Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 23:59, 16 December 2007

Animal rights B‑class Top‑importance

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Animal rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of animal rights on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Animal rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Animal rightsTemplate:WikiProject Animal rightsAnimal rights B This article has been rated as B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale. Top This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Archives

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

This page is not the place to give your views on animal testing. This page is for discussing the Misplaced Pages page animal testing.

AMA Membership

https://membership.ama-assn.org/JoinRenew/search.jsp?checkXwho=done# - not physician-only group, med students can also be members Bob98133 13:59, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Duly noted, and amended.--Animalresearcher 17:19, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Useful references?

• Mukerjee M (1997). "Trends in animal research". Sci. Am. 276 (2): 86–93. PMID 9000767.
• Granstrom DE (2003). "Agricultural (nonbiomedical) animal research outside the laboratory: a review of guidelines for institutional animal care and use committees". ILAR journal / National Research Council, Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources. 44 (3): 206–10. PMID 12789021.
• Hammond AC (1994). "Animal well-being in pharmacology and toxicology research". J. Anim. Sci. 72 (2): 523–7. PMID 8157540.
• Matfield M (1996). "The ethics of animal research. A special lecture to the Japanese Association of Laboratory Animal Science 6th June 1995". Exp. Anim. 45 (3): 209–15. PMID 8840136.
• Gannon F (2007). "Animal rights, human wrongs? Introduction to the Talking Point on the use of animals in scientific research". EMBO Rep. 8 (6): 519–20. PMID 17545989.

Opponents of animal testing

Let's clarify the meaning of this and its siter section. Is a reference need to support an observation that a particualr argument has been made, or support for that particular argument.

If each of the statements in this section require a reference, then why don't the ones in the pro- section? Throwing in the "reference needed" thingys all of a sudden on a page this actively edited seems more like trouble-making than helpful editing. to me.Rbogle 23:28, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Refs are needed to support the statement made in the sentence. For example if you say "X says that Y is true and Q is false." you need a ref to either them saying this or a reliable source stating that they say this. As a general comment in referencing in this article, there are too many broken and ill-formatted references - for example <ref name=USEUnumbers/> seems to have been lost in the recent reorganisations. Other refs end at broken links or general pages with no specific info. This needs sorting out. Tim Vickers 00:08, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

But in this special case, the sections begin: "Testing advocates argue that:" and "Opponents argue that:" So, apparently, to reference the sentence "Some drugs have dangerous side-effects that were not predicted by animal models. Thalidomide is often used as an example of this. " all that is needed is a reference to a source that demonstrates an opponent of animal testing stating that thalidomide is an example of a dangerous side effect that wasn't predicted by animal testing.

Likewise, if we are seeking balance, the statement "There is no substitute for studies of the infection of a host. For example, infection with hepatitis" needs only a reference to some advocate of animal testing making this claim, not proof of the claim's veracity.Rbogle 00:34, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Whoops. The "There is no substitute..." claim is referenced, but, for instance, "There is no substitute for psychiatric studies (e.g., antidepressant clinical trials) that require behavioral data." isn't.Rbogle 00:42, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Exactly, if you say somebody has an opinion, you need a reference to support that they hold this opinion. This isn't a special case, this is just standard practice. It would be best to trim these lists to a few major arguments and source them from a few notable and highly reliable sources. If you want to do this for the "critics" section, I'll do it for the "advocates" section. Tim Vickers 00:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Unless someone else gets to it first, I may be able to work on this tomorrow. Rbogle 01:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

We all know that unsourced facts should be tagged or removed. I noticed a few statements were either synthesis or uncited. Synthesis got removed and unreferenced facts got tags (this is pretty much SOP for Misplaced Pages). I could not easily find references that supported the claims being made, so I tagged them. I agree with you that uncited statements in the "pro" section should also be tagged, removed or cited, but apparently I missed the one. In previous versions of the Vivisection article, I did the same for the "pro-animal use" section; I'm not pushing POV, just verifiability and NOR. I agree with Vickers that the list of arguments should be limited to prominent ones by reputable groups (on both sides of the debate). --chodges 19:48, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

Berto is the cause of all this he sucks ass —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.200.10.130 (talk) 20:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Article Length and Controversy

In working on the page on Animal testing on non-human primates I noted that the allegations of abuse on that page, and the controversy on the animal testing page, have a few things in common. In fact, EVERY item on the NHP page was also on the animal testing page. The animal testing page is 90 kb, well above the 32 kb recommended article size. If a pointer is placed on the animal testing page referring to the Animal testing on non-human primates page, it will save another 11 kb. The recommended, "guideline" article size is 32 kb, so even with this change animal testing would still be more than double the recommended size. In "being bold", I completed the duplication of the controversy subsections by listing the UCLA incident on the Animal testing on non-human primates page, and then removed the primate controversy subsections from animal testing and put in a pointer stating that further controversy involving non-human primate testing was found on the Animal testing on non-human primates page. The change to the animal testing page was reverted as vandalism despite a very clear summary statement as to intent and process. Is there some reason that the items of controversy have to stay on the main page AND be included on the break-out pages? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of splitting the page to come close to stylistic page size limits? --Animalresearcher 18:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd noted this already and warned Burntsauce (talk · contribs) about reverting good faith edits as "vandalism". Personally, I think there should be some content about controversy on the main page, but agree the the detailed primate cases could be moved the the sub-article. Rockpocket 18:14, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

"Bunching"

This seems very far-fetched. Animal testing uses animals bred for the purpose, with a single genetic background and often in disease-free conditions. Domestic animals are completely unsuited for experiments. If this section isn't backed by some good references over the next few days I will remove it. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a bill in Congress right now that will prohibit random source animals from being used in testing. http://www.idausa.org/campaigns/theft/pettheft.html There is speculation that animals are sold from shelters to USDA class B dealers, or the Class B dealers themselves, may be obtaining animals illegally. However, research societies counter that it is already illegal to handle stolen animals, and that anyone dealing in animals that end up in researcher hands must be licensed by the USDA. If the bill passes, then older domesticated animals (ie: dogs and cats) will become a lot more rare in research, which will make studying some types of disease that are more prevalent in older animals a lot harder. As an aside, in all but 13 states, animals from shelters may be sold to Class B dealers instead of being euthanized. These can very well be discarded pets, but are not "bunched". The citation I provide above can be used to say "Opponents of animal testing claim:" because clearly opponents do make such a claim. The second section though "Testing labs prefer tame domestic animals over wild strays from the city pound, because they are easier to handle." I cannot find a reference for, nor does it make sense to me as something opponents of testing would claim. HTH --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:01, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

Ex-domestic animals will also have an unknown medical history and may or many not have been vaccinated/undergone surgery etc, why would people chose to use such animals in research? This suggestion fails to make sense on so many levels. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:11, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

It used to be quite common. Not all research depends so critically on vaccination etc. For example, some people may be interested in how the inferior colliculus of the cat responds to sound, and any old cat would suffice for research needs. The animals are picked up from the pound, anesthetized, studied, and euthanized. However, for this to work today, a Class B dealer must be involved, and if the animal was a pet, it would be illegal in 13 states. In any case, my point is that different levels of requirements occur in different sorts of testing, and domestic animals are fine for much of it. But I would remove the second sentence of the "bunching" claim if a cite doesn't show up soon. --Animalresearcher (talk) 01:06, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Is this Biased?

Reading this article, it seems that it is biased against animal testing. It seems that the article is mainly information dealing with the opponents and their viewpoints with only one section (7.1 Advocates of animal testing) dealing completely with the proponents.

Does anyone else get that feeling? Could anyone who knows more about the pros of animal testing help balance the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.131.33.141 (talk) 21:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the animal activists want the proof of a negative. Prove that not doing animal testing is dangerous to humans. Some activists don't care if it's dangerous to humans. Since the FDA and drug approval agencies in other countries require testing on animals, you can't prove the argument. When you go back to the biggest cases of problems before animal testing (e.g. thalidomide) they say it was a fluke. When you point out what animal testing has contributed to (e.g. every prescription drug for about the last 40 years) the argument is then that we don't know if animals helped because the had to use animals. So in their minds they are always right and they soothe their consciences by using products not tested on animals (because animal testing already proved all ingredients as generally safe). Don't eat anything (organic fertilizers are form animal origins so you exploit animals by eating produce too), don't take any medicines (even those herbal remedies were probably grown with animal fertilizers!) and don't breathe; you're using oxygen that the animals could use. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.106.3.58 (talk) 15:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It's not terribly clear what you're saying. Many drugs that have been tested on animals have proven harmful to people. Many drugs have been rejected because they did not work on animals, but they may have worked on people. A quick look at iatrogenic diseases shows that a fairly large percentage of these are due to drug reactions or interactions, so required animal testing has not been revealing these dangers. Whether someone chooses to use or not use animal tested drugs is not relevant to the efficacy of animal testing of drugs. Thalidomide was tested on animals, as was Vioxx, HRT and other drugs that have later proven harmful to people. While you claim to be speaking for animal activists, you might get a clearer picture of this issue by focusing on events that can be documented. Thanks Bob98133 (talk) 16:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Thalidomide is perfectly useful as a drug unless the patient is pregnant. It was never tested on pregnant animals before being made available for human use. If it had been then the tragic results would have been averted. When, later, it was tested birth defects were seen in mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, macaques, marmosets, dogs, cats, fish, baboons and rhesus monkeys. If you are going to make statements such as "Thalidomide was tested on animals" please don't mislead by omission. Rockpocket 22:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry - I didn't know that about thalidomide. It's odd that it was tested on pregnant animals after it was withdrawn for use by pregnant people.Bob98133 (talk) 22:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Its a historical example of why the consensus among the biomedical research and clinical community is that prior testing on animals is paramount for minimizing tragic adverse drug reactions in humans. If thalidomide was discovered today, the tragedy would not have happened, since we have in place laws that require more rigorous testing. During this testing process, numerous other drugs have been shown to have teratogenic effects, and thus assigned to a restricted pregnancy category. If it was not for those animal trials, the lesson learned from thalidomide, many would likely have resulted in another tragedy. Rockpocket 01:21, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that's the only POV about this, though. There's an article about it here. Also, it's odd that tests were conducted on pregnant mice, rats, hamsters, rabbits, macaques, marmosets, dogs, cats, fish, baboons, and rhesus monkeys after it was confirmed that the drug causes birth defects in humans. That makes a mockery of the argument that animal testing is only performed when necessary to safeguard human health. SlimVirgin 01:44, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Its not the only POV, but it is the strong consensus among clinicians, researchers and physicians - those who have studied the data. Its largely because of the thalidomide tragedy that the current testing regulations were put in place. Thus exhaustive thalidomide testing was done retroactively, to show how the regulations would stop a similar thing happening again (and indeed, it has).

By the way, that source is just plain misleading, if you look at the primary data it simply doesn't hold up. The authors simply cherry pick experiments to suit their argument. The suggestion that it proved very difficult to duplicate the abnormalities and only eventually after administrating high doses of thalidomide to certain species of rabbit (New Zealand White) and primates could similar abnormalities be found is utter nonsense. In fact, there a many strains of rabbit that thalidomide has shown to be teratogenic in including Himalayan rabbits, JW-NIBS rabbits and various hybrids. Thats just one minor example of the misleading statements in that article, but then one can hardly expect a nuanced review of the literature from the "experts" at the Campaign Against Fraudulent Medical Research. This is part of the problem about thalidomide, the majority of the public get their information from biased sources who have an agenda to push, rather than study the data itself. Rockpocket 03:33, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Reading Croce earlier to answer the question below, I noticed that he addresses the thalidomide issue. He says the doses administered to reproduce the results in pregnant animals were absurdly high. He cites material presented at the Contergan/Alsdorf trial, which showed that mice were given half a gram of thalidomide per kilo of body weight, which he says is a dose 600 times greater than would be given to human beings. He argues that any substance would become toxic when introduced invasively at those doses. SlimVirgin 21:20, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

POV

The topic is controversial. Opponents argue that animal testing is cruel and unnecessary, poor scientific practice, never reliably predictive of human metabolic and physiological specificities, poorly regulated, that the costs outweigh the alleged benefits, or that animals have an intrinsic right not to be used for experimentation.

This is unacceptably POV. Especially as it is in the header, it should cover both sides if it is discussing controversy.Not even Mr. Lister's Koromon survived intact. 19:34, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

very very biased.

I intend to delete the Ingrid Newkirk quote regarding animal testing. It's unnecessary at best and not worthy of prominent display in an encyclopedia at worst. I'm "securing consensus" before I do this. Budjoint (talk) 22:48, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I would have deleted it myself if I had noticed it slip in there. Newkirk is certainly not an "expert" on animal testing and her emotive language is particularly ill suited to an encyclopaedia article. If we are inserting colour quotes, then there are plenty more notable, people both pro- and anti-, that actually have some credentials. Rockpocket 23:21, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Not commenting on the POV issue, because I've not looked at the quote. But I would say Newkirk is an expert on animal testing, arguably more so than a lot of the people we cite, who are experts on the area of science they're using animals to study, but not experts on animal testing itself. Newkirk, on the other hand, has spent her entire life working to combat it. SlimVirgin 23:25, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I've looked now. Granted, it's inappropriate.

