User:Knucmo2/Why?:Allow Animal Testing?

Animal testing: it's a divisive issue. We've always enjoyed lording it over the animal kingdom since the Stone Age but recently a lot of groups have drawn attention to the fact that it's cruel. Talk about the speed of progress! It is a pity that groups who often call for animals to be treated with equal respect, fail to treat their humans with a similarly. Should animal testing be upheld? I guess the best they can hope for is that they will one day be reborn as one of the animals they love so much...and if animal testing is banned, scientists will be jobless, and have to get used to studying mini-microsopic elements and weird maths that no one understands.

So this article looks at the reasons that advocates have for arguing in favour of animal testing, and the ill-considered prejudices reasons some might have for banning it.

For

Let's start with something self-evident: Any reasonable person knows that most of the things that Hitler did were evil. Now, Hitler banned animal testing, and therefore along with the advocacy of eugenics, vegetarianism, and the owning of dogs, not testing on animals is evil (and un-American). Hitler's alternative: Testing on humans? That's kind of...bad. Ok, so this writer is ever so slightly biased but come on, testing on humans? School exams are evil enough! (Though maybe it could be allowed that humans who score lower than a dog on a SAT test can become candidates for animal testing. Seeing as homo sapiens means thinking man)

Plus, the animals are subjected the same amount of cruelty that they would be as the pet of some buxom, brainless billionairesse drenched in diamonds and diamante. Have you seen the dogs they sport at social events? More gaunt than a poor African child (and with the same calorie intake) and yet furnished in the most expensive, ill-fitting grotesque 'outfits' imaginable? At least the animals in the cages get a 'Last Meal'. The rich dogs would be grateful for a 'Last Bullet/Noose/Lethal Injection', things that money just can't buy, unless you happen to know the right people.

Scientific considerations

It is medically progressive (not progressive in the sense of stealing money from the rich, nor progressive in the sense of English art school grads playing songs with more than 4 chords). I am not saying any more about this, because all my university lecturers used to say 'In the name of medical progress, we should support animal testing'. And then they'd never say anything more after that, so I always took it as self-evident as 2 plus 2 equals 4. (In the same way that a Soviet prisoner knows '2 + 2 = I've been tortured so much than any answer you give me or I give you is likely to make brilliant sense')

And remember: It's SCIENCE O.K? Science already knows, or will know everything about anything some day. So why stand in the way of SCIENCE? Science is the only judge of all human activity (in the future it will be science and order, not law and order...or maybe just SCIENCE Yes!) Only scientific claims are meaningful...(it does not matter in the least that there is no scientific experiment which proves this...no, not at all!)

Does God approve of it?

YES. God gave us dominion over the animals. This is one of the better arguments, and a good excuse to eat meat. You can't argue with a supreme being - its like trying to beat Garry Kasparov at chess, blindfolded and hands tied.

Moreover, we need to size down the amount of controversial, divisive issues. Look - there are just too many things people don't agree on - like affirmative action, gay rights, nuclear weapons. Those are enough to getting be on with - can't we just allow animal testing and tell those who oppose it that they are on the same factual basis as Darwinian anti-Christian, anti-human nazi eugenics theory. (It's just a theory!)

So, religious and scientific types approve of it?

Yes! And wouldn't it be just greeeat if they agreed on one thing. They could tear each others throats over Intelligent Design for all I care if they just were in concordance on one subject. And now, some considerations for those who are not swayed by religious or scientific conviction:

• I've never heard the animals whimper a word of complaint, ever.
• It makes other animals happy. Bear with me here. Not a lot of people know that animal testing benefits animals - a lot of vaccines tested on rats have helped save the lives of dogs (in the same way that serfs kept the nobility happy through backbreaking labour). Research on a few animals has saved a lot of others from extinction. The ends justify the means, right? Those high up in the food chain need someone to pick on below them or they just start eating each other. No more food chain, link, succession, conglomeration or concatensequenation: Nada. And then what do you have left? Cockroaches?. Yep. Are these what we really want to be the legacy of this planet?
• So long as there is a controversy about animal testing - more and more attractive women will be willing to get their kits off all for the sake of saying 'I'd rather go naked than wear fur'. Ok, so this argument won't appeal to everyone.

Against

Alternatives

Opponents of animal testing say its a fairly barbaric business, with alternatives that are not so cruel to animals. For instance, testing on humans instead. Humans are less likely to wee on your leg, purr cutely (which weakens any lab technicians' resolve) or scrap with the other test subjects. Note that this point is vulnerable to the 'Anything Hitler did Sucks' gambit.

Locking up animals, and then killing them afterwards? Like Death row. Or an unfair life sentence for innocent civilians. But I repeat myself.

Have you ever been to prison? Yes prison. The coldness of the unbreakable steel bars...the lack of control over one's life...the infinite regret that you should have used blanks...Well, that last bit might not be everyone's...er...experience of prison, but it sure isn't a nice place. Plus, what are the animals guilty of? Not smelling very nice? Well, we would not either if they were not so willing to have Miss Lopez's latest perfume splattered all over them like napalm during the Vietnam War. Not that I wear any female perfumes...er, next point!

Benefits

If the above alternative didn't convince you (and unless you are one of those pesky macaque monkeys who can read, it probably won't have done) this paragraph will look at the possible consequences of banning animal testing. Firstly,

You'd never have to worry about those pesky PETA's ever appearing on your screens again, being the cheap target for some low-grade satire, showing disgusting, doctored pictures of their relatives made to look like distressed animals, or bombing the laboratory nearest their base, irrespective of what they experiment on. 'Cos everyone knows that science is the continuation of dead while male, anthropocentric hegemonic discourse. Right?

Another benefit might be in the form of Hollywood movies. If they outlawed animal testing, then the practice of testing and breeding would become a seedy, glamorous world governed by violence and cartels. A great subject for a Hollywood blockbuster! We could get some really cool movies on the subject of animal smuggling, as the 'drug smuggling' angle seems to be wearing thin. Some suggestions for titles: Rain(deer)spotting, The Day of the Jackal, No Poultry for Old Men, The Finch Connection and Goosefellas.

And anyone with more than two occupied spaces in the cerebral cubicle knows that Cancer and AIDS will NEVER be cured. This is one of the reasons animal vivisection is justified. But look, everyone's got to have an enemy! Someone to fight against relentlessly, but ultimately someone who you will never beat. I have a squash partner that I can never beat and he always 'boasts' afterwards. British Olympians will never beat the Americans (or the Russians or Chinese - that's four eternal enemies!) Jesus will probably never beat Satan (Satan was armed with a large fork - Jesus unarmed; an unfair contest which does not take Christ's handicap into consideration.) And husbands will never stop beating their wives (Haha, only joking....or am I?)

Haven't we heard this before?

We need to size down controversial, divisive issues. Look - there are too many things people don't agree on - like affirmative action (a tautology, surely?) gay rights (aren't gays allowed to be wrong sometimes? They should not expect so much of themselves) nuclear weapons (an issue that is anything but clear). Those are enough to getting on with - can't we just ban animal testing and assign it to the same sort of factual esteem that the Completely Logical and Reasonable Creationist Story has? (You have six days to comply animal testers!)

Conclusion

Well, its up to you to make up your mind. I concede that this Why? Article has as much literary value as a libretto for an animals-only opera, but you wanted the facts, just the facts, man!