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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.'"
Not that it justifies a firebombing at all, but what exactly was he doing to get the activists so upset? I know many of them can be irrational, but they do tend to concentrate efforts on the worst offenders in general.
I'm not siding with them at all, but I am curious as to what he was doing in his labs that made him such a strong target. Is it possible that he was being overzealous in his experimentation? I'm no fan of PETA, but there is a limit to the amount of cruelty I think should be visited on animals for our benefit. What were his supposed "crimes"?
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
If you believe that his quest for knowledge is so important then why don't you volunteer to be part of these primate studies? They use OTHER primates because they are similiar to human primates, but a human is the PERFECT test subject. So you think that his knowledge gain is important, you could give him even MORE by using yourself. Are you going to? If you do then you have a right to say something against these "terrorists," if not you're a hypocrite.
"Bah... these are the real terrorists... You don't agree with what someone is doing, then sue them... that's the american way... and if that fails, then try and get a law passed to make it illegal... starting your own personal war based on your morals is no different than the actions of those the US is currently calling terrorists. But hey, this is in the country who's government doesn't believe in teaching evolution anymore...
Times like these I'm happy to live in a country where the worst thing activists do is slow down traffic, and hold marches."
Though that was not the primary cause, there was a massive war that killed over a million people before America gave up enslaving human primates. wikipedia "american civil war" No, suing is NOT the American way.
I suppose that those slaves and the abolitionists should have just had some marches and rallies...
We haven't invaded another country's laboratory yet, have we? Bush is more motivated when it comes to terrorism than in stopping science. It makes more sense to side with the scientist who suffers from terrorism, and use it as an example to attack liberal fundamentalism as a source of terrorism. Why would Bushy pass up an opportunity to attack liberals? eg. Don't vote for the terrorists, vote republican.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
That's a nice little sentiment. But unless you're a quaker or a mennonite or another TRULY pacifistic person then you are most likely talking out of your ass. If someone was trying to kill you, would you not use violence to defend yourself? And if you were rendered incapable of defending yourself would you not want someone who was witnessing this to help you? please tell me...
I love how people can self-righteously talk about how ANY violence is wrong when it doesn't affect them but when they are being harmed they quickly reach for the phone to call the cops or reach for a weapon.
Most sane people consider it morally justifiable to use small amounts of violence to prevent greater violence. This guy was killing 30 primates a year. so he got a little shaken up? big deal. not that I'm advocating what these people did, because frankly, it's a losing battle. and most people don't care one bit about other animals being harmed(human or otherwise) but was it an immoral act? no.
I imagine this exchange between him and his kids:
"Daddy? why are they mad at us?"
"because at daddy's work he cuts monkeys brains open then kills them"
"monkeys? I like monkeys! like the ones we saw at the zoo? "
"don't worry, honey, it's for science."
At least their sharpshooters didn't deliberatly target civilians and specifically civilian babies, as some Moslem terrorists recently have. There should be not grand debate if the Moslem freedom fighters were doing reasonable acts of wartime defense/aggression. Those groups take it for granted that the greater powers do not react with the same disregard for civilians, or else there would be towns and towns and cities of dead people as there were in the time of Rome's conquest when they wanted to supress "upstarts".
ArcherB, are you sure that's not ArchieB?
Now, if you think that I am arguing against wiretapping terrorists you can go fuck yourself, and I'll jack off in your eye for good measure. I mean it. I'll drill a hole in your skull and put a gallon of spunk in there myself.
I'm arguing against illegal wiretaps. Get the fucking court order and wiretap away. If you don't have a fucking court order to wiretap, then I'm going to send you to prison.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
How about I fuck your eye socket? Nature abhors a vacuum, and I've got a gallon of spunk to fill your brain cavity.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
You heard the monkey say "no"? Did it sign a document saying it didn't want to? Did its family form a protest group outside the facility?
If you want to talk manurisms(it seemed the fear the needle or have an instinctive desire to get away), then the chicken I ate for supper probably didn't agree to having its head chopped off.
I certainly don't know of anyone who consented to have the HIV virus use their bodies to grow and propagate, but hell, the HIV virus went ahead and did it anyway.
In case you haven't noticed, Nature's a bitch. A real nasty woman. Frankly, that we even extend the courtesy of making the animal as comfortable as we are able is counter-intuitive and really unnatural(I'm glad we do, however).
As for comparing a monkey with children....either you don't have kids or they should have some pretty fucking low self esteem right about now. Do you think the monkey would care if we jabbed a sword through our chests? How bout if we jabbed one through its offspring's chest? I bet you it would care about that one. So are monkeys evil too?
Perhaps they weren't trying to firebomb the house, but send a warning. At least that was the impression I got.
Perhaps they should have kidnapped the family, drugged them, and stuck electrodes in their brains against their will.
Then they would have the support of Slashdot, heh.
I'll be modded down by groupthink zombies, but it's really sad that this terrorism craze has made it acceptable to TORTURE animals. I don't approve of assault on scientists, but I don't approve of animal testing either.
That's fine by me, as long as there's choice just like abortion. No one is forcing you get an abortion or use animal tested products. But in the same sense no one should force companies to stop making sure products are safe because people like you happen to think bunnies are real cute.
That's exactly the point. Animals being tested on do not have a choice. If you could talk to the little bunnies and they said 'please test on me!' there would be no problem! It is wrong to do shiate to animals so Paris Hilton can say 'that's hot'.
For more info: http://www.pcrm.org/ Thank you for mentioning Diabetes to prove my point: did you know that a major study released recently showed that Diabetes can be combatted greatly by eating a vegan diet (completely animal/cruelty free diet) ? http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?ne wsid=49091 .
Clearly you have friends stuck in an animal lab somewhere working really hard
to push pills in an effort to up the bottom line.
All you're doing is pressing propaganda for your industry which seems to have
endless drives to get money from the public...to no avail! Over and over again.
One would imagine that decades of animal testing, and tens of thousands of
white-coated "professionals" would have achieved at least one cure or healing method for
one major ailment by now. It certainly has helped the wallets of pharmaceuticals,
researchers, etc. but that is not what we're looking for.
But no, now you're going to make a silly argument that there's a specific path
to a cure that only eggheads like you can fill. Give me a break. Going to university
doesn't make you an expert. It helps you work for powerful companies that will pay
you big bucks to endlessly make the shareholders think you are making strides when you're just buying
nicer cars, stereos, and having more luxurious vacations. This is the case for the
vast majority of those of us who have worked for large corporations in practically ANY
field.
Information technology is and will be the way to real cures...with perhaps some
advances in biology which will allow us to use/generate human tissue.
If animal labs had glass walls, public opinion would have stopped our dear doctor from
continuing his research anyway.
Fucking terrorists. They're the same as abortion clinic bombers, using violence to induce fear to achieve their political goals.
Mainstream christianity has denounced abortion clinic bombings. But I'm still waiting for the mainstream left to denounce any of several dozen leftist "militant activist" organizations.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!