The aim of the present essay is to suggest that scientific arguments against animal experiments are misleading and useless and that they should totally be dropped. This is an extreme and maybe shocking point of view, but I think that there are good reasons to join it. I will carry on this suggestion through the analysis of the connection between science and authority and its effects on people’s beliefs, especially concerning the dispute about animal experiments. I will finally advocate a different approach to the matter which is the result of pure philosophical reasoning founded on personal beliefs and feelings[1].

Through the ages, animals have been exploited in several ways which have always been supposed to be as ancient as man himself. There is only one exception: the wide and systematical use of animals in scientific experiments. This common praxis of the modern biomedical research has developed only in the latest centuries; its origins are to be found in the new scientific spirit grown up in the 17^th century.

While all the other forms of killing and exploiting animals (for food, clothing, labour etc.) are commonly justified simply referring to thousands of years of evolution of human culture, the history of vivisection is relatively short: only four centuries, definitely not enough to state that it is a natural habit or a cultural habit too old to be changed. Animal experiments are a different matter of fact.

The question is: what makes people think that vivisection can’t be avoided? Why vivisection looks like a cruel, brutal necessity? What kind of authority takes in people’s minds the place of traditions, of costumes, of experiences, even of religion?

There is only one possible answer: the authority of science.

The authority of science is as strong as custom. Its statements concern not only the means of preserving one’s life but, more deeply, the decision about everybody’s values: i.e., science is largely acknowledged as the criterion both of reason and of common sense, because by its suggestions we measure what is better for us. Therefore, the common vivisectionist statement “to kill a mouse is more tolerable than to let a child die” means not only that human life is more valuable than a mouse’s life: it affirms that the contrary would not be reasonable.

Animal experiments are an historical result like science, and, like science, they are connected to knowledge and authority. But it is important to remark the difference between science itself and science as it’s seen by ordinary perception. Science is a wide system of knowledge and hypotheses about nature, built up through the use of the experimental method; this method dates back to the 17^th century but is now the object of several critical remarks by current epistemology. The ordinary perception of science is what “ordinary people”, i.e. who don’t take part in the production of scientific knowledge, think about this knowledge, the consideration they have of this knowledge from outside.

The practice of animal experiments takes root in the modern scientific investigation: therefore, its analysis must include an enquiry about the way scientific knowledge has been growing through the centuries and, most of all, about the way people perceive and consider this knowledge, since they use it as the main and most powerful tool to understand the world and to find their way in every day’s life.

Science is not a complete and perfect system of truth, a sphere of pure knowledge cut off from the ordinary world of praxis, decisions and valuations. It is not built on objective data, since no objective data are to be found, neither by theory nor by experience. There is no datum coming out from the chaotic stream of natural events but for abstraction by the observer. The man of science gives interpretations and explanations of facts which are the result of his own proceedings of abstraction (isolating simple data from the continuum of natural phenomena) and artificial construction (reproducing natural events in a laboratory context).

The ordinary perception of science is completely different. Science is supposed to be real and objective and it is at present the most important authority charged with the production of statements of truth and of practical instructions concerning the improvement of everybody’s life.

Therefore, the connection between science and authority is to be found in the context of ordinary life, where science exerts whatever sort of influence on individual and political decisions; but this influence is the result of a distorted perception of science: and here lies the problem. People look at scientific knowledge as a guide and a measure in order to decide what is reasonable and what is not reasonable to do. Consequently, science is commonly regarded as an undisputed pattern of rationality, both theoretically, as the only possible way to understand nature, and practically, as a “generator” of solutions for the human needs.

There’s a double cheating at work: people’s lives are ruled by a system of knowledge which is supposed to be 1. absolute, but can’t claim any objectivity, and 2. free of any external influence, but is definitely bound to concrete pursuit of power and profit, as every part of human culture has ever been.

The resulting conclusion is that scientific and philosophical arguments must not be separated in the dispute about animal experiments. Or, more coherently, that scientific arguments against animal experiments should not be employed any more. That is why.

First of all, because animal experiments are mostly involved in the biomedical research. Since medicine’s object is the cure of human beings, this branch of science is most concerned with human’s values, beliefs and hopes. Therefore, every medical practice must be connected, if not submitted, to the patient’s moral convictions. The patient’s right to be healed with respect of his/her requests must be recognized; why the exigency of having his/her life saved and his/her health restored without other lives being cut off should be denied?

