Whiplash Causes UK Controversy On Animal Testing

Thanks to Video-Fenky for pointing out a UK Telegraph article discussing controversy over the content of Eidos-produced platform game Whiplash, which is "being criticized as 'irresponsible' by police and MPs" in England, because it "depicts animals being abused in a laboratory, including one experiment in which a hamster is fired from a cannon." Labor MP Ian Gibson said he "feared that children would gain a distorted view of animal experimentation", and a spokesperson against animal cruelty "claimed that the game made light of animal suffering, which was offensive." Whiplash is not yet out in the UK, and was released before Christmas in the States to little fanfare, though it garnered some critical adulation.

Comments

Let's all say it together....

[Kevin Burtch]

"Get a sense of humor!"

This is parodical, do they really think it's serious?

Why didn't they go off the handle with all those flash-games that have been round for many years?
You know the ones, the hamster in the microwave yelling obscenities at you, the frog in the blender, the gerbil gun (target is a hole in a wall), etc.

um.

[kabocox]

Wouldn't this be a nice healthy outlet for kids to get their very restrained creativity loose in. We already "know" that anyone that does any harm to an animal as a child will grow up to be a serial killer. Well, lets expand that myth to include any virtual animal destruction. Why not a save the demons group? Or a save the virtual represtantion of enemy solders group? Nope, these folks just want us to leave the critters alone. In a digital envirnment, why? I'd say it would be wrong to simulate a human with emotions and full human thought, and shot at in in Doom 999. But animals? Nope, let the folks have their fun.

Distorted view

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if you consider that many medical schools (US and abroad) still have a live dissection....I just don't see how the stuff in this game is much worse or 'distorted'.

I'm not a PETA follower or anything like that, but brutality takes on various forms in the real world and these people seem to be more concerned about a game than reality. Get concerned about what's really happening people, come on..

Re:Distorted view

[orthogonal]

Well, if you consider that many medical schools (US and abroad) still have a live dissection....I just don't see how the stuff in this game is much worse or 'distorted'.

Because without medical students training by "live dissection" (vivisection) of animals, they'd be opening up humans without any experience -- resulting in more dead humans.

Believe me, I take no pleasure in the suffering of animals in laboratory testing, and I'm sympathetic to proposals, like Richard Dawkins, to more strictly limit testing of Primates -- both for reasons of consanguinity and to ensure that test results are not distorted by the animals' living conditions.

But as someone with a spiral of metal in my right coronary artery -- a stent which by holding the artery open, keeps my alive -- I'm not about to ask medical student to limit their surgical training to oranges or manikins or thought experiments.

As to distortion in the game, I think few if any medical students ever shoot hamsters out of cannon. But if they did, I'd be inclined to give the scientist or doctor -- someone with several years of training -- the benefit of the doubt.

Plenty of scientific experiments, involving animals or not, are regularly the target of derision by non-scientists: the late Senator William Proxmire made a regular joke of scientist with his "Golden Fleece" awards. The joke, however, was often on Proxmire, as would later turn out he was criticizing real and important research just because he didn't understand the methodologies involved.

The real problem here is that the game lampoons science that neither the game's authors nor the game's users understand well enough to fairly and impartially evaluate. To "bring it home" to Slashdot, it would be as if a game depicted a computer running linux as a slow and unfriendly old VAX/VMS machine with a command prompt reading
"$ Hey let's pirate some songs, write a few viruses and h4x0r a bank's network! >"

I suppose it is should be satisfyingly ironic that thanks to modern science and medicine, we all have can sit down at a PC as good as anything an entire country could have afforded in 1960, and reckon that with a life expectancy into the eighties we have the leisure time to play games that spit into the face of the scientists and doctors who got us here.

Two different arguments

[Pluvius]

Labor MP Ian Gibson said he "feared that children would gain a distorted view of animal experimentation", and a spokesperson against animal cruelty "claimed that the game made light of animal suffering, which was offensive."

Well, at least the MP's argument makes a little sense, unlike the other one, which shows a lack of distinction between fantasy and reality. Animal experimentation is a much maligned area of science, and much of that indignation is undeserved. Suggesting that all scientists do is torture cute, fuzzy animals certainly isn't helping us go away from these preconceived notions.

Rob

and yet silent over *real* experiments

[DrSkwid]

I don't rememeber so much fuss from any Members of Parliament about *real* experiments, such as when General Motors were using live pigs in car crash tests.