In general, though, I wish the article had a few more quotes of that nature -- i.e. material examining the arguments. This article as written is basically unreadable -- it's all "And in the first quarter of 1972, 1.73 percent fewer of species X were used compared to the same period during the previous five years." Not only deadly dull, but really not telling us anything either. I may go in over the next few weeks and start to remove some of this detail, in case anyone notices large chunks disappearing. If I go too far, feel free to revert me. SlimVirgin 23:30, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the above wasn't a dig at people who've worked on this. I've added a lot of the details myself. It's been a problem of everyone adding bits here and there, and the cumulative effect being an unintended mass of detail. Then we worry about removing any of it, in case we inadvertently POV the article, so there it sits. SlimVirgin 23:37, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

As you note, what Newkirk is, is an expert at combating animal testing, that is very different from being an expert on animal testing (which is different again from being an expert in promoting animal testing). I think its really important, SV, that we don't forget that this article is primarily about testing/experimentation and not only about the debate about it. That is certainly an important aspect, but irrespective of its philosophical/moral rights and wrongs, it is a subject that can be described completely neutrally by what it is and how it is used. Those people who do it are the people that can tell us what it is (technically speaking), how many animals are used, what animals are used and what they are used for. In doing that we are not advocating animal testing, we are simply describing it. Newkirk (for example) wouldn't know her embryonic stem cell from her induced pluripotent stem cell, yet these currently define, perhaps, the most medically pertinent use of animals in experiments. I welcome your attempts to improve the article, it certainly can be improved in a lot of areas, but urge you to bear in mind that everything need not be written entirely in terms of pro- and anti-. Animal experimentation is a scientific tool, a number of techniques, as much as it is a social issue. To that end, we should use scientific consensus as our benchmark for reliability and notability. A significant part of this article should describe how it is, not how it should or should not be. Rockpocket 00:38, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

RP, in fairness, we can't leave the details to people who make money from animal testing. We have to tell all sides, and that includes Newkirk's. People who use animals aren't necessarily experts in animal testing as a subject, particularly not in the way a researcher from one of the anti-vivisection societies is likely to be. The fact is that we have strong views in its support (which includes highlighting certain facts and not others, presenting facts in a particular way, using a certain vocabulary), and we have strong views against (which involves the same presentation issues), and we have to steer a steady course between them, while retaining a readable narrative. We've not managed to do that, understandably because it's not easy, not to mention time-consuming. SlimVirgin 01:47, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the Newkirk quote. It sat in the "Regulation" section next to the debate about IACUC reliability. The quote said "I don’t think dominion means exploitation. It may come with a responsibility to look after and protect, the way the Queen had dominion over Canada. That didn’t allow for her to put electrodes in its citizens’ heads and test floor polish on Canadians. It was a protectorate, and isn’t that what we are supposed to be? Protectors and not big bullies." I didn't find it particularly relevant to animal testing - particularly because it doesn't even mention animals directly.

Slimvirgin, animal rights groups are much much much more directly tied to income derived from opposing animal testing, than scientists, governments, and medical/veterinary groups are. The animal rights groups, as you know and repeat here often, start their arguments by saying you cannot assume good faith from anyone legally involved in the process. I receive grant funding to perform animal testing, and other grant income for human testing, and I try to steer my course so my research maximally benefits biomedical research. Sometimes that uses animals, other times not. --Animalresearcher (talk) 17:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

AR, we've had an unwritten rule on WP for the last year or so that people shouldn't try to claim personal credentials unless they're willing to have them verified. So please either give us your name so we can check the credentials, or please stop arguing on the basis of personal knowledge.

The fact remains this article must reflect the various POVs on animal testing and not the POV of the group of researchers that uses animals and that benefits personally and professionally from their use. We wouldn't rely entirely on the nuclear weapons industry for our articles about nuclear weapons, or entirely on ALF sources for our article on the ALF, or entirely on the White House for articles about George Bush. It's just that simple principle that I'm emphasizing here. SlimVirgin 17:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Slimvirgin, there is no way, for very obvious reasons, I am giving my credentials to you. There are enormous potential repercussions, and I don't have 100% confidence you are trustworthy with my identity. If Rockpocket wants to "verify" me, he can post an anonymously redirected email address here, and I will email my CV to that email from my work address. It will show that I run an animal testing lab, that I have engaged in animal testing as my primary profession for almost two decades, that I sit on an IACUC, and that I have been employed at some of the most controversial sites conducting animal testing in the USA. However, I must ask that my place of work, as well as my identity, and all past places of work, not ever be posted to Misplaced Pages or any public forum as the result of my sending my CV for verification. As to the debate below, I am staying out of it, I come here to work on issues relating to encyclopedia entries, and not to debate animal testing with people who are inflexibly opposed to it. --Animalresearcher (talk) 18:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

That is unnecessary, additions to articles depend only on the sources cited, your real-life identity is irrelevant. Although I edit under my real name, I know many other editors who guard their anonymity very carefully. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Real-life ID is directly relevant if people keep trying to use their personal credentials to control content. Animalresearcher, I don't want your ID; what I am requesting is that you stop trying to use personal knowledge -- then your ID won't matter. Though I should add if your privacy matters to you, you might want to stop editing while logged out. SlimVirgin 21:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

First of all, I have not edited while logged out for many months, and never did it intentionally to begin with. Slimvirgin's continued accusations to the contrary border on obsessive and slander. I have no issue with doing all my editing with my current WIKI ID. Secondly, there are often things that may be cited, but are obvious outright lies to people who actually work in animal testing. For example, Slimvirgin included a citation that claimed (without further reference) that chimpanzees in research facilities came in part from circuses, animal trainers, and zoos (animal testing in non-human primates page). The truth is that no new chimps have come into research labs in the USA since the breeding ban in 1996, and the VAST majority of the chimps in research labs in the USA were purpose bred, and anyone could find this out in five minutes on the internet (and it would be obvious to anyone familiar with the animal testing situation in the USA), However, that did not keep Slimvirgin from reverting that change multiple times, assuming that the New England anti-vivisection society was a "BETTER" reference than the multiple references I suppled. --Animalresearcher (talk) 22:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources/POV

Animal experimentation is a technique like any other in the laboratory. Nobody would say that scientists benefit personally from gel electrophoresis or enzyme assays, and that their contributions to these articles is suspect due to an imagined POV. We are paid to provide useful knowledge, not on the basis of what techniques we employ. Your argument is based on a misunderstanding. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:19, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The animal-testing industry is worth an enormous amount of money, and that's not even to factor in research grants. The people who defend it are almost invariably people who are involved in it, and people who are earning money as a result of it, whether it's by receiving salaries, grants, or money from customers who buy equipment. Their POV and their vocabulary cannot be allowed to overwhelm this article. No POV can be allowed to overwhelm it. That is my only argument. The difference between the animal-testing and other POVs is that the former is seen by some people who have edited this page as the default position -- to the point where they don't even see it as a POV -- whereas the anti-testing POV always clearly stands out as such. The only solution to that is mindfulness on everyone's part.

But my main point, as I said above, is not the POV issue, but that the article is unreadable, because it's too heavy on unnecessary detail, and lacks a narrative. SlimVirgin 17:26, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the article is too long. One way to approach this would be to summarise the general outline of the regulatory process that is common to the countries we discuss, and move the details of the regulations to a sub-article. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:49, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Tim's point is important to remember. That an expert neurologist decides that a legal, regulated experiment using an animal is best to answer a scientific question does not make him unreliable in describing that experiment. He is the expert neurologist, he should know the details of the experiment and the goal is the answer the biological question, not experiment on an animal for the sake of it. If that was the case then we could not use any scientific literature to describe any scientific technique. It would be the equivalent of suggesting that we should consider George Bush as much as expert as on somatic cell nuclear transfer as Rudy Jaenisch, because he has spent time opposing it. George Bush is notable for opposing it, but he is not an expert on it. Likewise, Newkirk is an expert at opposing animal testing but she is not an expert on it. That is not to say everyone who could be considered an expert supports it, consider Gill Langley for example. My argument is simply that its important to distinguish animal testing as a technique from animal testing as a cause/social issue. Both need to be covered here, but those that are experts in one are not necessarily an expert in the other, and vice versa. Rockpocket 18:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Okay, this isn't the place to debate these issues, but I'll just give one very simple example.

You're engaging in research into neuroplasticity. You design some experiments whereby certain things are done to animals, and you kill them afterwards and look at their brains to see whether the behavior caused any physical change. In the meantime — let's say unknown to you, the professor — the animals are being kicked, kept locked in tiny cages, forced to listen to blaring radios and shouting technicians, are terrified, traumatized, or perhaps just extremely bored. You can paint your own scenario.

The anti-testing argument is that the animals' environment has introduced so many variables of such an extreme nature that you can no longer trust the animal to act as a model for anything. (Rat Park is an example: give rats a horrible life and they take drugs; give them a nicer one, and they don't. So what useful thing can you possibly deduce from the drug use of rats kept in tiny cages, bored out of their minds?) So you kill the neuroplasticity animal, look at the brain, and the question remains, like a giant pink elephant in the room: how do you know that the behavior you forced the animal to engage in caused the changes in the brain that you found, and that the other factors didn't — or that some unknown combination of your experiment and the other factors wasn't responsible? It is largely for reasons such as this that critics argue animal testing is inherently unscientific.

The scientists who engage in and support animal testing often seem to have to suspend their own critical faculty to justify it. We end up with arguments about how experiment A led to the development of drug B, when in fact all we know is that experiment A was one of the things that preceded the development of drug B. The exact causal relationship is often entirely unknown, with no evidence whatsoever that drug B necessitated experiment A. (This faulty logic is noticeable in our lead, and should really be changed.)

Because this is the backdrop to most of the criticism, you can't say -- we have the science on the one hand, which should be our main focus and we should trust the scientists as sources for it, and the criticism on the other. The two are inextricably linked. SlimVirgin 21:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

The other thing I've found pretty disturbing is that scientists who dismiss animal testing are immediately regarded as unreliable sources! You can be doing your animal research on Monday after 30 years in the industry, and Misplaced Pages will welcome you with open arms as a reliable source. But publish an anti-testing paper on Tuesday, and it's "Hey, this guy's a bit of jerk / an animal-rights supporter / nearing retirement / his paper wasn't published in a peer-reviewed journal!" Anything to ensure that all-things-scientific = support for animal testing. SlimVirgin 21:54, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

In reply to your question "how do you know that the behavior you forced the animal to engage in caused the changes in the brain that you found, and that the other factors didn't — or that some unknown combination of your experiment and the other factors wasn't responsible?" - parallel experimental controls. In experiments you change one variable and control for the rest. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:56, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Right, and that's never done. You don't conduct an experiment (a) with the animal being kicked by technicians, and then repeat it (b) without the animal being kicked by technicians. And on and on throughout the long list of variables. SlimVirgin 23:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, anyone who didn't provide suitable controls would get their research rejected at the peer review process and thus we wouldn't use it as a source. Which kind of reinforces the point that those who are not familiar with scientific method often use those arguments. Its interesting that, among the anti lobby, those who are experts tell a somewhat different story. Gill Langley told The Guardian, "I would never claim that all animal experiments are without scientific value," though she still opposes it on principle. Blanket opposition to animal experimentation on the grounds of scientific value is simply not an informed argument, which is why uninformed people like Newkirk make it, but people like Langley do not. Likewise, most scientists would never claim that all animal experiments are with scientific value. There are lots of animal experiments that deserve criticism on that basis and plenty of scientists who do experiment on animals make those criticisms. That is what the peer review process is about. A person that accepts animal testing is acceptable in principle is no less scientifically critical of animal testing than one, like Langley, who does not. This is why is important we use informed scientists as sources for those sort of arguments and not just advocates.

