- Email: [email protected]
Investigative Grammar
0022-534 7/86/1352-0438$02.00 /0 THE JOURNAL OF UROLOGY
Vol. 135, February
Copyright© 1986 by The Williams & Wilkins Co.
Printed in U.S.A.
INVESTIGATIVE GRAMMAR Questions about the mortality of animal research are leaking into the public domain in the United States, largely due to the activities of animal liberationists. The public picture of animal research is undeniably an ugly one. Not surprisingly, since the public idea of laboratory work is derived in part from horror movies. I cannot help thinking occasionally about the cultural meaning of animal research, seeing as I do the scientific obituaries of countless animals. Animal research seems to me to be broadly analogous to agriculture, which also benefits humans but means pain and death for animals. But great numbers of people don't see it that way. It seems that the exploitation of animals for food is better understood, and better accepted, than the exploitation of animals for knowledge. This gap in cultural understanding is rooted in history. The source of this misunderstanding becomes visible if we take a brief glimpse at the path of our own species' development. Complex feelings about the animal kingdom are built into human consciousness, emerging in dreams, in literature, and in real life too. Mankind is part of the animal world. Humans rose from an equal footing with the subhuman, from prey to predator, from being one type of predator among many to being the master predator of our epoch. Laboratory research is just one manifestation of this transformation. Nontechnological hunter/gatherer societies, some of which still survive, think of animals as possessing souls-that is, as having some transcendental worth, an identity beyond simply being useful to people as food or labor. In that view of the world, there is no sharp line drawn between the human and the subhuman-no break in the chain of being. The meat animal, object of the hunt, "offers" his life to the hunter, usually as part of a deal in which the hunter offers his profound respect to the animal. Some people would regard this tradition, "animism," as pure superstition. Animism, however, expresses a highly developed natural human sensitivity with important practical implications. A hunter who believes in the intrinsic worth of his prey is unlikely to commit waste. Waste would imperil the natural balance and the resources of the tribe. Some major world religions, such as Hinduism, never entirely abandoned the idea that all earthy life is linked in a moral web, while others, such as Christianity, dropped it long ago. It is ironic that utilitarian science, which has done much to clarify the biological links between animals and man, flowered in the Christian west, where the prevailing orthodoxy was that man was a spiritual being, not an animal; and that animals were merely soulless biological automata. That prevailing orthodoxy only affected the "educated," however, while folk cultures continued to preserve the idea that animals do have moral identities, though of a kind different from man's. People are indeed animals, after all; if there were not some resemblances, the usefulness of animal research to human medicine, for one thing, would be quite doubtful. If there are physical resemblances, there ought to be mental resemblances too. Our minds are not outside our bodies. Of all people, those with scientific educations should be the last to draw some abrupt line between humanity and the rest of nature. But great numbers of people, most visibly the animal liberationists, believe that that is exactly what scientists have done-adopted the attitude that animals are merely biological
automata, and that humans have no moral responsibility toward animals. Though predatory on a grand scale, people sincerely like animals, even love animals; and not just to eat, either. As long as the popular stereotype persists, according to which researchers all think of lab animals as mere soulless pieces of equipment, there will be needless widespread confusion and antagonism toward animal research. This stereotype, the "scientist as utilitarian monster," can be corrected only by scientists taking their case to the public. Most people can't understand what researchers do, or why, because unlike agriculture the research is carried on out of sight, and expressed in language so highly specialized that few people can understand it. That specialized language needs to be translated into the common tongue more often. The subject matter is interesting enough; I think an appreciative lay audience could, and should, be found for it. One thing this would involve, however, is admitting to a certain moral ambiguity where animal research is concerned. The animals are only involuntary partners in research. They have no voice in the matter. But they can be genuinely spontaneous teachers of respect for life. The ferocity of the cornered rat who has come to suspect his handlers of overly medical intentions is deservedly legendary. There is nothing machinelike or tool-like about a desperate rat until after he has been sedated. This, I think, teaches us something-that rats are not automata. That moral ambiguity is already reflected to some extent in the literature by many authors' preference for the word "sacrifice" to describe the killing of experimental animals. "Kill," as a verb, implies at least a certain ruthlessness and in many contexts is a prejudicing word. Sacrifice implies a moral dimension beyond the merely utilitarian-to give up something or to destroy something for an ideal or a belief. Sacrifice in many contexts is a laudable thing-unless the word is simply being used as jargon. But like "kill," the word sacrifice has some uneasy connotations. One meaning of sacrifice is the offering up of something to a deity as an act of worship. Since laboratory animals are sacrificed to human purposes, not to deities, it may be that the word acknowledges the ambiguity by deepening it. But life itself is more than a little ambiguous. To live at all means to destroy other life. It may be that the most we can hope to do, when grappling with this material fact, is to avoid waste as conscientiously as if we were still primitive. But what verb is used for inflicting death scientifically may matter little; what does matter is that there be an appreciation of life behind it. A purely utilitarian attitude would be a great barrier to understanding the full implications of animal research. An animal is not just an assembly of biological parts which happen to work if you feed it and water it. As Walt Whitman put it in Leaves of Grass, "A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." What I take that line to mean is that even in mice life is fundamentally a mystery, a staggeringly complex organization of matter and energy the beginnings and ends of which are simply not within the grasp of our understanding. At least, not of mine. Gary D. Mawyer Editorial Assistant
438
Vol. 135, February
Copyright© 1986 by The Williams & Wilkins Co.
