As they began handing out leaflets, a group called UW Alumni For Life, a prolife group, showed up with posters and fliers. Immediately, people began refusing to take ours.
Here's what we were handing out:
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
What Debate?
Last night UW primate vivisector James Thomson was speaking in Madison. A couple people went to hand out fliers asking citizens to encourage UW scientists to debate the issue of primate vivisection.
As they began handing out leaflets, a group called UW Alumni For Life, a prolife group, showed up with posters and fliers. Immediately, people began refusing to take ours.
Here's what we were handing out:
As they began handing out leaflets, a group called UW Alumni For Life, a prolife group, showed up with posters and fliers. Immediately, people began refusing to take ours.
Here's what we were handing out:
Monday, September 19, 2005
Obese Americans
It's no wonder that Americans are so fat; they'll swallow anything.
Here's a mouthful of crap:
MADISON - In a study of adult monkeys who were exposed to moderate amounts of alcohol in utero, scientists have found that prenatal exposure to alcohol - even in small doses - has pronounced effects on the development and function later in life of the brain's dopamine system, a critical component of the central nervous system that regulates many regions of the brain.
Writing in the current issue (Sept. 15, 2005) of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, a team of researchers led by Mary L. Schneider, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of occupational therapy and psychology, reports that when a monkey exposes her fetus to alcohol by drinking, the dopamine system of her offspring is altered. Effects on that key neural system, according to the study's results, can manifest themselves up to five years after birth, when the monkeys are fully grown.
This is the start of UW press release. There are ethical and moral issues associated with her studies of course, and these are insurmountable.
But besides that, it just reeks of sleazyness. Coming as this release does on the heals of the Terasawa embarassment and the disclosure that oversight of research using animals at the UW is non-existant, the UW spins out a release claiming that a fetus should not be exposed to alcohol.
News flash: Pregnant women should not drink! Wow! Who would have thought it?
To anyone who has been living in a hole for the past few decades, this might be news. To anyone else it will just be a yawner.
But here's the rub: People swallow this crap without complaint and even with a smile. It gets filed into their subconscious: "UW saves babies..." Isn't that something... must be something about the bell-curve. Most of us are not only obese, we are also dolts.
Self-serving, sleazy, money-grubbing, callous, and arrogant. It's the new definition of scientist at the UW.
Here's a mouthful of crap:
MADISON - In a study of adult monkeys who were exposed to moderate amounts of alcohol in utero, scientists have found that prenatal exposure to alcohol - even in small doses - has pronounced effects on the development and function later in life of the brain's dopamine system, a critical component of the central nervous system that regulates many regions of the brain.
Writing in the current issue (Sept. 15, 2005) of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, a team of researchers led by Mary L. Schneider, a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor of occupational therapy and psychology, reports that when a monkey exposes her fetus to alcohol by drinking, the dopamine system of her offspring is altered. Effects on that key neural system, according to the study's results, can manifest themselves up to five years after birth, when the monkeys are fully grown.
This is the start of UW press release. There are ethical and moral issues associated with her studies of course, and these are insurmountable.
But besides that, it just reeks of sleazyness. Coming as this release does on the heals of the Terasawa embarassment and the disclosure that oversight of research using animals at the UW is non-existant, the UW spins out a release claiming that a fetus should not be exposed to alcohol.
News flash: Pregnant women should not drink! Wow! Who would have thought it?
To anyone who has been living in a hole for the past few decades, this might be news. To anyone else it will just be a yawner.
But here's the rub: People swallow this crap without complaint and even with a smile. It gets filed into their subconscious: "UW saves babies..." Isn't that something... must be something about the bell-curve. Most of us are not only obese, we are also dolts.
Self-serving, sleazy, money-grubbing, callous, and arrogant. It's the new definition of scientist at the UW.
Saturday, September 10, 2005
Money vs. Suffering
The use of monkeys on the University of Wisconsin, Madison campus generates a large income stream for the university and great suffering in the labs. (Regarding animals generally, this essay's main idea is true about essentially every large university in the nation.)
Claims made by the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and Harlow Primate Psychology Lab with regard to important medical discoveries are so readily recognized as propaganda and so easily debunked (like the claim that they have discovered the cause of PCOS,) that the only question worth considering is whether or not the suffering can be justified by the money and jobs.
Clearly, the university believes that the money is ample justification for the misery.
Is my analysis fair?
I believe it is. It appears that essentially no one within the administration, outside the labs, has taken any time to evaluate whether the researchers’ claims concerning medical progress are honest and accurate or meaningful.
The suffering on campus is so profound that any administrator professing a concern for animals’ pain, fear, welfare, or daily experiences, would necessarily be compelled to look at the details, to look at the claims and to become well educated about the issue.
But the university administration is content to rely upon the unexamined assurances made by the scientists earning their livelihoods on animal experimentation who swear that the experiments and the animal husbandry on campus are humane and result in important advances.
The quick and universal willingness to believe this transparently self-serving rhetoric is evidence that the calculus really is money vs. suffering. This is why they turn away from any concern from the public and go back to determining how they will spend the 40-plus% of the hundreds of millions of dollars they skim off the animal research money-train each and every year.
Claims made by the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center and Harlow Primate Psychology Lab with regard to important medical discoveries are so readily recognized as propaganda and so easily debunked (like the claim that they have discovered the cause of PCOS,) that the only question worth considering is whether or not the suffering can be justified by the money and jobs.
Clearly, the university believes that the money is ample justification for the misery.
Is my analysis fair?
I believe it is. It appears that essentially no one within the administration, outside the labs, has taken any time to evaluate whether the researchers’ claims concerning medical progress are honest and accurate or meaningful.