Scientists that, in general, "dismiss" animal testing are no more or no less reliable as those that "promote" it. Both are forms of advocacy and should be treated as such. But its inherently flawed logic to assume that scientist describing an experiment using an animal is "promoting" animal testing. They are not. Rockpocket 23:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

That is very much the argument the expert antis use, RP. SlimVirgin 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

No, SlimVirgin, parallel controls are always done. No experiment is ever done without controls, it just wouldn't be meaningful. You compare the animals in the experimental group to the control group, and both groups are housed together under the same conditions. Any biological effects from how the animals are housed or fed will apply equally to the control and experimental groups, and are therefore accounted for in the experiment. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Tim, have you read serious material written in criticism of animal testing? The way the animals are treated is not something you could have a control group for. As in -- this is the group not being kicked and therefore less stressed? It doesn't even make any sense. SlimVirgin 01:27, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Like Tim, I've never met any scientist that would use that argument, irrespective of philosophical opinion on animal experimentation. But if you can find one published in a reliable source then lets use them as a source of scientific criticism, rather than non-experts like Newkirk. Rockpocket 23:30, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know how to answer this because it's one the key arguments. Pietro Croce, for example (former vivisector for many years in Italy, U.S. and Spain), talks about how Nazi experiments on Jews were useless scientifically (leaving the morality aside) because people torn from their families, transported in cattle trucks, kept starving in close confinement and in terror, aren't going to respond in the way people not so treated would respond. He raises the comparison to highlight the nonsense of experimenting on animals kept in environments that terrify them, or expose them to extreme boredom or other stress. As he says, "One does not have to be an expert to realize that a sick organism is not the same as a healthy one. Even the simplest illness changes many (if not all) biochemical parameters, in ways that can be quantified and even in ways beyond our ability to quantify." Any pointers such experiments might offer are "too vague to be valid in scientific terms ..." (Vivisection or Science, 1999, pp. 98-104). SlimVirgin 02:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I realise you might not have much experience of scientific research, so take a simple example. You inject bacteria into a set of ten mice. Then you inject either an antibiotic into five of this set of mice, or just water into the other five. The mice are all kept together in the same cage. You compare the course of the disease in the mice without antibiotics (untreated controls), with the course of the disease in the mice that received the drug (experimental group). Any difference between the controls and the experimental group is due to the effect of the drug. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:53, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

But if you increase the complexity even slightly, you'll see that the same model won't hold. How would you deal with the neuroplasticity example I gave above, where individual primates are being handled quite differently -- some roughly, some not, with different individuals reacted differently to the various stressors? How could a researcher, trying to be rigorously scientific, handle the enormous number of variables? SlimVirgin 02:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, some experiments are easy to control, others are more difficult. However, since most toxicology, drug development and disease research are just as simple as I described, you can see that the large majority of animal experimentation is very rigorous and the results reliable. I wasn't disagreeing with the idea that some research will be skewed by studying captive animals (behavioral research being an obvious example), but to go from a minority of complex cases to casting a blanket judgement on the majority of simple experiments is unsound. I'm sure some people do make such erroneous judgments, and their point of view should be included, but this is not an informed opinion. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

But this gets us right back to the point I raised above. Anyone who disagrees is regarded as "not informed." Professor Croce is a professor emeritus of pathology at the University of Milan, a member of the American College of Pathologists, was in charge of the research labs at the L. Sacco Hospital in Milan for 30 years, and has worked in research labs in various hospitals in the U.S. and Spain. But because he disagrees, he is suddenly not informed. SlimVirgin 02:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Even highly intelligent people sometimes say things that are obviously untrue. As the simple example I explained above shows, much animal testing in vertebrates is perfectly rigorous, which is before you even consider testing in invertebrates - animals that will suffer no stress in captivity. However, if Professor Croce's opinion is notable, it should be included, but even a simple appreciation of the facts disproves his idea. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Grrrrr. I had just composed an elegant but devastatingly convincing reply that would have completely turned SV into a flag-waving, meat-eating, bunny-slicing vivisector. Sadly, it edit conflicted with Tim's archiving. Now it will never be read and she will remain a thorn in the research establishment's side for a while longer... ;) Rockpocket 19:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

We use that archive approach to cut off interesting but off-topic discussions quite a lot on the Evolution talk page! Tim Vickers (talk) 19:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Intro to section on regulation

We need to introduce the section, so that this is not just a list of factoids. Is your objection on the sourcing, the positioning or the content? Tim Vickers (talk) 21:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This is not an article showcasing the animal-testing industry

The POVing of this page really does have to stop. Tim's latest addition is something you might find on the website of the Research Defence Society:

Animal testing is regulated by law. Generally, regulations set standards on who can perform experiments, and how these experiments are carried out. Although the details of regulations differ between countries, most laws follow the same principles. These internationally-accepted guidelines are called the 3Rs and aim to encourage - replacement of animal experiments where possible, refinement of experiments to minimize suffering, pain or distress, and reductions in the numbers of animals used in experiments.

Tim, you need to make in-text attributions, and please don't write as though what you're saying is widely accepted, when in fact it is widely disputed. Posting pro-POV, then adding anti-POV, has made this article completely unreadable. What is needed is a group of editors who are each willing to write entirely neutrally, as though they're Martians who've landed, with access to a huge library about animal testing, but with no vested interests one way or the other, and who will write in skeptical, disinterested tones.

Who here is willing to try to do that? SlimVirgin 21:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This is an accurate and neutral description of the 3Rs, which are the internationally-recognised principles behind the regulations. Is your concern that most national laws do not "aim to encourage" the application of the 3Rs? How about:

Animal testing is regulated by law. Generally, regulations set standards on who can perform experiments, and how these experiments are carried out. Although the details of regulations differ between countries, most national regulations follow the same general principles, which are called the 3Rs. These guidelines aim to encourage - replacement of animal experiments where possible, refinement of experiments to minimize suffering, pain or distress, and reductions in the numbers of animals used in experiments.

Tim Vickers (talk) 22:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

It isn't neutral. It reads like a piece of advertising, and doesn't actually say anything. Consider:

"SlimVirgin sets standards for her editing behavior. Although those standards may vary from day to day, in general her aim is to encourage excellent editing, discourage incivility, and minimize the pain and distress experienced by editors who encounter her."

So what does that tell you exactly? SlimVirgin 22:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, the first two sentences are unarguable and general. I have added specific citations to support the second two sentences. You can't have a section on the regulation of animal experimentation without explaining the 3Rs, that would be a major omission, and since these are the general principles that introduce the detailed regulations we list later, they should go first. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Animal testing is regulated by law. Generally, regulations set standards on who can perform experiments, and how these experiments are carried out. Although the details of regulations differ between countries, most national regulations require the application of the same general principles, which are called the 3Rs. The 3Rs aim to encourage - replacement of animal experiments where possible, refinement of experiments to minimize suffering, pain or distress, and reductions in the numbers of animals used in experiments.

The problem is that it doesn't say anything of substance and sounds as though it was written by the industry. How would you feel if I were to introduce the section with (all of which I could find good sources for):

Animal testing is supposedly regulated by law, but in fact the legislation allows as many loopholes as it closes, there are never enough inspectors, their supposedly random visits are often announced in advance, and as a result researchers are legally permitted to poison, drown, burn, and otherwise inflict pain on animals at will, so long as they fill in the right forms.

The page is already very long. We can't keep adding either pro- or anti-waffle. We need to add points of real substance and attribute them in the text. SlimVirgin 22:48, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You are right that it could be condensed a little without losing much content - but explaining the 3Rs is vital to understanding what the regulations are trying to achieve. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Generally, animal testing regulations set standards on who can perform experiments, and how these experiments are carried out. Most national regulations require the application of the same general principles, which are called the 3Rs. The 3Rs encourage - replacement of animal experiments where possible, refinement of experiments to minimize suffering, pain or distress, and reductions in the numbers of animals used in experiments. Although such principles have been welcomed as a step forwards by some animal welfare groups, they have also been criticized as both outdated by current research, and of little practical effect in improving animal welfare.

Comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:40, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

No further comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 05:42, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Rewritten and better sources added. Any objections to this new version being added back to the article? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Added to section on alternatives. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:25, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of paragraph portion on US regulation

Slimvirgin deleted the following text. "The Health Research Extension Act 1985, which is enforced by the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW), requires each scientist or institution that receives federal funds for vertebrate research to have an IACUC. The IACUC is required to ensure research adheres to the standards of the book, the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals. Legally, every vertebrate animal used at an institution that receives federal funds, has its animal welfare regulated to standards that meet or exceed those in the Animal Welfare Act."

I added these sentences because the current text misleads the reader into thinking that purpose-bred birds, rats, and mice, and non-mammal vertebrates, are not covered by law in the USA. However, at any institution receiving federal funds (which is nearly all of them), these species are covered, and are covered to the same set of rules and regulations that govern other mammals specifically mentioned in the Animal Welfare Act. FWIW it would be fine (by me) to have a sentence claiming that animal rights groups have challenged the competence of IACUCs, since that is additionally covered in the sub-page. --Animalresearcher (talk) 22:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing

What has happened with this page is that, in truth, no one editing it is an expert in either direction. So what we have all done is cherry-pick our sources, and then slap them onto the page without paying any attention to overall POV, readability, whether there is a narrative that a reader could follow. As a result, we have a very poor and uninformative Misplaced Pages article.

I just removed a section that was typical. Someone has found some quotes that suited his POV, so in they went, one after another, in a way that made no sense, and which was clearly POV. It would be like me adding quotes from different animal protection groups, saying "Animal testing is very bad," followed by "No, it's very, VERY bad," followed by "We don't like it either!!"

It's in no-one interests to edit like this. SlimVirgin 22:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Look, some of us on this page have been involved in writing featured articles. Can we from now on pretend, with every edit we make, that we're getting the article ready for FAC -- even if we're not? I think if we all start to look at it that way, the problems will come bouncing off the page, and we'll be able to set POV aside and agree about the need to raise the quality. SlimVirgin 23:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I think, in all honesty, it is very difficult to write about this aspect of animal experimentally both neutrally and attractively. Inevitably the people doing the writing have such fundamentally differing POVs that meeting in the middle tends to come second to he said/she said point and counterpoint. I'm not saying it can't be done, but just that it is very difficult. Rockpocket 23:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree it's very difficult, and I don't think this article will ever meet FA standards as a result. But we can do better than this. Constructing entire sections with one block quote after another, all expressing the same POV, and none of the quotes actually saying anything, is unacceptable, as is writing as though the pro-testing position is the default. It should be possible for each of us to step back just a little and adopt a more disinterested style of writing.

One thing we could try -- as soon as any of the (broadly speaking) pro-testing editors on this page find themselves writing something that the pro-testing industry would approve of, please stop and try to change the tone, some of the content, and some of the sources. The editors who are broadly anti-testing should try to do the same. I know this is very hard, and none of us will succeed entirely, but I'm suggesting we give it a shot. SlimVirgin 23:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I do not see why the article cannot be written with the dominant viewpoint of people who perform animal testing (without blocking other POVs). If you take this analogy to another topic, like, say, baseball, can you imagine having an encyclopedia entry on baseball equally devoted to people who are players and fans on one side, and those who think steroids are corrupting America's youth on the other? The article MUST include a whole lot of very straightforward info on types of experiments, animal numbers, trends over time, legal regulation, scientific findings, etc, and those are by and large nearly objective endeavors. The controversy pertains to a number of key points - is it good science? Should animals have rights? If science does gain, are the gains in science worth the pain and suffering of the animals (no one I know would deny there is pain and suffering in lab animals - but whether that pain/suffering justifies the scientific gains is very debatable). And I am sorry to say I view a lot of the anti-testing matter, such as the debate over IACUC consistency, to be not worth the text used to list it on the pages. That particular Plous article "controversy" has never had an impact on the conduct of, or attitudes towards, testing from the veterinary and government fields. I view it as nothing more than a public relations point that is repeated by animal rights groups often in the hopes that someone will believe it (1991, Ann Rev Neurosci, David Hubel). However, instead of removing it, the only POV accepted change is adding the rebuttal published in science a few issues later. After all, it is listed on at least a half dozen animal rights websites, so it must be highly relevant to animal testing (sarcasm). --Animalresearcher (talk) 23:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The article cannot be written with the dominant viewpoint that of the testers. We do not write about anything controversial from the viewpoint of the people at the center of the controversy, though of course their viewpoint must be included, as must all other significant viewpoints. SlimVirgin 02:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

History section is one sided

The current History section does not mention any historical objections to animal testing, whereas the linked main article does. So clearly there is a problem. Crum375 (talk) 23:55, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The section doesn't mention any historical arguments for animal testing either. What it does is summarize how animal testing has been used historically (whether that is a good or necessary thing, whether it is ultimately useful or misleading, whether it is cruel or immoral, is not mentioned either way). It comes down to the same question: are we talking about the history of animal testing as a scientific technique (which is what I originally wrote last year and what that section summarizes) or are we talking about the history of the debate over animal testing? Describing historical experiments neutrally is not the same as advocating them. Rockpocket 00:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think an anti-AT person would probably say that the current History section sounds like a pro-testing advertisement. But in any case, whatever the target — strict description of what AT is, vs. including pro and con arguments — my point was that the linked history section seems to have the wider coverage, while I think they should both have matching scopes. Crum375 (talk) 00:30, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'll also weigh in slightly on the scope issue. It seems to me that if the scope is strictly what AT is, then we should only mention the techniques used and the types of tests. Once we start mentioning results, or achievements, that gets into the ethical debate of cost vs. benefit. Crum375 (talk) 00:34, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

But therein lies the crux, an experiment with animals is not an end in itself, the results is the whole point of the experiment. It would be utterly uninformative to remove the why from the what:

In the 1880s, Louis Pasteur gave anthrax to sheep. In the 1890s, Ivan Pavlov famously used dogs.... On November 3, 1957 a Russian dog, Laika, was experimented on. In the 1970s, armadillos were used. In 1996 Dolly the sheep was born.

