I haven’t read much of it, but the beginning seems to be saying that the animal research part is unethical. I’m not saying it isn’t, but that’s not what we should be worried about. We’re using animals as food! We are raising them, in rather unsavory conditions, by the billions. If you let that stand, but object to a little animal research, your priorities are way out of whack.
Also, saying something is evil doesn’t mean it’s not a necessary evil.
I think animal research has more potential to make the animals suffer than growing them for food, if both try to minimize suffering and other things are equal. Of course, the sheer difference in scope means more suffering will happen in food industry by incompetence than in research by intention.
The problem is that food scales. If you do animal research, you’re causing distress to the animals, but it’s constant. It doesn’t matter if there’s one person or billions. You only have to do the research once. Food isn’t like that. If you want to feed a billion people, it requires a billion times more animal cruelty than feeding one person.
I edited the comment before you answered. I don’t think we really disagree here. Just wanted to point out why the paper might focus more on animal research than food industry.
I haven’t read much of it, but the beginning seems to be saying that the animal research part is unethical. I’m not saying it isn’t, but that’s not what we should be worried about. We’re using animals as food! We are raising them, in rather unsavory conditions, by the billions. If you let that stand, but object to a little animal research, your priorities are way out of whack.
Also, saying something is evil doesn’t mean it’s not a necessary evil.
I think animal research has more potential to make the animals suffer than growing them for food, if both try to minimize suffering and other things are equal. Of course, the sheer difference in scope means more suffering will happen in food industry by incompetence than in research by intention.
The problem is that food scales. If you do animal research, you’re causing distress to the animals, but it’s constant. It doesn’t matter if there’s one person or billions. You only have to do the research once. Food isn’t like that. If you want to feed a billion people, it requires a billion times more animal cruelty than feeding one person.
I guess what I tried to say is that cruelty isn’t necessary for growing animals for food, but it is necessary for certain kinds of research.
I edited the comment before you answered. I don’t think we really disagree here. Just wanted to point out why the paper might focus more on animal research than food industry.
Research scales too, just not as much.
The vast majority of animals being raised for food aren’t in environments that try to minimize suffering even slightly.
See my other two comments.