In the news
6 Sep 2008
15 April 2005
Animal experiments: scientific necessity or moral outrage?
Dr Gill Langley, Scientific Adviser for the Dr Hadwen Trust, was one of four speakers at a key debate on animal experiments held at Oxford in April 2005.
Organised by the Oxford Literary Festival, the line-up also included Dr Colin Blakemore of the Medical Research Council; Dr Bob Combes of Fund for the Replacement of Animals in Medical Experiments; and Tony Gilland from the Institute of Ideas. The speakers debated the question Animal experiments: scientific necessity or moral outrage?
Colin Blakemore argued that animal experiments, properly regulated, are a necessary evil. Bob Combes explained the importance of replacing, reducing and refining experiments on animals (known as the Three Rs). Tony Gilland argued that human creativity should not be stifled and that scientists should be free to conduct any experiments on animals, without regulation.
Dr Gill Langley was asked to put the ethical case against animal experiments. Here is a transcript of her presentation:
“Mary Midgley argues that, as a species, we have always been deeply influenced by powerful myths about animals. At an emotional level, humans seem to need animals to represent the evil side of our own natures. But for this symbolism to work, there has to be an absolute barrier between us and the rest of the animal kingdom.
That’s one reason why the definition of ‘human’ constantly shifts as the species barrier is threatened. Until the 1950s it was believed that only humans use tools. When ethologists studied animals in their natural environment, rather than in laboratories, they found that several other species – from Egyptian vultures to sea otters – use tools too.
A subtle redefinition followed – humans were unique in making tools, not just using them. But then Jane Goodall reported to her supervisor Louis Leakey that she had seen wild chimpanzees modifying twigs to probe for termites. He replied, “Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man or accept chimpanzees as humans.”
With every new discovery, people keep redefining ‘human’ by moving the goalposts. When it was found that apes can be taught to communicate in American sign language, experts decided that their communications weren’t sophisticated enough to count as language.
One by one the supposed barriers have fallen: crows can solve problems by designing tools; chimpanzees have culture; insects construct and navigate by mental maps of their territory; and wild monkeys practise deception and do arithmetic.
Really, though, the fundamental basis of an ethical anti-vivisection position is not so much higher brain functions as the shared ability to feel pain. We already know that other animals experience “pain, distress, suffering and lasting harm”, as our legislation puts it.
Other animals have the brain circuits that underlie the emotional aspects of pain, including fear and anticipation. Scientists test human medicines for depression and anxiety on rats and mice. They say their experiments are valid because those animals share our pharmacology, our physiology and our emotional states.
The harder we cling to the ‘uniqueness’ of humanity, the more slippery and artificial the concept becomes. In their efforts to exclude other animals, people risk defining too tightly what it means to be human. If we say it means having syntactically complex language skills or advanced mathematical abilities, then we exclude many of our fellow humans from our sphere of moral concern. Logically, the result of that could be the acceptance of forcible experimentation on some people.
Moral frameworks have to be internally consistent. Since there is no morally relevant distinction between all humans and all other animals, it follows that either experiments on all sentient creatures are morally wrong; or experiments on animals and on some unconsenting people, are right.
Scientists tend to fall back on highly unscientific statements such as ‘it’s natural for us to value our own species more highly than others’. But it was once considered natural for white Westerners to view native people as less than human. Nazi scientists ‘naturally’ believed their research interests overrode the rights of Jews and gypsies.
Another argument is that ‘research on animals is necessary for medical progress’. Necessity is a relative concept. Serviceman Ronald Maddison died in 1953 when Porton Down scientists tested Sarin nerve gas on his bare skin. No doubt that research was considered ‘necessary’ at the time.
If perceived necessity is considered sufficient justification for inflicting pain or distress, we may as well drop the pretence that we are moral beings. If necessity overrides ethics, then human experiments become acceptable and even scientifically preferred to using animals as surrogates.
So the reason other animals suffer and die in experiments comes down to a primitive and self-serving prejudice in favour of our own species. If so, animal experimenters should be willing to admit that their activities have no morally defensible basis.
Ironically, people like to maintain that we are the only moral animals. That seems to be another illusion. The reality is that inside every so-called rational and civilised human, there still lurks a naked ape.”