The very nature of science is that successful experiments are reported and unsuccessful ones are not. Thus the notable experiments are the successful ones. There simply are not landmark unsuccessful experiments with animals, because they would not be a landmark if they are unsuccessful. That could mislead readers into thinking that every use of an animal historically was for some important experiment, but that is the very nature of reporting bias. Consider DNA Sequencing#Early methods. We only discuss the reported successful early attempts at sequencing, we do not mention all the failed attempt as sequencing (even though there were many). No-one would ever suggest that, as a consequence, the article reads like a pro-sequencing advertisement. Why is animal testing different? Its important to distinguish the neutral and historical reporting of facts about the practicalities and history of animal testing (sourced reliably) from value judgments, both pro- and anti-, on their value. I think there is a need for both, though whether there is space for both in a single article is open for debate. Rockpocket 01:13, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it makes sense that usually only the successful experiments become notable. But clearly this article is about an emotionally charged issue, because some people consider AT as a cruel and immoral act, while others see it as a necessary step to use one species to promote the health and welfare of another. So we need to start out by explaining what AT is, the various types of tests, and how they are performed, both today and in the past. Then examples can be given about famous experiments. But there has to be a balance between the pro and anti AT views, so once successful results or accomplishments are mentioned, the downside in terms of the animals killed and/or hurt in the process has to be also mentioned. I can see an analogy here — say you talk about a war, you believe that fighting it was justified and the resulting victory was vindication. But you also mention the casualties in terms of soldiers and civilians wounded and killed, as part of the price. You don't just talk about cities and territories taken, and governments capitulating. So I think the same needs to be done here: mention the benefits alongside the costs. To some the costs are expendable cannon fodder, to others they are not. Crum375 (talk) 02:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I see your point, but I thought it was kind of implicit that all the experiments mentioned didn't work out too well for the animals ;). I'm not sure its going to be possible to get any reliable perspective on historical "casualties" beyond that those we do have info about were inevitably killed. Classical scientists weren't too bothered about reporting that aspect of their work. However, if there is some way of making that clearer then I'm all for that.

Regarding your analogy, I generally agree. However there is a problem. The human cost of war can be reliably documented, both quantitatively and qualitatively, by humans. They animals cost of animal experimentation can only be quantitatively documented. How much Pavlov's dogs suffered can never be anything other than a matter of opinion. When we document historical experiments the facts are without doubt: leprosy multi-drug antibiotic treatments were developed first in armadillos. The benefit is self explanatory. The quantitative cost? Well, we might be able to source how many armadillos were used in the experiments (though I doubt it). But then what? Anything qualitative is pure speculation and opinion, and if we are going to offer the opinion from some AR advocate that X suggests "the poor armadillos suffered terribly" we could also add the opinion from some AT advocate that Y suggests "they didn't feel pain". Those sorts of arguments offer very little, in terms of reliable information, in comparison to describing the human cost of war. Rockpocket 02:46, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I generally agree. So the issue is to try to describe the outcome of the test alongside the cost in terms of animals killed or hurt. Since we can't describe the animals' suffering from first hand accounts, we need to describe the actual procedures performed, to allow the reader to infer that information, unless we have very neutral (or generally pro AT) sources. As to the number of animals used per experiment, if we don't have specific numbers, we can fall back on the global ones, e.g. X number of vertebrates killed per year in the UK. The bottom line is to always present the result or benefit alongside the cost in terms of animals used, even if approximate. Crum375 (talk) 23:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Question

Tim, why did you remove that animals other than mice are used from the genetic modification section? You removed: "Smaller numbers of other animals are also used, including rats, sheep, and pigs." Is it wrong? SlimVirgin 02:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

There are large, well-funded, efforts to make genetically modified rattus and macaca fascicularis models in multiple places. Many who work in genetic modification think this is an important research direction because of limitations in generalizing from rodents to primates. I could probably dig up some citations. The numbers, however, are VERY small compared to the mouse (I'd guess over 1000-fold difference).--Animalresearcher (talk) 08:43, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

How is that an answer to the question? SlimVirgin 09:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that I saw no reason to remove such a section, because based on what I've seen, there is more than that even. --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed it since it seemed redundant, if you say mice are the main organism, then it must logically follow that smaller numbers of other organisms are used. The list didn't seen to add much and was backed by a citation to a BBC news article on glow-in-the-dark pigs. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Toxicology section

I've created a toxicology section, as I just noticed the one we had got removed at some point. I've used a single Nature article as the main source for now, and they had nothing good to say about it. If anyone can find a source that is less negative, that would be good, though both sides should preferably be woven together, rather than having pro and anti jockeying for position. SlimVirgin 02:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I found a better review on embryology testing, it's free full-text so anybody can access this. I'll have a look at the ones I can't access at home from work tomorrow. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Nature writes that, as of 2005, the LD50 test nevertheless accounted for one-third of all animal tests worldwide.

This is problematic. Nature is using the term "animal test" to specifically mean "testing a compound on an animal", rather than as a blanket term for animal experimentation (as we currently do). There is simply no way that LD50 accounts for 1/3 of all animals used in research, which is what we imply by our use of the term. A brief look at the numbers show that does not add up. This highlights a wider concern. Often when the AR lobby quote a scientist regarding criticizing "animal testing" the scientists are referring to the "testing of compounds on animals", rather than animal experimentation in general. As you can see from the Nature article, the scientific establishment is growing more critical of the animal testing paradigms. It might simply be a misunderstanding, but it is a problem that leads to misinterpretation of what scientists actually mean (I strongly suspect that is the basis of Croce's quotes you provided earlier, SV. The full reference is Croce, Pietro, Vivisection or Science? An Investigation into Testing Drugs and Safeguarding Health. London: Zed Books, 1999, so his criticisms appear to be against the testing of drugs in animals, rather than a critique on all animal experimentation. This explains why an apparently well respected scientist would appear to make such uninformed comments.) For this reason I have always been a proponent of having an article on animal testing, describing such things as cosmetic testing, toxicity testing, LD50 etc specifically, and another article on animal experimentation covering those only briefly, plus all other aspects. This has always been vetoed in the past. If we are going to stick with a single article for both its really important that we recognize that the science community do not use the terms interchangeably as we do. Rockpocket 03:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

So we need to change that to toxicology testing rather than "animal tests," is that right? SlimVirgin 03:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I just checked Croce and he is talking about animal experimentation/testing in general. SlimVirgin 05:38, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It must also be applying this term specifically to vertebrates, I'll change this to make it clear and have a look at the text tomorrow. Tim Vickers (talk) 03:28, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Please don't keep changing animals to vertebrates. SlimVirgin

This addition is illustrative of the problems. Someone wanted to add something less negative to the toxicology section, which is fine. But this is not a good choice:

"However, as a recent medical review stated "There is no question that animal studies can provide valuable information pertaining to human and animal vulnerability to environmental toxicants at different stages of development", but the assessment of the results of these tests must be balanced by the fact that a negative result in animals does not guarantee safety in humans."

Which medical review? What does it actually say? This gives us no information at all, except that some testing is sometimes valuable in some undetermined way, according to some unnamed review. We need specifics, and we need in-text attribution for any opinion so readers can judge whether they want to believe it without having to go to a library. SlimVirgin 03:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, this is a free full-text reference, just click on the blue link in the citation. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:02, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

It isn't fair to ask other people to tidy all your edits. You must say who conducted the review. Also, you're splitting up what source A and source B said in a way that's amounting to OR.

What is the purpose of this sentence (which you appeared by the way you positioned it to attribute Nature): "For example, about half of the chemicals tested on rodents cause cancer, but only 10% of these positive results are from chemicals that can cause cancer in humans. This over-sensitivity is probably due partly to the rapidly-growing animals being more susceptible to cancer, and partly to the high doses used in these tests. SlimVirgin 04:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, it was Nature, it gives the false positve/true positive rate on p145 of the article. Tim Vickers (talk) 04:10, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Xeno

How about we trash the xenotransplantation section? I really don't see why we should highlight a single field like this. Its poorly sourced and, is of relatively minor significance in terms of numbers. If we are going to focus on a type of experiment, why not transgenesis? At the very least it should be merged into the applied research section. Rockpocket 03:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I've added it to that subsection and found a better source. SlimVirgin 04:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Regulations

I've moved the regulations sections to Animal testing regulations, so the sections can be expanded if necessary. I restored some of the controversy section, because someone had removed almost all of it, and I created two new sub-sections under "Controversy" -- "Alleged abuse" and "Threats to researchers." We should probably only include the most notable incidents, or we'll quickly have a length problem. SlimVirgin 03:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I did not remove the controversy section. It was noted that nearly every subsection in controversy had its own page. I moved the more full paragraphs to the species-specific pages, and pointers to them included in the animal testing page. This was done over time and with some discussion on the Talk page, as you can plainly see. In fact, it was even argued that when you created the species specific pages, the sections describing details relating to the species were removed from the testing page, whereas the controversy sections were always duplicated (ie: arguably POV editing - why is species specific controversy worth duplicating, but species specific testing info not worth duplicating). I will revert this edit unless I hear a good reason otherwise (here), the controversy section redundantly adds a lot of text to a page already two times longer than recommended. As it is, we still need to find ways to reduce the page length and clean up the page. --Animalresearcher (talk) 08:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

AR, you really have to stop removing material that is critical of AT. This section is written in summary style. Summary style does not require one sentence per topic. I would also appreciate it very much if you would stop arguing on talk pages on the basis of your own opinion, and stick more closely to what sources are saying. If you really are in charge of a primate lab (or whatever it was you said about yourself), you arguably stand in a conflict of interest, and so strong sourcing is even more important. SlimVirgin 09:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it was abundantly clear. When you split off the "animal testing on non-human primates" page, you duplicated each controversy section en todo, although your stated effort was to reduce the page size of the "Animal testing" page to make it more manageable. In addition, almost all of the controversy subsections already had their own WIKI pages. I took the ones that were not already listed on the non-human primate page, and duplicated them with the full length listing that had been on the animal testing page. Then, I removed most of the controversy section, but left a pointer to the controversy section on the non-human primate page, and every pointer to every subsection that had its own page, and a sentence or two summary for each. To be clear, no information was removed from Misplaced Pages, and nothing was moved more than one click from the animal testing page.

In contrast, when you moved the other non-human primate sections to the "Animal testing on non-human primates" page, you briefly summarized them on the animal testing page, and listed them en todo on the non-human primate page. Obviously you were editing with a double standard towards the controversy sections, and the other animal testing sections, with respect to non-human primates. And that completely defines POV editing when neutral POV material such as animal numbers and types of experiments is reduced and moved to another page, but highly POV material like the controversy section was duplicated en todo.

To replicate that, I similarly moved the controversy sections to the "animal testing on non-human primates" page. I did this after several days of discussion and with the full consent of rockpocket (see the discussions if you don't believe me). I honestly do not think there is a valid argument that my correction of your editing was POV given the history of events, nor was I acting hastily or without broad consensus. --Animalresearcher (talk) 19:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Editing

Tim, would you mind adding your own material instead of editing mine? Then once it's all there we can rewrite for flow. The current chopping things around is leading to poor flow and, I think, some OR too. Also, the normal thing with reporters is simply to name the publication, unless the reporter is well-known, or it's a controversial opinion piece. SlimVirgin 05:37, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Which parts of the article are yours? Tim Vickers (talk) 05:39, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Not parts of the article. What I'm asking is if I write something and you want to add to it, I'd appreciate it if you would simply add to it, and not change my writing and interweave it with your own. It's leading to disjointed writing and looks slightly OR-ish. Once we have both added material and the section is fairly stable, then we can copy edit for flow. SlimVirgin 05:54, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

"If you don't want your writing to be edited mercilessly, do not submit it.". However, if you want to work on this text privately for a while, shall I move it to User:SlimVirgin/Toxicology for you? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

This is a wiki, so I can only request that you add material, rather than changing other people's, and I can also only request that material that's added be informative, and not simply bland advertising material trotted out by either side.

The point of the page is to educate people who don't know anything about the subject. That means it has to be readable — because we want them to read it. It also means it has to be educative — so they know more after reading it than before.

That won't happen if the article consists of blockquote after blockquote of statements from groups saying "we love it," or "we hate it." It also won't happen if the writing is too technical or consists of long lists of "In January, 1,230,873 and a half" mice were used, but in February the figure increased by 0.231%." It won't happen if the writing is poor and disjointed, with no flow and no narrative.

I know it's hard to write an article like this well, and I'm not saying I'm in a position to do it myself (or I'd have done it by now). But we can try, which means we have to change our approach, because the current approach hasn't worked.

One thing we are missing is a section on the sourcing of animals. I'm going to try to write something when I have time, but I'll do it summary style here and open up another subpage to keep the length down. SlimVirgin 16:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad that you'll allow me to edit what you regard as your text, thank you. However, working on any article in a Wiki will be difficult for you if you object to people changing what you have added. That just isn't how it works, as I'm sure you are aware. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I have stayed away from this article for a long time, largely because it seemed to me that you had followed me to it (this and others) after our last disagreement. Perhaps you didn't and that was cooincidence. Regardless, it seems to me that it has deteriorated, and it was never very good to begin with (something I'm responsible for as much as anyone else). So all I am seeking here is improvement and a commitment to a high standard of writing and source use. I can only hope that everyone can work on this harmoniously. These tetchy posts don't help toward that end and are incredibly time-consuming. SlimVirgin 17:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Since we both edit widely in this encyclopaedia, we are bound to overlap on some subjects, and this is one where I can make a useful contribution. However, I'm sure you can understand why having your work reverted and being told to "add your material without changing other people's" might get you a little tetchy. I'm sorry if I let any irritation show. I too hope to use high-quality sources and produce good prose. However, I won't be able to do anything constructive if you object to people editing what you have written - that's just going to lead to a waste of everybody's time and effort.

