Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license.
Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat.
We can research this topic together.
I'd like to supplement this article with a list of Systematic Reviews (SR's) and Meta-Studies (MS's). Unfortunately the few that are mentioned do not seem to be accurately represented (e.g. this article states: 'such studies can be difficult to interpret, and it is argued that they are not always comparable to human diseases' but the paper cited for this claim actually states: 'Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews'). Every SR and MS I could find is critical of animal testing, so the proposed article is titled ']'. I believe this would contribute to a more informed and robust account of animal testing. If there are objections based on the negative accounts of the SR's and MS's, then if anyone can supply links to publicly verifiable material that is supportive, then those can be included too (I could not find any). ] (]) 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
I'd like to supplement this article with a list of Systematic Reviews (SR's) and Meta-Studies (MS's). Unfortunately the few that are mentioned do not seem to be accurately represented (e.g. this article states: 'such studies can be difficult to interpret, and it is argued that they are not always comparable to human diseases' but the paper cited for this claim actually states: 'Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews'). Every SR and MS I could find is critical of animal testing, so the proposed article is titled ']'. I believe this would contribute to a more informed and robust account of animal testing. If there are objections based on the negative accounts of the SR's and MS's, then if anyone can supply links to publicly verifiable material that is supportive, then those can be included too (I could not find any). ] (]) 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
:{{u|Carlduff}}, Can you link 3-5 of the best studies, and the conclusion you'd like to draw from them? As I understand it, you'd like to note that animal testing is flawed as a research practice? ] <sup>]</sup>] 20:22, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Revision as of 20:22, 16 November 2019
This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Animal testing article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.
The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Animal rights, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of animal rights on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Animal rightsWikipedia:WikiProject Animal rightsTemplate:WikiProject Animal rightsAnimal rights
Animal testing is part of the WikiProject Biology, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to biology on Misplaced Pages. Leave messages on the WikiProject talk page.BiologyWikipedia:WikiProject BiologyTemplate:WikiProject BiologyBiology
This page has archives. Sections older than 30 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 2 sections are present.
External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified one external link on Animal testing. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).
If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.
Adding "Cruelty to animals" category in Animal Testing article
I added category "Cruelty to animals" to the article Animal testing. However, it was reverted for some reason. Can anyone clarify as to why it should not be added here? I felt it was one of the primary categories in the article given the fact that animal testing is one of the chief manifestations of speciesism and cruelty is an inseparable factor in animal testing despite our tagging it with "ethical," "humane," and other euphemistic adjectives. Rasnaboy (talk) 13:12, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
It is a clear and obvious violation of WP:NPOV and an attempt to categorize only based on your viewpoint for purely prejudicial purposes. Look at all the other categories; nothing so clearly biased as your attempted addition appears. HCA (talk) 18:21, 11 January 2018 (UTC)
The article is already in the parent category Category:Animal welfare, so if it is added to Category:Cruelty to animals it should be removed from the parent category per WP:CAT. The problem with such a move is that, ironically, in the USA animal testing is typically explicitly exempted from state and local animal anti-cruelty laws. This means that the animal cruelty that occurs in animal testing laboratories goes unprosecuted in the USA. I don't know anything about the status of animal testing in relation to animal anti-cruelty laws in other countries. But certainly in the USA, animal testing per se is not considered animal cruelty in most state and local laws. Biogeographist (talk) 12:42, 12 January 2018 (UTC)
That (the part about US law) is spectacularly untrue. Animal research labs in the US are intensely regulated, by law. It's just that testing per se is not considered a criminal activity. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:20, 13 January 2018 (UTC)