Printed in U.S.A.
INVESTIGATIVE GRAMMAR Questions about the mortality of animal research are leaking into the public domain in the United States, largely due to the activities of animal liberationists. The public picture of animal research is undeniably an ugly one. Not surprisingly, since the public idea of laboratory work is derived in part from horror movies. I cannot help thinking occasionally about the cultural meaning of animal research, seeing as I do the scientific obituaries of countless animals. Animal research seems to me to be broadly analogous to agriculture, which also benefits humans but means pain and death for animals. But great numbers of people don't see it that way. It seems that the exploitation of animals for food is better understood, and better accepted, than the exploitation of animals for knowledge. This gap in cultural understanding is rooted in history. The source of this misunderstanding becomes visible if we take a brief glimpse at the path of our own species' development. Complex feelings about the animal kingdom are built into human consciousness, emerging in dreams, in literature, and in real life too. Mankind is part of the animal world. Humans rose from an equal footing with the subhuman, from prey to predator, from being one type of predator among many to being the master predator of our epoch. Laboratory research is just one manifestation of this transformation. Nontechnological hunter/gatherer societies, some of which still survive, think of animals as possessing souls-that is, as having some transcendental worth, an identity beyond simply being useful to people as food or labor. In that view of the world, there is no sharp line drawn between the human and the subhuman-no break in the chain of being. The meat animal, object of the hunt, "offers" his life to the hunter, usually as part of a deal in which the hunter offers his profound respect to the animal. Some people would regard this tradition, "animism," as pure superstition. Animism, however, expresses a highly developed natural human sensitivity with important practical implications. A hunter who believes in the intrinsic worth of his prey is unlikely to commit waste. Waste would imperil the natural balance and the resources of the tribe. Some major world religions, such as Hinduism, never entirely abandoned the idea that all earthy life is linked in a moral web, while others, such as Christianity, dropped it long ago. It is ironic that utilitarian science, which has done much to clarify the biological links between animals and man, flowered in the Christian west, where the prevailing orthodoxy was that man was a spiritual being, not an animal; and that animals were merely soulless biological automata. That prevailing orthodoxy only affected the "educated," however, while folk cultures continued to preserve the idea that animals do have moral identities, though of a kind different from man's. People are indeed animals, after all; if there were not some resemblances, the usefulness of animal research to human medicine, for one thing, would be quite doubtful. If there are physical resemblances, there ought to be mental resemblances too. Our minds are not outside our bodies. Of all people, those with scientific educations should be the last to draw some abrupt line between humanity and the rest of nature. But great numbers of people, most visibly the animal liberationists, believe that that is exactly what scientists have done-adopted the attitude that animals are merely biological
automata, and that humans have no moral responsibility toward animals. Though predatory on a grand scale, people sincerely like animals, even love animals; and not just to eat, either. As long as the popular stereotype persists, according to which researchers all think of lab animals as mere soulless pieces of equipment, there will be needless widespread confusion and antagonism toward animal research. This stereotype, the "scientist as utilitarian monster," can be corrected only by scientists taking their case to the public. Most people can't understand what researchers do, or why, because unlike agriculture the research is carried on out of sight, and expressed in language so highly specialized that few people can understand it. That specialized language needs to be translated into the common tongue more often. The subject matter is interesting enough; I think an appreciative lay audience could, and should, be found for it. One thing this would involve, however, is admitting to a certain moral ambiguity where animal research is concerned. The animals are only involuntary partners in research. They have no voice in the matter. But they can be genuinely spontaneous teachers of respect for life. The ferocity of the cornered rat who has come to suspect his handlers of overly medical intentions is deservedly legendary. There is nothing machinelike or tool-like about a desperate rat until after he has been sedated. This, I think, teaches us something-that rats are not automata. That moral ambiguity is already reflected to some extent in the literature by many authors' preference for the word "sacrifice" to describe the killing of experimental animals. "Kill," as a verb, implies at least a certain ruthlessness and in many contexts is a prejudicing word. Sacrifice implies a moral dimension beyond the merely utilitarian-to give up something or to destroy something for an ideal or a belief. Sacrifice in many contexts is a laudable thing-unless the word is simply being used as jargon. But like "kill," the word sacrifice has some uneasy connotations. One meaning of sacrifice is the offering up of something to a deity as an act of worship. Since laboratory animals are sacrificed to human purposes, not to deities, it may be that the word acknowledges the ambiguity by deepening it. But life itself is more than a little ambiguous. To live at all means to destroy other life. It may be that the most we can hope to do, when grappling with this material fact, is to avoid waste as conscientiously as if we were still primitive. But what verb is used for inflicting death scientifically may matter little; what does matter is that there be an appreciation of life behind it. A purely utilitarian attitude would be a great barrier to understanding the full implications of animal research. An animal is not just an assembly of biological parts which happen to work if you feed it and water it. As Walt Whitman put it in Leaves of Grass, "A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels." What I take that line to mean is that even in mice life is fundamentally a mystery, a staggeringly complex organization of matter and energy the beginnings and ends of which are simply not within the grasp of our understanding. At least, not of mine. Gary D. Mawyer Editorial Assistant
438