We can work constructively on this. Your writing is approachable and explains the anti position very clearly, but is based on the popular literature, so misses some of the technicalities and modern techniques involved. I write well on the science, but am sometimes blind to my POV and may assume too much background from a general reader. If we both add to this, and both edit each other's text, we should be able to combine the best of both worlds. However this requires collaboration, not confrontation, and in particular more rewriting and fewer simple reverts. Are you willing to collaborate on improving this article? Tim Vickers (talk) 18:20, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Reply

Yes, I'd like to collaborate on it with you. But first I'd like to make sure we're on the same page when it comes to sources, and deciding who our audience is. My apologies for the length of this. Long talk-page comments are very annoying, but I just feel I have to spell this out.

Sources

You wrote above something about my using "popular" sources, even though the sources I used were quite varied (from Nature to USDA, to newspapers, to the HSUS). So what I assume you mean is that I'm using secondary sources, and not primary ones. (But if you meant something else, please say.)

We have to rely on secondary sources in an article like this because it's so contentious. There is absolutely nothing about animal testing that is not seriously disputed by reliable sources. In fact, this is probably one of the most contentious articles on Misplaced Pages. The only reason there's not more fighting on it is you have to do quite a bit of detailed reading to keep up, and most people don't want to do that.

I could very easily go to a university library now and come back with enough primary-source material to fill this page with horror upon horror. Obviously, that would be OR and unacceptable.

Therefore, I think it makes sense to discuss what kinds of sources we're aiming to focus on. Almost all sources will be regarded as propagandists by the other "side." And it's worth noting that there are more than two sides here -- there's (1) pro-testing (and different degrees of support for it); (2) anti-testing based on the argument that it's unscientific, but with little concern for the animals; (3) anti-testing because of animal welfare, which means it's okay to use them but you have to treat them better; and (4) anti-testing because it's regarded as inherently and always immoral. And a thousand variations on those themes.

Given that all sides may be seen as propagandists by someone, the way I approach this is I'm willing to use any reliable source who has something informative to say; and I try not to use any source, no matter how authoritative, if all they're going to do is waffle.

Audience

Wondering who the informative sources are leads into asking who our audience is. Who do we want to inform? Answering that will determine what kind of information we offer them.

This page is going to be read largely by people who know little or nothing about animal testing. They may be reading for private interest, or may be writing an essay on it -- for college, school homework or whatever. This page is unlikely to be used by anyone engaged in serious research, and if it is, it will be only for the purpose of finding other sources.

None of these groups wants to see very detailed information here. No one cares if the UK used 1,346,908 mice in 2003, but slightly increased that in 2004. The generalist doesn't want that level of detail. The specialist won't trust our figures and will look them up for himself. So by writing in that very detailed way, we make the page hard to read, and we alienate ourselves from our natural readership.

What does the audience want to know?

They want to know what animal testing consists of, who does it, why they do it, where they do it, and what they do it with. We have to try to find the most interesting ways of expressing this -- not necessarily the stuff industry sources produce for the general public, which would put you to sleep in a minute because it often boils down to "$X million spent last year fighting breast cancer to save your Auntie Jane!" This is the stuff I very much want to avoid.

I would like us to collaborate on finding way to make the issues come alive for the reader, by identifying the key points to cover, and then using the most informative and least defensive sources on all sides to shed light on those points. SlimVirgin 01:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Excellent. I'm highly encouraged by that. I meant by "popular" sources - articles in the popular press and non-academic sources. (Nothing about primary/secondary, which is quite an uninformative way of approaching sources anyway) There is a great deal published information on what is done, how it is done and what results have been achieved in the academic literature, this is factually highly-reliable but has its own POV. We need to use this to source much of the factual material on the science, since this is most authoritative on that aspect. These publications are however no more or less reliable on morality/ethics than any other.

As an example, if we want to discuss anesthesia in toxicology testing. An academic source would be preferable to support an statement that "anesthesia changes how the body detoxifies chemicals." eg PMID 2760837, but would be no better than anything else on if experiments without anesthesia are morally justifiable. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:29, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I find the primary/secondary distinction very useful. It's a useful tool for checking how likely we are to be doing OR and inadvertently POV pushing -- and by that I mean putting sources together in a way that's painting our own picture, rather than reproducing the picture others are painting for us. It's the latter we need to be doing. We're here as glorified stenographers, and not as researchers or journalists.

Yes, I agree if we want to discuss an issue that is purely a matter of science, then it's best to use academic sources. But there are very few, if any, such issues that will arise on this page, in part because we don't want to get technical and detailed, and in part because just about everything is disputed -- either the facts themselves, or the way the facts are used. So I think we need to be constantly checking with secondary sources that our use of primary sources is legitimate, if we use them at all. SlimVirgin 01:48, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I prefer to cite reviews where I can, this acts as a "crap filter" and ensures you get a balanced view of a field. Those are tertiary sources right? Data = primary, Journal articles interpreting data = secondary, reviews interpreting articles = tertiary. Everybody seems to have their own definitions! Tim Vickers (talk) 01:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The definitions do shift, because it's a question of proximity to the event. The closer a writer is to the event, the more of a primary source that person is about that event (I'm calling writers "sources" here -- some Wikipedians insist that only documents are sources, but that needn't bother us here). So the researchers who perform an experiment are primary sources regarding that experiment (or their papers are primary sources, depending on which way you want to look at it). Secondary sources are people, articles, books discussing those experiments.

Tertiary sources are encyclopedias and similar that give a broad overview of all the other material. They are good to use to judge notability and relevance -- if something is so mainstream as to hit the Encyclopaedia Britannica, there's no excuse to ignore it. But they're not much use for anything else, because almost everything they publish needs to be checked independently of them -- unless you're using them only to show that something is very established. For example, I used the EB as a source for my definition of "vivisection," because I didn't want anyone arguing that it was source-dependent and that others sources would disagree. So I chose an authoritative tertiary source to nail it down, and made sure I found an informed secondary source who agreed, so the tertiary source wasn't standing alone. SlimVirgin 02:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Fact-value

If I may interject one just point. I think there may be something here that is a bone of contention between those with different POVs, and it may be an opportunity for us to resolve it. I think the problem us thus: in Misplaced Pages when we are discussing topics related to science and biomedicine, the primary and secondary sources (as moderated, reviewed and accepted by the scientific consensus) are encouraged as reliable sources. Scientists are experts at science, and thus we are happy to source their publications as references for our information. Conflicting minority scientific (and occasionally pseudo- or non-scientific) views are reported as such per WP:UNDUE. Since the scientific necessity for regulated animal testing is the overwhelming scientific consensus opinion, its tempting to argue that that the same should happen on this subject. Its clear to that this would not be neutral when discussing the issue of animal testing. However, neither can we simply treat the scientific consensus as entirely unreliable because a minority says so. My request, then, is that we meet somewhere in the middle. We should not be giving equal weight to activists and expert scientists when discussing the technicalities and practicalities of science. We should not be countering a published descriptions of a scientific techniques or findings with someone with no qualifications other than that they love animals for the sake of balance (I'm thinking this is mostly relevent to the "types of test" section). But by the same token, neither should we confuse technical expertise with expertise on the issues. Ingrid Newkirk is as much of an expert on the issues associated with animal experimentation as any scientist publishing in Nature (as SV is fond of pointing out).

I appreciate that is is not always easy to distinguish the practicalities from the issues (sometimes the practicalities are the issues!), and there will always be areas of conflict, but if we can at least come to some sort of understanding about this on principle, then I feel that much of the conflict between the POV could be resolved. Rockpocket 02:16, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, sections such as "Types of tests" and "Alternatives to animal testing" are purely scientific questions. What is done and what can be done is a factual matter on which there is data. This is the area science covers. "Controversy" deals with the actions of the groups opposed to testing (which should give more weight to mainstream organisations such as RSPCA), and "The arguments in brief" addresses moral issues and is where the facts are put into context and discussed from a philosophical viewpoint. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The RSPCA is not an anti-testing organization per se; in fact, I don't even know what their position on testing is nowadays, because it changes depending on who's in control. The specialists are e.g. the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection.

I think the difficulty I'm having is in seeing an example of an issue that would be purely a scientific one -- because either the issue itself will not be a matter of science alone, or the context in which it is used won't be, or the language in which it is expressed won't be. Rockpocket, can you give an example of the kind of issue you had in mind -- a real one from the page (this or a previous version of it)? SlimVirgin 02:38, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

My comments were more aimed at finding common ground to move forward, rather than a criticism of things are they are. I don't think there is a huge problem in the article as is, it was more of a general comment about whether primary/secondary scientific references are appropriate as sources for facts, rather than as POV. For example, the entire "Types of tests" section currently cites scientific studies almost exclusively because its purpose is to document what scientists do and why they do it. I think its perfectly acceptable that these are used and not discounted as biased, or needing to be "balanced" by a AR version of why scientists kill animals. While I don't think that is what you are suggesting, SV, that might be inferred from the idea that scientist publications need to be treated as a pro-POV opinion and balanced by anti-POV opinion. All the other sections absolutely require anti-perspective (even the 3RR section, since that is widely criticizes as no more than lip-service). Rockpocket 03:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

RP, I think I would indeed argue that, in this context, scientific publications needs to be treated as pro-POV. That's because almost any way they could be used is going to throw up a bias. For example, our lead states "Many major developments that led to Nobel Prizes involved research on vertebrates, including the development of penicillin (mice), organ transplant (dogs), and work on poliomyelitis that led to a vaccine (mice, monkeys)." We don't cite the original papers, but supposing we had for the sake of this argument. That sentence, while true, is POV, fallacious (post hoc ergo propter hoc), and misses the entire point of the opponents' argument, which is that the animal experiments may have been either unnecessary or slowed the work down. Yet when I tried to point that out at the time this was written, I was buried under a sea of "but they're just facts." My argument was then, and is now, that there are no such thing as "just facts" when it comes to this subject. As I wrote earlier, I could go to a university library now and come back with a ton of horrible "just facts" to insert into this article, and POV it entirely against animal research by using only the scientists' own words. SlimVirgin 05:36, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps we are not as close to agreeing as I thought. The sentence you cite is, as you say, "true". Its a rock solid, undeniable, verifiable fact. While the original papers would not be much use as a source for winning the Nobel prize, it would be entirely acceptable as a source for the development of penicillin using mice. Yet despite acknowledging its accuracy, you then state its POV? Why, because it "misses the entire point of the opponents' argument". Don't you think the opponents arguments should fit the facts, rather than adjust the facts to suit an argument? Stating that animal testing resulted in X, Y and Z (a fact) is simply not the same as stating X, Y and Z could not have happened without animal testing (an argument). If your point is that the fact is true, but it is being used in a misleading way, then perhaps you have a point. Its not a valid argument for the use of animals in research (as you note, using it as justification is an example of post hoc ergo propter hoc) but where do we say it is an argument for necessity? I don't see that argument being made in the article. I see a statement indicating the ubiquity of animal tests, their role in the history of biomedicine and the respect they are given by the scientific community, all important points to summarize. If you wish to state the opinion they "may have been either unnecessary or slowed the work down" (an argument), we could do that no problem. But then we should state the opposing argument: that it was necessary and it sped the work up. That - not the statement of fact you cite - is the pro-testing POV. Rockpocket 06:13, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

What I'm arguing is that the fact-value distinction is being ignored when people put certain facts forward in support of animal testing.

That mice were used to develop penicillin is a fact. But why is it being mentioned? Animals were used to develop almost everything, including all the good and all the bad and all the useless. The penicillin example is being singled out in order to say: "We all need penicillin, and animal testing was used to get it. Therefore, animal testing provided it for us . Support animal testing! "

In other words, dead mice = live human beings = hurrah! But that is nowhere shown in this example, because maybe the mice part was unnecessary.

Where is the evidence that the use of animals was necessary or sped the work up? And if there is evidence in this particular case, is there sufficient evidence in all the other cases that are frequently cited by the industry? How could there be evidence? No one has run a controlled study whereby two groups unknown to each other were racing to find penicillin -- one group using animals, the other not.