But, most of all, the scientific arguments against animal experiments show the same fault of the opposite position (i.e. pro animal experiments): they are nothing but authoritative statements.

They claim to disclose that animal experiments are a fraud: they pretend to reveal their complete uselessness, as it is impossible to apply to an animal species the results obtained through experiments led on another one etc. etc. But whom are they directed to? To the researchers? They already know this since a long time! This is precisely the reason why experiments on humans have been widely carried out already long before Nazism (and still they are…)[2]. If so, one could wonder why animal experiments are still carried on. There are three plausible hypotheses (apart from the specific research concerning the very physiology of animals): 1. because in some cases it is possible, with greatest caution, to generalize inter species the results pertinent to one particular species; 2. because most researchers take advantage of the opportunity of publishing essays or of selling new medicines’ formulae after a brief, simple and cheap study; 3. because animal experiments are used to conceal the brutal evidence of the necessity of wide human experiments.

The aim of this essay is not to choose between these hypotheses (I think that the three of them are likely), but it is easy to remark that in all the three cases the scientific arguments against animal experiments are useless. In the scientific milieu, there is none to be convinced that animal tests alone get no real advancement in medical research. So, why repeating an already well known truth? Who is to be convinced?

There is only one possible answer: as a matter of fact, scientific arguments against animal experiments are addressed to the public opinion. But their function is not, as they pretend, to make people’s judgments change by explanations and demonstrations. People with no solid scientific knowledge would need a great deal of technical preparation before they could reach a deep, rational conviction. Therefore, this kind of arguments are able to convince only people who are already convinced: people who are already against animal experiments for personal reasons, for example because they are animal rights’ activists or because they profess a non-violent religion. But to lap scientific arguments over personal beliefs is wrong, because it implies two misleading conclusions:

1. the essential weakness of the philosophical approach to the problem;

2. the inadequacy of personal beliefs in the political struggle about animals’ rights.

These conclusions agree exactly with the general picture of science as a system of truth connected to authority, as sketched in the present essay: I said that science is usually supposed to be real and objective and it is at present the most important authority charged with the production of statements of truth and of practical instructions concerning everybody’s life.

Point 1. agrees with the ordinary perception of science as a firm and objective knowledge, in opposition to the human sciences, philosophy in particular, which are supposed to be arbitrary, relative and useless to the solution of any problem; on the contrary, as I have remarked above, scientific statements can’t claim to be more objective than philosophical reasoning[3].

Point 2. confirms that science is often indifferent to individual values and opinions; it simply ignores their deepness and their right to be respected, both when people agree with science and when they don’t. In our case, the scientific arguments against animal experiments pretend to substitute people’s opinion that animals have anyway right to life, welfare and freedom, with a pseudo-scientific belief; this belief is not at all joined by people through a rational assent (because they don’t possess the technical background requested) but through an act of faith towards the persons who asserted it: that is exactly the way other people are convinced that animal experiments are necessary and useful to medicine’s advancement. In both cases, it is clearly only a matter of authority[4].

I defend the right to be against animal experiments without the need of a scientific demonstration of their inadequacy. The opposition to animal tests is not an emotional feeling which needs to be supported by scientific arguments; it concerns  the wide problem of animals’ status and right to be respected, which is founded on strong philosophical arguments and on the even stronger feeling of sympathy for the animals felt by a large number of people through time and space.

What indeed if one experiment on animals, only one, was reliable? which scientific remarks could stop it?

Everybody concerned in the case of animals’ rights should feel free to state his/her opinion against animal experiments in any case, even if they were useful. The matter is not epistemological;  we are not involved in a discussion about the production of scientific knowledge. The matter is philosophical: it is a matter of justice. Common people should never be asked to judge the grade of truth of scientific research: on the contrary, it’s the scientific research that must take seriously people’s values, beliefs and demands. Above all, the connection between science and authority should be broken: scientific truths must be confined to the sphere of human knowledge and must not be involved in the sphere of praxis, i.e. science must cease to be a guide to human life (like it was a new kind of religion) but it should only produce the means to put people’s decisions into practice.

Neither priests’ black frocks nor scientists’ white overalls are a warranty of truth.

The opposition to animal experiments and the recognition of animals’ rights are a matter of individual deliberation, through reflection and sensibility. Neither religion nor science are asked to answer in our place.

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12/02/05