The suffering on campus is so profound that any administrator professing a concern for animals’ pain, fear, welfare, or daily experiences, would necessarily be compelled to look at the details, to look at the claims and to become well educated about the issue.
But the university administration is content to rely upon the unexamined assurances made by the scientists earning their livelihoods on animal experimentation who swear that the experiments and the animal husbandry on campus are humane and result in important advances.
The quick and universal willingness to believe this transparently self-serving rhetoric is evidence that the calculus really is money vs. suffering. This is why they turn away from any concern from the public and go back to determining how they will spend the 40-plus% of the hundreds of millions of dollars they skim off the animal research money-train each and every year.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Believers, Monkeys, and God
Let me clear from the start, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe there is a being responsible for the creation of the universe. I also don’t believe there is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being, nor do I believe that there is a being who gives a damn one way or the other whether or not I worship It or trust that Its only begotten Son suffered crucifixion to wash my sins away.
I have no desire to disparage Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, or any other deity worshiping group or member of such a group. But I do challenge the depth of their beliefs.
The way I see it, if I believed John 3:16: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life," I would have no real fear of death because when I die I would live forever in the presence of the Lord and bask in His radiance for all eternity, or something like that.
It seems to me that no one really believes this. Or nearly no one. How does one explain the overwhelming fear of death that grips the average believer? If one actually believes that Jesus and the Saints are waiting for them in the Promised Land, why worry?
More to the point, this fear of dying is so intense, so all encompassing, that the average believer is willing to support untold suffering in the off chance that it might buy them a slightly longer life. And this fear is so mind numbing that believers will support unimaginable suffering even when the claim that it might benefit them is so tenuous as to be absurd.
So here is the calculus at work for most believers: Jesus loves me; He is waiting for me in Paradise where I will be with my family and friends in eternal bliss, but I’m so afraid of this that I will support the government using my money to hurt animals by the tens, maybe hundreds of millions a year to extend my life for a potential few moments. Make sense? Not to me.
I’m stuck with only a few possibilities:
1. Maybe the people who support animal research aren’t Christians (choose the deist belief of your choice) and don’t believe in Heaven or salvation.
2. Maybe the people who support animal research are Christians, do believe in Heaven, but worry that they are bound for eternity in Hell so must avoid death at any cost.
3. Maybe the people who support animal research only think they are Christians, but really don’t believe in Heaven and can’t admit it to themselves.
Romans 5:8: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." To those who support animal research, Christ’s death simply wasn’t enough. They support the infliction of uncountable lifetimes of suffering on animals science claims have minds and emotions much like our own, in order that they might avoid Heaven just a little longer. Christ is said to have suffered on the cross for three days; how does this compare to a monkey’s twenty or thirty years of solitary confinement and periodic torture?
But maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe the people supporting animal research and even the researchers themselves really do believe in Heaven and believe they are going there because they have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Maybe these same people feel that they are living a good and godly life doing what they believe God wants them to do.
If this is the case, then they have a very twisted religion. Here’s the deal: God loves them, is promising eternal bliss, and looks favorably on their career choice that entails hurting animals in an attempt to avoid entering into this promised paradise. That’s just nuts.
As far as I can tell from looking at the actual decisions and opinions held by believers, there is not really a God of compassion in their hearts.
Ironically, an atheist seems to care more about all of God’s creatures than one of His own followers. Go figure.
I have no desire to disparage Christians, Jews, Moslems, Hindus, or any other deity worshiping group or member of such a group. But I do challenge the depth of their beliefs.
The way I see it, if I believed John 3:16: "God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life," I would have no real fear of death because when I die I would live forever in the presence of the Lord and bask in His radiance for all eternity, or something like that.
It seems to me that no one really believes this. Or nearly no one. How does one explain the overwhelming fear of death that grips the average believer? If one actually believes that Jesus and the Saints are waiting for them in the Promised Land, why worry?
More to the point, this fear of dying is so intense, so all encompassing, that the average believer is willing to support untold suffering in the off chance that it might buy them a slightly longer life. And this fear is so mind numbing that believers will support unimaginable suffering even when the claim that it might benefit them is so tenuous as to be absurd.
So here is the calculus at work for most believers: Jesus loves me; He is waiting for me in Paradise where I will be with my family and friends in eternal bliss, but I’m so afraid of this that I will support the government using my money to hurt animals by the tens, maybe hundreds of millions a year to extend my life for a potential few moments. Make sense? Not to me.
I’m stuck with only a few possibilities:
1. Maybe the people who support animal research aren’t Christians (choose the deist belief of your choice) and don’t believe in Heaven or salvation.
2. Maybe the people who support animal research are Christians, do believe in Heaven, but worry that they are bound for eternity in Hell so must avoid death at any cost.
3. Maybe the people who support animal research only think they are Christians, but really don’t believe in Heaven and can’t admit it to themselves.
Romans 5:8: "God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." To those who support animal research, Christ’s death simply wasn’t enough. They support the infliction of uncountable lifetimes of suffering on animals science claims have minds and emotions much like our own, in order that they might avoid Heaven just a little longer. Christ is said to have suffered on the cross for three days; how does this compare to a monkey’s twenty or thirty years of solitary confinement and periodic torture?
But maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe the people supporting animal research and even the researchers themselves really do believe in Heaven and believe they are going there because they have accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior. Maybe these same people feel that they are living a good and godly life doing what they believe God wants them to do.
If this is the case, then they have a very twisted religion. Here’s the deal: God loves them, is promising eternal bliss, and looks favorably on their career choice that entails hurting animals in an attempt to avoid entering into this promised paradise. That’s just nuts.
As far as I can tell from looking at the actual decisions and opinions held by believers, there is not really a God of compassion in their hearts.
Ironically, an atheist seems to care more about all of God’s creatures than one of His own followers. Go figure.
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