My point is that just about any fact you use, no matter how solid, is being used to support or to oppose. Would you support this sentence in the lead (assuming for the sake of argument that it is factual): "Over 50 million vertebrate animals were blinded, burned, poisoned, drowned, and dissected in U.S. laboratories last year." No, because you would want to say there's another side to it. Well, that's all I'm arguing here -- there is another side to the sentence "Mice were used in the development of penicillin," but we were not allowed to add that other side to that paragraph. SlimVirgin 06:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. With this kind of contentious issue, I think every section, and ideally even every paragraph, have to reflect the opposing POVs. So if there is a statement about benefits of AT, it has to be balanced by costs, in terms of animals killed or injured. This is especially important in the lead, that summarizes the entire article. Crum375 (talk) 06:53, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

All I wanted in that paragraph was literally a few words along the lines of "but opponents of animal testing argue that the use of animals in such studies may be unnecessary and may even slow the research down," with a link to a good source who argues this. But it wasn't allowed, and the result is (as I see it) a POV lead, and one embodying a fallacy. SlimVirgin 07:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's a wiki. ;^) Crum375 (talk) 07:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I recall that several of us tried for quite some time, but we were reverted a lot, so we gave up. My "ownership" of the article obviously isn't as tight as it could be. SlimVirgin 07:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It is owned by the Foundation, and the Foundation wants NPOV, which means every paragraph, if at all possible, needs to be balanced, especially with a contentious subject. Crum375 (talk) 07:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I was always more concerned about the fallacy than the POV. It would be (almost) like starting an article on Feminism with "all male Nobel prize winners have been married" (implication: you couldn't have done it without the women!) I'm exaggerating a little here, because I can't think of a close analogy, but it's along those lines. SlimVirgin 07:21, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I think that NPOV, V and NOR, when applied properly, will tend to expose obvious fallacies. Crum375 (talk) 07:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

And what I am saying is that there are two sides, advocacy and criticism, one either side of that neutral fact. You appear to be seeing all content in this article as being expressed "in support of" or "in opposition". That is an inherently issue-based perspective of animal testing. Look at other articles about scientific techniques. Their articles describe the technique, describe its use and describe its history. Then there may be a section on criticism and controversy, but every single factual sentence is not considered to be promotion that needs to be countered by an argument. We don't describe "all the good and all the bad and all the useless" uses of other techniques, we describe ones that had an impact in the field of science and the ones that the other sources describe as notable. In those articles the facts are not being used to support or oppose, they are being used to describe. That is what I have been trying to bring to this article - a description of what animal testing is.

It is not neutral to consider this article only from the viewpoint that it is an issue. It clearly is an important issue, and there obviously should be much greater coverage of that than in comparable articles on scientific techniques, but for better or worse it is also an integral aspect of experimental science that can be described neutrally. A good encyclopaedia article has to cover all aspects of animal testing, not just the debate. Rockpocket 07:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that we need to describe what AT is, and how it's done. When we get to results or benefits, that has to be balanced with costs in terms of animals killed or hurt. I think that's NPOV. Crum375 (talk) 07:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

RP, the issue of Nobel prizes was added to the lead for a reason, and not because it is purely factual. It was added to say animal testing is a good thing. That is why people (not you) fought so hard to keep out the other POV.

The scientific or the pro-testing position(s) are not the default. There is no default position. Everything about the subject is controversial and polarizing, and this article should reflect that. Not "Here's X's list of arguments, and here's Y's" because that leads to articles that can be hard to read, but by weaving the different positions as intelligently as we can throughout the text. SlimVirgin 08:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying the pro-testing position is default, I'm saying the consensus description of a fact is default and should not be treated like an argument per se. Your argument is like saying the scientific consensus on evolution experiments is not default and needs to be countered by the intelligent design position lest it sounds like we are promoting evolution. Neither am I suggesting we completely separate the science from the debate, we can weave them together in a appealing and informative way. What I am saying is that every statements of fact describing animal testing is not necessarily an argument for it, and should not always be interpreted as such if it doesn't explicitly say so.

But how would you feel if I were to add a bunch of facts to the lead that would animal testing look bad, but that really were just straightforward facts e.g. as I said above, "last year 50 million animals were burned, drowned, poisoned, suffocated, and dissected in the U.S." Assuming that is true and we had a source, you still wouldn't allow it. All I'm trying to argue is that facts that seem innocuous, straightforward, default, may not look that way if you don't hold a pro-testing POV. SlimVirgin 09:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Regarding that statement specifically. I'm not a big fan of citing Nobel Prize winning experiments as a badge of honour and I can see how it gives that impression (I have met a number of Nobel Prize winners and they range from genius to otherwise unremarkable, but lucky). What I consider to be important in that sentence is two aspects: That the scientific consensus accepts scientific merit of animal testing, and that it is so widely used that it is involved in almost aspect of science. That sentence (and the one prior) is one way of making those points, if we could make them in a way that you consider to be less promotional, then I would be happy to see that.

Yes, these are important points and informative. Who won a Nobel prize doesn't really have anything to do with animal testing. SlimVirgin 09:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with offering commentary about this in the lead either, but if we are going to offer criticism, I also think we should offer an advocate's opinion. That is, if we are going to suggest that some consider it unnecessary and restricting advances (and it could indeed), then we should also note that some consider it to be essential to driving advances (again, it could indeed). Both of those are unknowns, because the status quo does not permit us to test them and both summarize the different interpretations of what the facts of animal testing mean for further biomedical research. Rockpocket 08:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, and we could include those arguments without reference to Nobel prizes. What if we found out that 200 scientists who had once tested on animals were charged with wife battery last year? I'm using an extreme example to illustrate the point that there are all kinds of facts about the science and the scientists that would put animal testing in a very poor light. But those are not in the lead, and rightly so. Look at the wars we had over whether to say in the lead that most animals are killed after the experiments. Every fact that sheds a good light is allowed in. Every fact that sheds a negative light we have had to fight tooth and nail for. SlimVirgin 09:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify -- none of the above is a criticism of you personally. You've always been good to work with on this page, as on others. SlimVirgin 09:25, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

It might help separate the heat from the light to substitute a different experimental technique and see how a sentence sounds. "Enzyme assays are a central part of in modern biochemistry, and the data they provide has been essential in discoveries as diverse as identifying how the body uses food in cellular respiration, to how hormones act as signals." I can source all those statements to reliable sources, but is this a NPOV sentence? How would you re-write it to make it NOPV if you disagree? Tim Vickers (talk) 17:02, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear about the point of the example. The argument here is that, in a subject as controversial as animal testing, almost all facts will signal a value — either in themselves, or by the way they're expressed, or by the context in which they are used. How does your example support or refute that argument? SlimVirgin 17:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

If we can decide on how to present a scientific technique about which none of us have any strong feelings, this will inform our decision on issues where people's judgement is less dispassionate. A good test for NPOV is to substitute in a subject that arouses no strong feelings and see if the sentence still sounds sensible. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:52, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

• Enzyme assays are absolutely central to modern biochemistry, and, contrary to the ill-informed speculation of critics, the data they provide has been essential in discoveries as important as identifying how the body uses food in cellular respiration, to how hormones act as signals.
• Enzyme assays are a controversial part of biochemistry, the data they provide does not always reflect what occurs in the body and their use has been strongly resisted by protein rights activists.

Tim, I see what you're trying to do, but the strong feelings are the whole point of the argument, so if you remove them, the point is missed. What am I saying is that animal testing is so controversial that it is almost impossible to use a fact that doesn't incorporate a value at the same time -- by its placement, by the words used, or in and of itself.

Any analogy that isn't a controversial issue misses that fundamental point.

A better analogy would be found if we were to look at another controversial issue. Imagine Wikipedians writing about the slave trade while it was still ongoing. Use the word "negro" and maybe you're supporting it. Use the word "African American," and you're making a clear political point. Use the word "African," and maybe you're saying these people don't below in America. Use the word "black" and -- well, I don't know, but you take the point. When things become controversial, everything becomes tinged by opinion -- words and facts become infected -- and the key to writing about these issues well is to get it all out in the open, even in our own minds. We have to make ourselves completely conscious of our own biases, and the way our language reflects them and serves to hide them, even from ourselves. SlimVirgin 20:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

That seems completely the wrong way to approach it. As you said earlier "What is needed is a group of editors who are each willing to write entirely neutrally, as though they're Martians who've landed, with access to a huge library about animal testing, but with no vested interests one way or the other, and who will write in skeptical, disinterested tones." Any strong feelings are irrelevant to the article and should be excluded entirely from our judgments. I know that what you are saying is that it will be hard to do this, and this is a very difficult issue for some people, but we must try to ignore the controversy. Tim Vickers (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree, but we have to always bear in mind that our own language and what we see as a relevant facts will interfere with that neutrality. That's really my only point. For example, if it were up to me, I would call animals "non-human animals" throughout, or at least on first reference, whereas you want to say "vertebrates." My subtext is: "We're animals too!" Yours is: "Most experimental animals are fruit flies!" SlimVirgin 20:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I would agree with both uses in the appropriate place, not because of sub-text but because it is accurate. Mixing technical and non-technical uses of words leads to misinterpretation and can be misleading. You allege we wish to say "vertebrate" because the sub-text is "most experimental animals are fruit flies". Absolutely. Most experimental animals are fruit flies, so to say mice are the most tested on animal is simply misleading. By the same rationale, I would agree with the use of "non-human animal". Again, because humans are animals (technically speaking). It comes down the the same problem: information needs to be described accurately. There is no excuse for providing misleading information simply because a reader might infer something is unwritten. Rockpocket 21:12, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

In general the language should be as precise as possible. You don't say "animal welfare groups oppose" when the RSPCA does not oppose, instead you say "anti-vivisection groups oppose" nor say "research in animals has raised serious ethical concerns" when experiments on nematodes raise no such concerns, instead you say "research in vertebrates has raised serious ethical concerns". Precision is key and also assists in maintaining NPOV be preventing inaccurate generalisations. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:04, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Non-human vertebrates would be more precise than vertebrates, but you'd call it POV. SlimVirgin 21:06, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm quite open to that formulation. I tend to agree with Singer that species boundaries are entirely arbitrary when discussing morality. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:08, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

For the longest time, I wasn't even able to write "non-human primate" on Misplaced Pages without someone deleting it as POV. I had to keep providing sources showing that the animal-testing industry uses the expression itself. We have the same issue with "euthanize." The simplest word is "kill," but pro-testing editors want to use "euthanize" to blur that. But on PETA, when they killed a bunch of cats (apparently) unnecessarily, anti-AR editors were insisting that the word "kill" be used, even though PETA was saying "euthanize." :-) SlimVirgin 21:24, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Either is better than the absurd formulation "sacrifice", which always raises images of the Indiana Jones films for me. I welcome the use of "non-human primate", since humans are certainly primates. Precision, precision, precision. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Name of researcher

In the Threats to researchers section, is there a reason we don't name the researcher? His name was in all the press articles about this, as I recall. SlimVirgin 16:59, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

If he or she was named in the reliable sources, then I see no reason why not. Though I do have an issue with a link to a site that published a private individual's phone number and address for the obvious purpose of encouraging harassment. Rockpocket 19:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Bingo!--Animalresearcher (talk) 19:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I think it was Animalresearcher who added the link and the name of the group, as he's the one who wrote that section, so far as I know. But yes, the name was published by reliable sources, which we link to, yet don't name him ourselves. SlimVirgin 00:17, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Would naming the victim add anything useful to the article? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:23, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, information. :-) It just looks a bit odd without it. We give quite a bit of detail, so it's very noticeable that we don't name the researcher -- which would be fine if no other RS had, but given his name was in most of the newspapers that reported this, it seems strange that we omit it. SlimVirgin 00:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Let's do what the best of our sources do. Which was the most authoritative of these sources? People rarely criticise you for following the editorial example of papers like the NYT. (well except on conservapedia). Tim Vickers (talk) 00:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I suppose it may look odd. And I perhaps was inappropriate in not including his name (Dario Ringach). To me, he looks like someone that could be me in another six months. Someone with no history of violation of animal welfare law, someone in good standing with the scientific community, and well respected by his peers, who has his career completely dismantled by animal rights activists over his concerns for the well-being of his wife and young children who are being hounded by animal rights activists. --Animalresearcher (talk) 14:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Consensus on subpages

Can we establish, as a consensus, that material covered in detail on the various subpages of Animal Testing only be briefly summarized on the Animal Testing page, following style guidelines of WP:LEAD? ie: If there is a subpage on the History of Animal Testing, then detailed edits would occur on the History of Animal Testing page, and the referral section on the Animal Testing page would act as a summary of the History page, roughly devoting coverage to the detailed coverage on the History page? --Animalresearcher (talk) 15:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

That's more or less what has happened, but for you "briefly summarized" would mean one or two sentences, and would leave this page as nothing but a list of internal links. The page has to be readable, so that people could read this without being forced to go to other pages too. SlimVirgin 15:35, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Vivisection edit

I really don't see the point in continuing to try to insert vivisection as an appropriately neutral term to refer to physiological experiments on animals. It is almost never used by those who practice animal experiments, and almost always used by those who oppose experiments. This careful choice of terms occurs because definitionally vivisection means cutting on live animals, and does not imply purpose in that cutting. Animal experimentation, testing, in vivo experimentation, etc, all imply purpose. In any case, I don't see the point in re-defining the common use of the term here - it is a PR stunt. However, I will happily recant if you can find some evidence of the use of the term by physiologists to describe their own work. I have never heard it used in such a context (by a physiologist to describe his own work) except in an extremely facetious tone on our way to the OR. --Animalresearcher (talk) 15:26, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

AR, once again you're using personal knowledge/opinion. One of the sources is the Encyclopaedia Britannica. We've been through this before, and others on this page (e.g. Rockpocket) were fine with it. SlimVirgin 15:30, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I am happy with it as long as it is noted that animal testers "almost never" use the term. As a comparison, you "almost never" hear a white person in the USA use the word "nigger", and it is just as clearly pejorative. And if you do not see the appropriateness of that analogy it is because that word has not been applied to you in that context ie: you need to see both sides of this particular issue. --Animalresearcher (talk) 20:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Writing

Crum, it was me who removed "On the other side of the debate, those in favor of animal testing held that experiments on living animals were necessary to advance medical and biological knowledge," because it's an example of a sentence that doesn't say anything. It would be like adding "Those who opposed animal testing did so because they thought it was bad and unnecessary."

