So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

While listening to This Week in Science this morning (which was actually the episode from January 23rd - I’m behind, so sue me), I heard something that piqued my interest.

It seems that some scientific research was released that indicated that due to certain similarities to humans, dolphins might be well-suited for research into type II diabetes. There are now certain groups responding to this bit of research saying that due to their intelligence, dolphins should be given “non-human person status” and thus not used for scientific experimentation.

I have not read the bit of research regarding dolphins and diabetes research, nor have I read the responses by animal rights groups. I don’t want to discuss this specific issue. Dr. Kiki already presented a minor rant on the ambiguous ways in which we measure intelligence. She made her point efficiently and effectively. I’ll not repeat her.

But it got me thinking...

Ultimately, I think that the measure of the human race as a group - presuming someone is out there holding a measuring tape - has to be based on how we care for the individual, both the members and the outliers. I’m personally loathe to hurt any creature directly in front of me. That being said, I eat meat. And vegetation is regularly sacrificed or severely impaired for my nutrition, for that matter. And I routinely overlook that “do unto others” thing for special cases like mosquitos and potato bugs.

Where do we draw the line?

We may one day reach a point where we can safely perform scientific research without animal test subjects. I’m all for that. Star Trek tells us that in the future we’ll have replicators and holodecks so we can sustain ourselves without taking life. The thing is, we’re not there yet.

I’d love to stand on my soap box and say that using animals like dolphins for medical research is wrong. I would. My insides cry out for me to respond that way.

Here’s the thing though. Off the top of my head, I can think of two really important people in my life that have been through major medical treatments in the last five years for conditions that would have killed them otherwise. If you pointed to those people and then handed me a gun and told me to shoot a dolphin to save them, I’d put a couple of holes in Flipper and ask you if you like your fish fried or poached. I’m not necessarily proud of that, but there it is. And all of the medical advances that routinely heal the people we love were tested on animals. Fact of our society, such as it is.

There’s a threshold of forgivable sacrifice that we accept. Bugs? Go for it. Mice? Standard operating procedure, if you’ll pardon the pun. Bunnies? Ooh, it’s starting to get difficult now, isn’t it? What about dogs? What about chimpanzees? And now we’re all uncomfortable.

What is it about any given species that places it above our moral threshold? I think that’s a worthy question. The particular news item that seeded this thought-cloud suggested intelligence: What makes a dolphin more intelligent that a mouse? (Douglas Adams fans, hush.) Is it that we can communicate with them? Doesn’t it follow then, that the way we measure intelligence is “thinks like us”? Are we pardoning critters that are like us and condemning those that are different? And what does that say about us?

The standard way most of us interact with macro-sized animals on a day-to-day basis is through household pets. People who don’t have pets tend to think that people who do have pets anthropomorphize their animal’s actions. This is probably true. People who do have pets tend to think that people who don’t have pets underestimate the intelligence of those same animals. This is probably also true. But let me tell you this. Plant any obstacle you want between a lab and a hotdog and you’ll find out just how smart that dog is. Ants invented farming long before we got around to keeping livestock. You can teach a mouse that it gets a shock if it pushes the left button and a hunk of cheese if it pushes the right one. I know full-grown mentally-capable human beings who still have not adequately assimilated this lesson.

I wonder if we’re less concerned if they can understand us and more concerned with if we can understand them. What if we just don’t want to come face to face with an animal that’s smart enough to know what goes on in our laboratories in the name of science? And what does that say about us?

I’m not really commenting on animal experimentation here. Nor am I commenting on evil scientists or radical activists. I can see both sides and I don’t have a solution to present. I’m just turning the microscope around for a second and looking at folks like you and me and wondering why we react the way we do. Somewhere between the gut reaction and clinical detachment, there is a solution. It’s a pretty big rocky plain in the middle there though.

This is just a pondering. I’m not trying to bum anybody out on a perfectly good Wednesday night, and I’m not trying to start a fight so don’t yell at me for threatening Flipper or insulting your pet potato-bug or calling a sea-bound mammal a fish. I’m just wondering about us and what our deal is, about that land between emotion and logic. And I’m wondering out loud. You can wonder with me if you want. Or you can call me morbid and creepifying and log off. That’s a reaction too. I’ll sit here and watch.