(10 reviews) Author: P. Michael Conn ISBN : Product Detai New from $9.56 Format: PDFWhen overzealous animal rights activists threaten one of America's best-known scientists and academic leaders, he collaborates with an analyst of animal rights to produce a personal account of what it is like to be a medical researcher targeted by such a powerful movement. This thoughtful and surprising book analyzes the effect of animal extremism on the world's scientists, their institutions, and professional societies. P. Michael Conn and James V. Parker analyze the motivations of animal rights extremists while also delving into the changing ways in which the public and legal system views animals. The Animal Research War counters the lies propagated by extremist animal rights organizations: for example, the fact that animals comprise only 6% of any medical research, and very little harm comes to animals under experimentation.
This book is an intriguing and compelling platform from which to better understand the plight of the modern scientist and the risk to scientific advancement if animal extremism is allowed to win.
- Hardcover: 224 pages
- Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; First Edition edition (May 13, 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 023060014X
- ASIN: B007BWH7RO
- Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
- Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
The Animal Research War PDF
In this 2008 book, scientist P. Michael Conn and ethicist James Parker consider the "war" between scientists/researchers using animals in biomedical research, and animal rights advocates. They explain in the Preface, "We wrote this book because we believe in ethical animal research. We believe in its benefits and in our obligations to perform it. We also believe in the humane care of animals. Benefits of animal research are everywhere we look. They are easy to see in longer life spans for humans and the virtual disappearance of scourges like polio, smallpox, and the bubonic plague... Our pets and wildlife, too, benefit from biomedical discoveries and live longer and better lives." (Pg. xi)
They are critical of "animal rights" (as opposed to "animal welfare," which they strongly support) extremists, noting, "When we refer to animal extremists, we are thinking of those who would impose their views on what we should eat or wear or use through actions, sometimes legal but often illegal, that are meant to at least intimidate us. Extremists go beyond the civil disobedience that we respect in the actions of Mahatma Gandhi or Rosa Parks or Martin Luther King." (Pg. xiv) They add, "Gandhi appealed to the consciences of British authorities, while extremists, bullying and intimidating, play to fear. Gandhi chose to endure suffering, while extremists set out to inflict suffering on others... Gandhi allowed himself to be arrested for his cause, while extremists phone anonymously and send unsigned emails." (Pg. 8-9)
They point out, "Ultimately, antivivisectionism failed simply because the public could not be convinced that the use of animals in advancing the knowledge and treatment of disease was immoral or futile. Surely, people did not want to see animals, especially pets, mistreated.
Coming across a book like this makes me sadder than almost any other type of book I read. Fortunately, it doesn't happen too often. But when it does, it's a disappointment. Even more so, maybe, than books I actually like less. What makes me sad about this book is that I agree wholeheartedly with the authors' thesis but the writing is so poor that it's a slog to get through the book despite its comparatively short length.
The problem, I think, is twofold. First, Conn and Parker are scientists and, therefore, want to lay out a logical, well-argued case for their position. This they do, in the flat prose of the scientists they are. They want to rouse some passion (as their counterparts are so good at doing) but their rare attempts to do so come across as discord in an otherwise passionless argument. Which leads directly to problem number two: there clearly is some mean-spirited counter-punching going on here which causes a reader to lose respect for their argument. Conn and Parker name names and air grievances in a way which does little to forward their case. They would have been better sticking to their dispassionate prose.
Hidden within this dull prose, however, are some important gems. First is the main premise itself: that, despite what you may hear from fringe animal rights groups, animal research is a necessary part of medical advance and is a well-regulated, humane process. It's always strange that people who want certain types of research to cease would never want to give up the advances generated by that research, and animal research has produced some of the most important medical advances we have including important drug trials and surgical procedures.
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