We need informed opinion attributed to authoritative sources, as was done with Bernard arguing that an effect on an animal can be presumed to lead to a similar effect on a human being. That's a substantive point, attributed to a key player. SlimVirgin 15:39, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Definition

Tim, the term vivisection is more often used by animal protection groups, not just animal rights. Did you have a reason for changing it? Here for example the Guardian refers to the RSPCA as an anti-vivisection group, and the RSPCA is definitely not animal rights. SlimVirgin 17:41, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

I just linked to the page in Misplaced Pages, perhaps you're right, "anti-vivisection" is a better term. I'll pipe the link. Tim Vickers (talk) 17:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

But why are you linking to animal rights? AR is a very specific subset of anti-vivisection which in turn is a subset of animal welfare/protection. It's important not to get them mixed up. SlimVirgin 17:49, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

True, but "animal protection groups" was wrong as well, since as you say organisations like the RSPCA are certainly animal protection groups, but are not opposed to animal experimentation. "Anti-vivisection" is most precise, but what is the best page to link this to? Should it be linked at all? Tim Vickers (talk) 19:46, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Personally I wouldn't link it, but if you want to, "animal welfare" might be more accurate than "animal rights." SlimVirgin 20:00, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The link was removed, that seems a good call. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:10, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Bernard

Why don't we want to say that Bernard's wife founded the first French anti-vivisection society? It's been removed twice, but it's a fascinating detail, and shows what a polarizing issue this is. SlimVirgin 18:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Primary/secondary sources

Someone here was asking elsewhere for definitions of primary and secondary, so I'm posting this from an early version of WP:ATT, which I think is clearer than the defs on the current NOR page:

Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation you are writing about. An eyewitness account of a traffic accident is a primary source. The Bible is a primary source. The White House's summary of a George Bush speech is a primary source. Primary sources that have been published by a reliable source may be used for the purposes of attribution in Misplaced Pages, but only with care, because it's easy to misuse primary sources; for example, anyone could try to use the Bible as evidence that God said homosexuality was a sin. For that reason, edits that rely on primary sources should not interpret the source material, but should simply describe it. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source.

Secondary sources are documents or people that summarize other material, usually primary source material. A journalist's account of a traffic accident is a secondary source. A theologian's account of what the Bible says is a secondary source. A New York Times account of a George Bush speech is a secondary source. Misplaced Pages articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible. This means that we publish the opinions of reliable authors, and not the opinions of Wikipedians who have read the primary source material for themselves. As a rule, we want to know what Professor Smith, the theologian, says about the Bible and homosexuality, and not what User:Smith says about it, even though both are relying on the same source material.

Misplaced Pages articles should rely on secondary sources, though of course primary sources can be included -- they just have to be used very carefully. The more controversial the subject, the more care is required with their use. SlimVirgin 18:18, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Example of the kind of material we need

Animalresearcher, you added elsewhere an example of the kind of material we need here. Talking about the development of the polio vaccine with Rhesus monkeys, you wrote:

Albert Sabin made a superior "live" vaccine by passing the polio virus through animal hosts, including monkeys. The vaccine was produced for mass consumption in 1963 and is still in use today.It had virtually eradicated polio in the USA by 1965. It has been estimated that 100,000 Rhesus monkeys were killed in the course of developing the polio vaccines, and 65 doses of vaccine were produced for each monkey.

The sentence about how 100,000 monkeys were killed producing vaccine for 65 x 100,000 is exactly the kind of material we need in this article. If we could isolate a couple of very stark cases like this, where the benefits of the research were clear and direct, and then also find good sources discussing the cost, we could make a really neutral presentation that I think readers would find very educative. SlimVirgin 18:43, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

If only all the references were as concise and to the point on the animals used and benefits provided...--Animalresearcher (talk) 20:43, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Human self-experimentation

I agree with the inclusion of this material. However, if we are including voluntary experiments on humans in this article we need to modify the sentence in the lead that states "Opponents argue that animal testing is cruel and unnecessary,..." into "Opponents argue that some forms of animal testing are cruel and unnecessary,". I would be very skeptical of any claim that people regard human experiments with the full consent of the participants as cruel.

Comments? Tim Vickers (talk) 22:32, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

This is about non-human animal testing. If people want to create a separate page on human volunteers, that would be good. SlimVirgin 01:20, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I've restored to the lead that the article's about non-human animal testing. We used to say that, but someone removed it. SlimVirgin 01:24, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity, why do you favor restricting this page to non-human animals? Tim Vickers (talk) 01:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Because that's what the terms animal testing, animal research, and animal experimentation refer to when used by all the reliable sources. SlimVirgin 01:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

True, illogical but common. :) Tim Vickers (talk) 01:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

While it is true that the phrase "animal testing" is a misnomer because it excludes humans; I feel that a section contrasting aspects of human testing and nonhuman animal testing would illuminate those aspects and the choices available to society in seeking experimental data. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I think such a contrast gets the the ironic heart of the issue in that animals are treated like mere animals because they are not special like us humans and are tested in the first place because we humans are non-special animals so very like them that the experiments tell us also about humans. There is a schizophrenic disconnect in the arguments of hardliners on both sides. Which experiments are done on humans and which are done on non-humans and why illuminates. Moral guidelines used for humans versus non-humans brings into sharp relief options and possibilities. Naturally, to avoid original research, we want sources that themselves do this contrasting. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:28, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Use of precision in the first sentence to clearly identify the subject of the article

Current: Animal testing or animal research refers to the use of animals in experiments.

Proposed: Animal testing or animal research refers to scientific medical or biological experimentation on living animals.

Reason:

1. We are addressing science related behaviors and not other possible uses of animals in experiments.
2. We are addressing medical or biological related behaviors and not other possible uses of animals in experiments. (There is significant but not total overlap in these terms.)
3. "the bodies of living animals" rather than just "animal" to rule out experiments on dead animals and on living tissue seperated from the body (e.g. blood).

Things ruled out:

1. Children experimenting with insects. (unscientific)
2. Parrots experimented on to judge their IQ. (psychological, not medical/biological)
3. Experiments with blood or other tissue removed from an animal.
4. Experiments on dead bodies. (If we want to cover that we should explicitly say so.)

WAS 4.250 (talk) 01:03, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I changed it to "living animals", which is a bit simpler. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:14, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources

Tim, why are you removing sources, and trying to minimize this practice? Most dogs in the United States are supplied by Class B dealers, so this isn't a minor issue. Read the Newsweek piece. SlimVirgin 02:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I removed an unpublished conference abstract. This fails WP:V. I'm surprised you added such a poor source when there is a reliable publication on the topic. Tim Vickers (talk) 02:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It's a paper given by academics to an academic conference. It is not a poor source.

Could whoever added the Brooman/Legge book, Law Relating to Animals, say which page number they found the material on? SlimVirgin 02:56, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Conference papers are not peer reviewed. You pay your registration fee and you get your abstract "published". Note the source is listed as an "Unpublished Manuscript", which makes it about as reliable as anything you or I choose to say about the subject. WP:RS is clear that scholarly "means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals." Rockpocket 03:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

If it were a sole source, it would be a problem, but it's just a courtesy source and is fine for that. I've e-mailed them to ask if it's been published anywhere, then we can link to it. SlimVirgin 03:48, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, at least in the areas I am familiar with, you can't get your paper accepted for presentation and your abstract published in the proceedings unless your submission undergoes some scrutiny by the organizers. It may not be a full fledged peer-review process, but it's also not "anything goes". Crum375 (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Unpublished abstracts are by no stretch of the imagination reliable sources. I man astounded that anybody could even try to argue that this meets WP:V. I have submitted abstracts myself, I know from personal experience how little review they undergo. Tim Vickers (talk) 07:18, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

To be accurate here, this is unpublished but accepted and presented at a scientific conference. The conference organizers, as a rule, do some vetting of each presented paper. Yes, sometimes some poor ones may sneak through, but that affects the perception of the conference by others, and may affect the pocketbook of the organizers. In any case, I agree it is not a full peer review, but it's also not just 'submitted'. Crum375 (talk) 08:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the objection here. The paper was written by two academics and presented to an academic conference. It is not supporting anything; we supply it for interested readers only. It is not saying anything contentious, because many other sources are saying the same. And since when has source material had to be peer-reviewed? This seems a tremendous fuss over one link -- is Misplaced Pages running out of space? :-) SlimVirgin 09:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

At the very most conference organisers review an abstract, which is clearly not a peer review of the data. Large conferences can have tens of thousands of published abstracts, they review committee do little more than read the titles to ensure suitablility, there is no critical review. I note, also, that it doesn't appear to have been published in a journal subsequently. If you are claiming the souce is valid because it is scholarly, then it should adhere to WP:RS, which it doesn't. I don't have an issue using it supporting other data, as further reading, but it is not appropriate as a sole source for information. Rockpocket 19:16, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. But it was never used as a sole source, which is why I'm puzzled by this discussion. SlimVirgin 19:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

My part of the discussion was to note - pedantically - that it is not a reliable source, I can't speak for anyone else ;p Rockpocket 19:23, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Ah, pedantry, fair enough. :-) We did have a discussion on V about whether unpublished conference papers were reliable sources if they had actually been delivered as a talk to an audience, but I don't remember the outcome and don't have the strength to go hunting through V archives. I recall that it led to a PhD length discussion about the meaning of "published." :-) SlimVirgin 19:31, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm just remembering the first conference abstract I submitted, I spelled Trypanosomatids wrong and nobody noticed. Usually these things go straight from the application form to the abstract book, so have no fact-checking or editorial input at all. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

This was replaced again? Why? It isn't needed and it isn't reliable. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:59, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Because it's interesting and part of a footnote -- not being used as a source. Why are you so focused on it? SlimVirgin 00:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Again, the point is that is was not just a submitted abstract, but a presented paper. All we are saying is that these two academics presented this paper at that conference. The information in it seems to conform to what all the other sources are saying, so it's not controversial. Crum375 (talk) 00:06, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tim, you asked earlier if I wanted to collaborate with you on this article, and I said yes. But that can't include going back and forth several times discussing and edit warring over links in footnotes that are provided as a courtesy to the reader. SlimVirgin 00:03, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Sources that don't meet WP:V can't be included in the article. Furthermore this link to an unpublished abstract does not add anything that isn't covered by the reliable full-text sources we already have for this statement. Since we already have two much more informative sources for this statement, why add a third, unreliable source? Tim Vickers (talk) 00:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Why not add it, Tim? Why does a link have to be removed from a footnote (what, four or five times you've removed it so far?) just because you personally dislike it? If you don't like it, just don't look at it. SlimVirgin 00:46, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I think I dislike it so much because I have been submitting and presenting abstracts and talks to academic meetings for many years now, and I know exactly how little review the published abstracts undergo. They don't get peer-reviewed, they don't get edited and, in some cases, it is obvious that they didn't even get proofread before submission. As I said above, my first one had a glaring error that was obvious to anybody in the field. These things just aren't reliable in any way. I realise these things might look impressive to people outside the field, but they really mean very little. However, if you insist on adding this unreliable source, for whatever reason you have, I won't keep removing, but all it does is add kb without contributing any verifiable information. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:28, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

"Vast majority are purpose bred"

I have placed that statement in the lead inside an edit comment, because I see several problems with it. First, it hasn't been established in the article's body. Second, in the UK, I see a 60-40 split for bred vs. supplied, which isn't "vast". Also, I think there is a problem with numbers in general. If 99.99% of fruit flies are purpose bred, it could overwhelm the other species. So I think sourcing needs more discussion prior to a simplified summary in the lead. Crum375 (talk) 03:29, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Who is saying vast majority purpose bred? It depends which country, which species etc. SlimVirgin 03:38, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think "supplied" and "custom bred" are mutually exclusive. Suppliers still custom breed animals for experimentation. I thin the issues is more one of captured vs bred. Rockpocket 03:40, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Some suppliers breed them, some don't. Most dogs in the U.S., for example, come from Class B dealers, apparently. I don't know why the lead ever said the "vast majority," but I've tweaked it to make clear it varies. SlimVirgin 03:46, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I made this a bit more specific, since we can be certain that some spp are always bred for the purpose - catching nematodes in the wild would be an unrewarding task! Indeed, since invertebrates and rodents are always bred in captivity, and these organisms make the overwhelming majority of animals used in experiments, it it true that most organisms used in experiments are purpose bred. I'll look up some content for the Sources section to discuss inverts/rodents - we'll need to mention where the most common animals come from. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:34, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Material added on invertebrates and mutant mice, two of the largest sources of animals for research. Also merged all the US material into one paragraph and removed some, but not all, of the material on bunching. This is already covered in great detail in the daughter article and is giving undue weight to a problem with one of the sub-sets of dealers of a comparatively rare group of research animals in a single country. Having some material on this is fine, but devoting most of a paragraph to this when rodents (the most common research animals) were not mentioned at all was unbalanced. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:32, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Do not keep removing material that other people have worked on, and don't remove sources. How many times do you need to be asked this? It is in a footnote. There is no justification at all for removing links that people add to footnotes.

