Thursday, May 28, 2015



As I science major, I have seen this image in some of classes about ethics and science. I never really thought about it much. I would just think "oh she's a cute child" and " yuck, a rodent". Of course we would all rather want to see the child live, and placing a picture of a child next to a picture of a "pest" makes us feel less guilty about animal testing. However, what if the picture of the rat was replaced by a picture of a cute baby monkey? Would that change the message the image is trying to convey?

5 comments:

  1. Advertisements can be powerful. This one is particularly interesting. It is a good example of how the idea of human hierarchy is spread. Can you compare or measure the value of a person's life?

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is a really good point; if the other animal were not a rat but some more sympathetic creature the take away might be different. But, does it have to be either/or? As it was touched on in the Animal Liberation video we saw in class, animal testing is archaic. These days we always hear of major technological advancements, and of the continuous funding towards research. It seems with all the resources available to human science practices in this day it is time to stop animal testing. That way we do not have to perpetuate the torture of other animals with a false dilemma: if it’s not the rat, then it will be the child who suffers. We can still progress in medical and scientific knowledge without lab animals.

    ReplyDelete
  3. While this ad has a pretty blatant agenda, it does raise other valid questions. Is it bad, bad, or neutral to value members of our species over others? I remember many news stories of dog owners drowning trying to save their dog at the beach. These stories are not normally received with the same lauding as when someone dies trying to save another human. It seems like animals, as a whole, value their own species more than any other. I don't know of any animals known to risk their life for another species, except for maybe dogs and companion species, which humans seem fairly willing to reciprocate for. I don't really have an answer, but I think that it is at least an interesting question.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This displays the mindset of contemporary society. Most people nowadays see science experiment with animals as something that has to be done. These science experiments don't consider the animals as having a consciousness or emotions. Science experiments have proven to be an invaluable assets to help cure diseases and help solve modern health issues. This goes back to the classic debate of how much is a life worth? Can we measure something's worth and put a monetary value on it? Are animals and humans that much different that we place more of a value on humans and barely any value on animals?

    ReplyDelete
  5. This image shows a disconnect between humans and the natural world. Seeing rats as simple "pests" quantifies them through a single perspective. If you look at a rat from a cat's perspective, you see it as a life sustaining source of calories and other nutrition. From planet earths standpoint you may see a rat as an integral part of the food chain and soil nutrition. Perhaps from another rats standpoint you may look at a rat as a friend or lover. The superiority we feel towards rats i fallacy and I will explain why, but before that I would like to explain something else. Cancer research on rats is unethical because cancer is generally a human caused disease! How can we torture and murder rats over a problem that we cause ourselves? Especially when it is something that most people can avoid by simply changing what they put in their body! I truthfully believe a whole foods vegetable based diet can reverse most chronic illnesses because whole foods create a more alkali environment inside your body, and also because cancer absolutely loves animal proteins like Casein! Since adopting the western style diet our country has gone in 100 years from seeing 58/100,000 women getting breast cancer in their lives, to as high as 1/3 in recent years. Sames across the board with most cancers.

    Lastly to think that we are superior to rats is silly to me. Modern humans have been on this earth for 200,000 years, where as the rodent group has been around for nearly 60 million years! And in that 60 million years the rodents have not cause global warming or other overpopulation related catastrophe. They are extremely adaptable and intellegent to have lasted that long!

    ReplyDelete