Lobster Tales

The Convenient Lies We Choose To Believe

Up until a few decades ago, it was widely accepted that a certain type of mammal was incapable of feeling pain. Their nerve cells were not yet fully developed, people believed, which made it possible to perform operations like open heart surgery without the potential complications of anaesthesia. To suppress the so-called reflex motions these individuals would exhibit–limb thrashing, crying, and the like–medical practitioners would administer strong doses of muscle relaxants to paralyze them. Then, with the patient unable to move but fully conscious, they would begin to operate.

Of Persons and Whales

It’s Time To Rethink our Definition of Personhood

It was only recently that I discovered the existence of World Animal Day, an annual commemorative event that takes place today, 4 October. Established in 1931 at an ecologists’ convention in Florence, Italy, World Animal Day was meant to draw attention to the world’s endangered species, its date coinciding with the Feast of St. Francis Assisi, patron saint of animals. To this day many religious leaders mark the event with the ritual blessing of animals, though many secular supporters commemorate the occasion as well. Incidentally, World Animal Day comes just two days after World Day for Farm Animals, which is far more explicit in its pro-animal welfare stance and which marked its (solemn) thirtieth anniversary this year.

I stumbled upon news of World Animal Day in between reading articles about spindle cells and whale empathy,

The Animals Behind the Tests

You Rat, You Generous, Selfless Rat

“Can you believe they used to do experiments on live animals?” Fifty years from now, this could be a phrase repeated with the same incredulity we voice today when talking about various atrocities humans  inflicted on one another in the past. At least I hope it will be. News this week that the number of experiments on animals  in Britain actually increased by 8 % put a bit of a damper on my optimism, but it also provided all the more reason to revisit the issue.