I can't collaborate with you if you're going to repeatedly remove or completely change just about everything I write, even when doing so confers no benefit at all on the article. You are trying to turn this into a battle for its own sake. SlimVirgin 00:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I notice you have removed quite a lot of the material I have added to the article, such as most of the discussion of invertebrate research, now in the daughter article Animal testing on invertebrates. I have never complained about this, since editing other people's material is an expected part of working for Misplaced Pages. However, it appears to me that you apply one standard to the material you add, and a different one to the contributions of others. This most recent comment of yours, added to your previous complaints about me editing "your material" makes me suspect that you are having problems with article ownership. Tim Vickers (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tim, you did this to me before, causing chaos, wikistalking me (to the point where another admin had to ask you to stop), starting forest fires of abuse about me on talk and project pages -- hundreds of posts in a matter of days. Indeed, that's how you ended up on this talk page, and it's why I stopped editing the article for awhile. But it's not going to work.

Material I have moved has gone to other articles for reasons of length and structure, and I've moved as much of my own material as I have of other people's -- more, in fact. You are edit warring over one link in a footnote that is not being used as a source, but is interesting because it's an example of academic criminologists addressing that particular issue -- any interested reader could e-mail them for their paper, as I have done. That you would cause this level of fuss over a link in a footnote -- when footnotes are very precisely for that kind of material -- suggests that you simply want to cause trouble. Rather than assist you by letting you bait me, I'm not going to respond to your posts from now on. I'm sorry about this. I had hoped we could actively collaborate but I see now it's unlikely to work. SlimVirgin 01:26, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

As I noted above, if you are determined to add an unreliable source, I won't continue to remove it, since it is not being used to support either a statement or a quotation. I'm a bit disheartened that you think I am trying to bait you, I was just trying to tell you what I feel about how the discussions on this article are conducted. One possible course of action might be to open an article RfC, to get feedback from the rest of the community, but that could be a bit disruptive. I would much prefer if you were to stop arguing that material you add to the article is in any way different from other people's contributions and stop protesting on the talk page when I edit or change text you have written. PS my cat Loki says "trfglllllll" - this took a while to write, since he is walking on the keyboard and clawing at the screen. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Arguments

I've moved the arguments to Talk:Animal testing/arguments, because the section was very disjointed. I'm going to start working on an ethics section, which I'll do on an article or user talk subpage until there's a first draft. My thinking is that we should have a separate article on that issue, and include a summary-style section here. Hope that works for everyone. SlimVirgin 19:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

That sounds good. The ethics are very badly covered here, considering how much has been written about the subject. We could try to put the arguments in the wider philosophical context of ethical thought, particularly the arguments about utilitarianism, the concept of rights and the various definitions of personhood. Tim Vickers (talk) 01:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Suffering

Regarding this:

"Suffering is harder to define, but has been described as when an animal is aware of their internal state during the experience of pain or fear," attributed to Duncan I.J. et al "The implications of cognitive processes for animal welfare," J. Anim. Sci., 1991, vol 69, issue 12, pp. 5017–22.

Could someone check that reference, please? As written it doesn't really make sense. Suffering isn't an awareness of an internal state (an internal state about an internal state), but is simply the subjective experience itself. SlimVirgin 21:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If you click on the blue link in the reference you should be taken to the full text of the article. To read the text you will need Adobe Acrobat reader since it is in Pdf format. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:17, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Suffering on WP offers a far more complex view of it than that one source cited. However, I am not sure if it makes sense to delve into deep philosophical discussions about these issues in the main article. Crum375 (talk) 21:20, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Good point, perhaps it would be better to note that the word suffering as several meanings and that one definition is awareness of pain or fear. Other sources defining this would be good, the Stanford Dictionary of philosophy linked from the suffering page might be useful. I think it is important to at least give a basic definition here, since the question about if animals suffer, and if so which ones, is one of the central questions in the section on ethics SV is writing. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:27, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

We can't make controversial claims like that without explaining the context and naming the authors. The authors of that paper are trying to put forward the argument that, unless there is a second-order mental state, there is no suffering. In other words, if you're not able to contemplate your state of fear, there is no state of fear; or rather, that state of fear isn't making you suffer. This is a dubious philosophical position, and the authors aren't philosophers. I've therefore removed it in favor of Marian Stamp Dawkins's simpler definition of an extremely unpleasant mental state. SlimVirgin 21:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That makes sense. We need a reasonable, brief, working definition by a recognized expert on animal suffering, that doesn't imply that animals are incapable of suffering. Crum375 (talk) 21:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

We don't need anything from the definitions we quote - selecting one on the basis that it implies that animals are capable of suffering would be just as incorrect as selecting one that implies they do not. I agree that adding a second definition that explores the wider definition would be the best idea, but removing one side of the argument is unbalanced. We need to just report what the sources say on the topic, as I noted this is a hard concept to define. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:31, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tim added:

"The importance of cognition in suffering is controversial, with some defining suffering as when an animal is aware of their internal state during the experience of pain or fear."

This is not a commonplace definition so we'd need more than just that one paper, and we'd also need to see that definition from an expert source -- which if you're talking about definitions of self-consciousness, would be a philosopher or perhaps a psychologist. As is stands, it looks either silly, or else the reader won't notice how it differs from Stamp Dawkins. SlimVirgin 22:53, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Tim, you said earlier that precision is important, and you often argue in favor of expert sources. But here you are being very imprecise, and the sources you're using are not experts on the definition of consciousness or mental states. If you want to make a point about animals not suffering unless they can contemplate their subjective mental states (as opposed to just experiencing them), you would need to find a specialist source who makes that argument -- a philosopher for example, or a psychologist. I await it with bated breath, because I suspect no such source exists, but I'd be interested to be proven wrong. SlimVirgin 22:58, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Reading the paper again, I suspect what has happened is that the authors have simply made a mistake. For suffering to occur, there must be a corresponding mental state or subjective experience of something unpleasant. Something that might cause pain isn't enough, because the person might be in a deep coma, for example, and not experiencing anything. There has to be an awareness of the injury for pain or suffering to occur.

The authors have, I think, made the mistake of defining awareness as "awareness of awareness." This has probably happened because they're not experts in the field.

All that is required for pain and suffering is the ability to have a subjective experience. It is the experience of the injury that causes pain, not the experience of the experience. No second-order states are required. Indeed, if they were, we could not talk about the suffering of a new-born baby, for example. SlimVirgin 23:05, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

The mental capabilities of animals is as much a biological question as a philosophical one - all emotions are the properties of nervous systems. This is a reliable source, and reviews the literature, so it is even a "secondary source" under your definition, thus even more reliable. For you to discount their statements because you think you personally disagree with them is a classic form of OR. It would be similar to me stating that we shouldn't cite a paper on a new gene because I "think the authors have made a mistake". I realise it must be frustrating to cite a study that you do not agree with, possibly for very good reasons, but we can't do our own research on Misplaced Pages. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:36, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

They are not specialists in that field by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm not excluding them because I disagree, but because what they say is simply wrong. Please find another reliable (preferably specialist) source who makes the same argument. SlimVirgin 23:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Second source added that discusses this point, I could also add PMID 11190233, but that isn't full-text so you couldn't easily read it. Please note that the text no longer makes "an argument" about this point, only notes that people have discussed if it is important. Also remember that Misplaced Pages deals with verifiability, not truth. Excluding reliable sources because you think they are wrong is not something we can do. Tim Vickers (talk) 23:44, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That source does not discuss that point. It says only that subjective experience is necessary i.e. awareness. Not second-order mental states. Please quote which parts you're relying on. SlimVirgin 23:47, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm relying here on the provision in V that exceptional claims require exceptional evidence. The claim that beings (whether newborn babies or animals) don't suffer unless they have a second-order mental state about it (i.e. the subjective experience itself is not enough) is an absurd and extraordinary claim, so I'm requesting multiple, specialist sources who argue that specifically and clearly. SlimVirgin 23:50, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

As I said before, the text notes that people discuss it. Is noting that a debate exists an exceptional claim? I would say that the section on "Animal cognition" on p5002 of the Curtis review is a clear discussion of the importance of animal cognition to suffering. How would you summarise these sources? Tim Vickers (talk) 23:55, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Where is the evidence that there's a debate about this? You've quoted one paper in which the authors have almost certainly just made a mistake. This is common when people try to discuss mental states without being entirely familiar with the subject. SlimVirgin 23:59, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

Concern

I have a concern about the way sources are being used. This edit about pain:

"Pain is an undesired side-effect of some experiments on animals, but in most experiments it is unnecessary. Attributed to Karas AZ. "Barriers to assessment and treatment of pain in laboratory animals," Lab Anim (NY), 2006, volume 35, issue, pp. 38–45.

The abstract says nothing about it being a "side-effect," which would be a bizarre claim. It calls it a "consequence." While the abstract does say it's unnecessary in most cases, this is part of an argument that there is evidence that pain is not being alleviated sufficiently. But that part was not included in the edit.

It's extremely important (especially with a controversial subject) that sources be used accurately, and that we don't change what they say, or lift what they say out of context.

The abstract says:

"Pain is an undesirable potential consequence of many of the procedures conducted on animals in the course of scientific research, and in most cases it is unnecessary. The US Congress, the public, and laboratory animal medical professionals have indicated that pain should be prevented or minimized in laboratory animals, yet there is ample evidence to suggest that unalleviated pain is still a problem for some laboratory animals. This evidence is circumstantial to some extent but has its basis in problematic issues of pain control in both veterinary and human medicine. The author attempts to identify specific barriers to reduction of pain in laboratory animals. She then seeks to determine the relative importance of each obstacle and to develop approaches to overcoming each obstacle."

SlimVirgin 21:52, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

http://oslovet.veths.no/compendia/LAS/KAP10.pdf is relevant. WAS 4.250 (talk) 21:56, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand this objection. The words "undesirable potential consequence" and "side-effect" are synonymous. A side effect is defined as "A peripheral or secondary effect, especially an undesirable secondary effect". The next sentence deals with how often suffering/pain is not relieved, but we need this to make it clear that suffering is neither desired nor, in most cases, necessary. This puts the statistics quoted into context. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:24, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

If I were to pour pesticide into your eyes, you probably wouldn't regard the pain as a "side effect." The point is that the author would have used the term "side-effect" if she had wanted to. As she seems to have chosen her words carefully, we shouldn't change them.

In summarizing what she wrote, you basically turned upside down what she was saying. She was arguing that, although pain is unnecessary in many experiments, it's still not being alleviated properly i.e. there is pain, but there needn't be. You summarized that with "in most experiments is unnecessary," which distorted her point. SlimVirgin 22:35, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

That's a fair point. I think you are right about distorting the meaning a bit. The section is much improved now, and has good sources for the statements it makes. I'm glad we can work together so productively. However, the point about cognition and suffering still needs to be replaced, it is an authoritative source that directly addresses the topic, so this viewpoint should be included. I'll see if I can find a way of including it that does not give it undue weight. Tim Vickers (talk) 22:41, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the quote misrepresents the author's beliefs, though it does omit the wider point: that while pain is largely uncecessary, it is often present (unnecessarily so). The information might be better represented if it includes that caveat. Rockpocket 22:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

1. The 3Rs The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. Accessed 12 December 2007
2. The 3Rs The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. Accessed 12 December 2007
3. Progress in the reduction, refinement and replacement of animal experimentation Proceedings of the 3rd World Congress on Alternatives and Animal Use in the Life Sciences. Accessed 12 December 2007
4. The 3Rs The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. Accessed 12 December 2007
5. Flecknell P (2002). "Replacement, reduction and refinement". ALTEX. 19 (2): 73–8. PMID 12098013.
6. The 3Rs The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research. Accessed 12 December 2007
7. Kolar R (2002). "ECVAM: desperately needed or superfluous? An animal welfare perspective". Altern Lab Anim. 30 Suppl 2: 169–74. PMID 12513669.
8. Schuppli CA, Fraser D, McDonald M (2004). "Expanding the three Rs to meet new challenges in humane animal experimentation". Altern Lab Anim. 32 (5): 525–32. PMID 15656775.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
9. Rusche B (2003). "The 3Rs and animal welfare - conflict or the way forward?". ALTEX. 20 (Suppl 1): 63–76. PMID 14671703.
10. Brent RL (2004). "Utilization of animal studies to determine the effects and human risks of environmental toxicants (drugs, chemicals, and physical agents)". Pediatrics. 113 (4 Suppl): 984–95. PMID 15060191.
11. Ames BN, Gold LS (1990). "Chemical carcinogenesis: too many rodent carcinogens". Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 87 (19): 7772–6. PMID 2217209.
12. Duncan IJ, Petherick JC (1991). "The implications of cognitive processes for animal welfare". J. Anim. Sci. 69 (12): 5017–22. PMID 1808195.

• B-Class Animal rights articles
• Top-importance Animal rights articles
• WikiProject Animal rights articles
• Misplaced Pages controversial topics