And I don't hear much support for Animal Rights prisoners from our elected representatives.

No, it's "I know, I'll get fucking worked up over video games, that'll get me in the papers"

fuck them

Re:and yet silent over *real* experiments

[AtaruMoroboshi]

You have totally missed the point. The representatives are worried about this from the OTHER side of the argument. "Animal Liberation" is such a big deal in the UK that it's extremely expensive to carry out any animal testing.

The complaint is that the game paints animal experimentation in a bad light, not that the game glorifies it.

.

So, then

[Anonymous Coward]

How about they show rabbits being shaved and having personal care products applied to their bare skin to see if they break out? Or better yet, mice being made to grow cancerous tumors so that new medicines can be evaluated?

This might at least please the gamers who a looking for "more realism".

great argument

[spir0]

"It is a nasty and vicious way of prejudicing young minds for the rest of their lives," said Dr Gibson. "Young people with fresh minds need to be brought into an understanding of the problem with both sides of the argument being put forward in a rational and reasonable way. Clearly such programmes are not bringing a balanced judgment to serious and difficult areas of understanding."

That sounds like a fantastic argument against religion.

Re:Let's show kids animal experiments vids instead

[August_zero]

I am not sure if I should find some solace at least that it isn't just the angry mothers* in the US that have their heads shoved so far up their collective asses that they can't tell forests from trees from hemorrhoids. Once in a while it is nice to be reminded that people the world over can still be just as anal, self-important and myopic as people in my home country.

Everybody is all for freedom of speech as long as the speech they are protecting is their own, as soon as you make light of or take an opposite position to, well you get something like this.

*fathers, and child-free individuals as well

Ah, sound the hypocracy alarm...

[bersl2]

So depicting a hamster being shot out of a cannon is not acceptable, but actually shooting a fox in cold blood after chasing it around or digging it out with dogs, and then glorifying the whole process to the point of gloating is? Granted, many Britons are fighting the practice, so they aren't all hypocrites.

I wouldn't mind knowing these MPs' stances on the issue.

Wow, thats horrible

[Kanasta]

But shooting and killing people in games is still OK right?

On what planet...

[Tetrad_of_doom]

is shooting a hamster out of a cannon taken seriously?

Re:Reality

[Anonymous Coward]

"Its my feelings that count above all others. I'd be upset if people I loved were hurt, so they come next. Other people I haven't met but who share some DNA with me come after that - 'cos they're a bit like me. Don't want to know about the rest"

Yup. Sounds right to me. That's how we work.

Given our understanding of the selfish gene, its not surprising this attitude exists. But given humans consider themselves above the limitations of their genes - "above the animals" - it stinks of the utmost hypocrisy.

We accuse people of hypocrisy every day, especially of politicians who have affairs or otherwise act in their self-interest instead of adhering to principles that they supposedly believe in. But in reality, everyone's principles are just "best cases" they'd like to see, not unwavering behavioural laws. There is always a situation where you put your principles to one side. You may believe in the principle "Thou shalt not kill", but it would be very different if Hannibal Lecter was running at you screaming with a samurai sword, and all you had was a gun.

The reason that animal rights groups don't like animal testing is not because they believe in certain principles that oppose it. That's putting the cart before the horse. Instead, it's because animal testing makes them feel unhappy in some way, and they just point to those principles to justify why that is. This is why peoples' self interest will always over-ride their "principles". If someone has a principle, it's usually possible to think of an extreme situation where they'd add a qualifier. "Thou shalt not kill anyone... unless that person is trying to kill me and my family." etc

I lost my best friend to an unexplained death. His absence is a continual ache to me, but I would not have him back if it meant innocent suffering.

What if the suffering of a few innocent animals meant that 200 others didn't die? 200,000? Millions? The vets that break a bone in a single dog will go on to fix the bones in many others. Remember your Star Trek: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

Of course, this doesn't justify cosmetic testing, because it's hard to argue that cosmetics are a "need".

The animals upon which we experiment in labs are innocent slaves being extorted for the highest price - their lives and freedom - to a clumsy, cruel, stupid and conceited master, The master hides his actions from his own miserable compassion behind a veil of self-deceit.

Yeah, whatever. All scientists are evil kitty torturers, and they never come up with anything of any value. Right.