argument being made that any animal testing process on a small number of animals is fine since much larger numbers of animals are raised to be eaten. That is emphatically not true for multiple reasons of which I highlighted two distinct, practical reasons why careful animal testing is not merely ethical, but can and does increase the rate of the scientific development of safe procedures fit for usage on humans. Demanding good animal testing process is important even if people still raise and eat animals; it is not trumped either ethically or practically.
> However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value.
I find it difficult to believe that companies do expensive surgery on expensive animals for no reason (other than sadism?). These companies think this testing does in fact have value (and if we don't trust companies to make that determination we probably should restrict animal testing to governments).
But regardless, there's no real way to justify eating meat (given the marginal benefit of taste over vegan food) other than saying the lives and suffering of animals is essentially worthless. There isn't a threshhold you can put which will allow eating but prevent animal testing.
You wanted to test implant A, but you unintentionally used implant B in half of your experiments is not "learning". Unless you needed to learn Surgery 101 like maintaining and going through checklists, but then you are grossly ill-equipped to be doing neurosurgery.
Eating an animal at least ostensibly has positive value for the people doing so. However, there are plenty of forms of "animal testing" that confer zero positive value. For instance, testing the wrong compound or inserting the wrong implant confers zero benefit. Having improper controls, "testing" nonsensical theories, repeating stale results poorly, inadequate data collection, etc. are just a few ways a test procedure can be totally useless or even actively harmful.
This also ignores one of the other aspects of animal testing which is as a dry run or rehearsal for actual application. You do it right in animals so you are practiced at doing it right for when you need to do it right in humans. "Oh yeah, we royally screwed up in every rehearsal, but we will nail it in production." is not an acceptable approach. You look at the care taken during their practiced procedures on less critical subjects to determine if their practiced procedure is adequate for more critical subjects. A process that kills far more test subjects than others or achieves middling results relative to resource expenditure or that treats subjects as disposable for "advancing science" is not a process fit for human subjects. Assuming ingrained cultural process deficiencies will magically disappear when using changing subjects is foolish.
These are just some of the reasons why people eating a ridiculous number of animals does not and should not waive our invalidate concerns about animal testing procedure.