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Neuroscientist Halts Research to Stop Extremists
FleaPlus writes "UCLA neuroscience professor Dario Ringach, known for his contributions to our understanding of how the visual system processes information, has been forced to give up his experiments by the actions of animal-rights extremists. Although he and his family had endured harassment and vandalization by animal-rights activists for years, Ringach reconsidered after extremists tried to firebomb a colleague's home and accidentally left their Molotov cocktail on an elderly neighbor's doorstep. Ringach sent an email to animal activist groups saying, 'You win... please don't bother my family anymore.'"
Is why these groups are allowed to continue to exist. I'm sorry but I don't buy this crap of "We applaud people who do things like this and we don't stop members from doing it, but really it's not our fault that it happens!" Sorry, like with corporations, I think if there's consistent bad action by our members and if your policy encourages that, then you are liable, regardless of if it was "official" or not.
While you certainly can't be expected to control all the actions of everyone who belongs to your group, there's still a duty not to turn a blind eye on purpose, and then pat them on the back after the fact.
Sure, I've gone and petitioned against trees being cut down. Indeed, we've even hugged a few and prevented their demise. But vigilante retribution was never the way to save animals. There have been transgressions on one side, but that doesn't justify the other side from commiting brutality.
Replacing cruelty to animals, with one towards mankind doesn't solve the problem - mainly because there is no Noble Savage unlike what Rousseau dreamed.
This is like terrorism with its own ecological brand (call it another religion if you want).Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
This is something that all slashdotters can agree on, liberal or conservative, pro-animal rights or otherwise. These guys are as much terrorists as IED bombers or the mafia or those who hunted down civil rights activists in the past. regardless of your stance on whose politics are right, these people are deplorable and wrong.
I am Spartacus
FIrebombing, attempted firebombing, repeated assault, and even attempted murder (or manslaughter at the very least) are serious crimes that usually demand prison terms--sometimes lengthy ones. The animal rights activists probably think highly of themselves as brave and courageous but truth be told they just do these incredibly mean and destructive things, then go back to their drab little lives and 9-to-5 jobs at the end of the weekend. They probably believe they are making great sacrifices for their cause, and even compare themselves and their cause to the great causes they've all read about.
But, comparing them to those who have truly sacrificed for their cause they fall embarrassingly short. Think what you may about characters like Ghandi but he spent a significant amount of his adult life in prison for taking the actions he took. These bozos don't expect to be caught, tried, or punished. "I can't go to prison. I have to pick up Muffy from daycare at 6."
What's really depressing is these "cultural terrorists" are winning. {sigh}
In my area of the world, there was a famous white supremacist who was always squeaky clean. Eventually, one of the kids who hung out with him on occasion killed someone. The family sued the white supremacist for "contributory" reasons, and won. They took everything he owned.
Easy enough. Do the same thing here. Go after the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) for encouraging this kind of thing. It's right on their website, the masks, clearly instruments of anonymity and terror. Take 'em down, they have it coming.
C//
My 0.2c:
I did some animal research half way through my medical degree. It was on ways to improve the bionic ear.
I read Peter Singer's "Practical Ethics" about a year later, and that's when I became a vegetarian, which I've stuck to since. However, I'd still do animal research again if I thought it was going to help avoid the suffering or premature death of humans. A lot of the tablets I prescribe have a little bit of gelatine in them (which vegetarians like myself can't usually eat, but I'd certainly take such tablets if I needed them.) I have used anti-thymocyte globulin (used in various blood cancers, derived from horse blood usually), Herceptin (for breast cancer, made from mouse hybridoma cells), silk (sutures). Here's the difference for me: I can survive quite well without eating meat. But many other things essential to people's survival and happiness requires injuring animals; and I am generally willing to do that if required.
Which is not to say that animal suffering is meaningless. It's the reason I don't eat meat. And I wouldn't, say, torture 100 primates with near human intelligence to death to, say, prolong the life of a single patient with advanced dementia, unable to communicate. But notwithstanding extreme examples like this, human suffering will generally outweigh animal suffering for me.
I think the animal liberationists who go around trying to thwart the work of this professor should consider: if they had a deaf child, would they decline to let them have a cochlear implant (bionic ear) on the basis of development by animal testing?
Given that basic understanding of the visual system contributed to by researchers like this professor underpins current (basic but evolving) efforts to restore vision in a similar fashion (electrical - neural interfacing, a much harder problem in the visual system than in the auditory system), they should realise that their actions indirectly cause much human suffering. The first cochlear implant was on 1 August, 1978. Approximately 100,000 people have been given hearing by this device since this time - ie thousands per year. This suggests delaying visual research, even by a year, means thousands of people will miss out (get too old / die) / be implanted later (which due to diminishing plasticity with age will probably be less effective).
I guess all this is 1. unlikely to be read by the relevant animal liberationists 2. unlikely to change their minds, but I wish they'd stick to stamping out wanton cruelty in food production and leave medical research, where animals suffering has an essential purpose and is minimised as much as possible, alone.
I'd considered "crusade", but rejected for two reasons. The first is that the word has historical baggage, right from its very creation.
The crusades came about in large part because the Benedictine monks of Cluny were struggling to reform and control the Roman church after it had absorbed a large number of northern European barbarian chieftans and their retainers. This was the context in which the Eastern and Roman churches split. Just because they were baptized, these barbarian warriors did not change overnight, giving up their habits of pillage and petty warfare. The Cluniacs came up with a program which must have seemed to them, in the words used by Col North do describe the Iran Contra deal "a neat idea". They'd harness the martial energy of the barbarian knights to a useful purpose, at the same time the effort would provide a kind of military pilgrimage that would tutor them in Christian spirituality.
So, what the Cluniacs and their sophisticated disciples intended was very much a kind of struggle of the sort I describe. The knights, however, perceived the effort in a much simpler and more familiar way: vendetta. Somebody else was holding clan lands. Plus they decided that they had an issue of blood to settle with the Jews. Up until this point, anti-semitism as we know it did not exist.
The second reason is that allowing that "crusade" could be used would weaken my point, which was probably the more telling of the two reasons. Then you had to come along and notice. Thanks much.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The behavior of the patriots was thoroughly inconsistent with the established contemporary customs of war. And they generally didn't wear uniforms either, and they tended to hide their weapons and fighters amongst the civilian population.
The boston tea party destroyed commercial assets, in order to have a political effect, which by the present US government's definition, is in fact terrorism. Their intention is irrelevant; the act itself could be construed as subversive to the government, particularly since it stood to loose enormous tax revenue from the tea that was dumped.
If someone tried to start the Million Man (really 300,000 man) March today, they'd never get the permission to march that many observant Muslims in the capitol, and if they tried to do so without permit, they would certainly, under the current regime, be liable for arrest as a terrorist (as opposed to being arrested for merely being disorderly).
So sed -e 's/Sunni/Tory/' | sed -e 's/Iraq/Colonies/'. Maybe Iraq's off to a good start, after all.
Don't blame me, I voted for Baltar.