@Tryptofish: You called my comment "spectacularly untrue" and then you repeated the point of my comment. My earlier comment said: "animal testing per se is not considered animal cruelty" in most criminal codes in the USA. Your comment said: "testing per se is not considered a criminal activity". We were making exactly the same point. Perhaps it was not clear that when I said "testing is typically explicitly exempted from state and local animal anti-cruelty laws" I meant in criminal codes (which was implied by my reference to prosecution in the subsequent sentence). If a person were to treat an animal in public the way some animals are treated in laboratories, that person would be liable to prosecution for animal cruelty in many jurisdictions. But the same treatment would not be considered animal cruelty in laboratories. Biogeographist (talk) 01:51, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for clarifying your position. It sounded like you were taking the position that animal testing should be subject to prosecution, that you thought existing laws are lamentable. As for a person "treat an animal in public" that way, I cannot imagine anyone doing animal testing out on the street, and without proper training in the correct manner of handling animals in a humane way. And if what you think goes on in US research laboratories (at least since roughly the turn of the century) is in any way like what reasonable persons consider to be animal cruelty, you should familiarize yourself with Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, as well as the documentation required by the National Institutes of Health and other scientific agencies. There are very, very detailed requirements than US scientists must follow, that are designed to eliminate or minimize animal pain or discomfort. The false narrative of animals being tormented in labs (at least since roughly the turn of the century) is one that is pushed by some animal rights groups, but it is false nevertheless. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:03, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
@Tryptofish: No, I wasn't implying that animal testing should be subject to prosecution; I was just presenting a reason why this article doesn't belong in Category:Cruelty to animals (not the only possible reason nor even an especially strong reason). People have been prosecuted for animal cruelty for causing much less harm to animals than the harm that necessarily occurs in some animal experimentation, so (although it is not relevant to the current discussion) I do take the position that there is something "lamentable" and contradictory about existing laws, but not in a way that would be remedied by criminalizing animal testing. Biogeographist (talk) 20:29, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
OK, please just chalk it up to a misunderstanding, thanks. And I do agree with you about the category. About the existing laws, I guess WP:RGW. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:24, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I think it's reasonable. Categories are for navigation, not definition: You put something in a category if you think that readers looking at that category would be interested in reading that article. You do not put something in a category just because it happens to objectively be part of a particular subset. It might be useful for the reader.
Tryptofish is also a good editor to ask about this kind of question. There is a lot more history underlying what you said than you realize. (If what I say needs clarification, please take it to my user talk, not here.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I also tend to like the idea of using categories to be helpful to readers, but there are some important guideline considerations that must be attended to. WP:CATV says: Categorization must also maintain a neutral point of view. Categorizations appear on article pages without annotations or referencing to justify or explain their addition; editors should be conscious of the need to maintain a neutral point of view when creating categories or adding them to articles. Categorizations should generally be uncontroversial; if the category's topic is likely to spark controversy, then a list article (which can be annotated and referenced) is probably more appropriate. In addition, WP:NONDEF says: A central concept used in categorising articles is that of the defining characteristics of a subject of the article. A defining characteristic is one that reliable sourcescommonly and consistently define the subject as having... Categorization by non-defining characteristics should be avoided. It is simply not the case that reliable sources call testing "cruel" commonly and consistently, but it's absolutely true that applying this category would imply a controversial position. Anyway, Category:Animal welfare should be sufficient to help readers. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:22, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
@ User:WhatamIdoing. Exactly my point. There's no POV involved in adding the category as doubted by some fellow editors. Not adding the category will only hide the article from the view of readers of animal rights topics. However, I agree with whatever other editors feel unanimously. Rasnaboy (talk) 05:50, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
And you completely missed the point. The point had nothing to do with what subcats and parent cats something is in, that's irrelevant - it's that WP:NPOV applies to Categories. HCA (talk) 19:27, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
That you persistently fixate on a red herring says everything necessary about the quality of your contribution to this discussion. HCA (talk) 22:35, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
I claim to be a fish, so I certainly don't want to see cruelty to red herrings. And I also insist that we adhere to WP:NPOV in settling on categorization. But I'd like to suggest that editors lower the temperature of this disagreement, OK? --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
"This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare, in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence. At last the Dodo said, 'Everybody has won, and all must have prizes.'
(edit conflict) That's a valid point. So let me make a better analogy by staying within the parent category. Category:Animal welfare also contains the subcategory Category:Veterinary medicine and other categories of being kind to animals. But veterinary medicine is not typically considered to be animal cruelty. That's because, although they share a parent category, the subcategories represent different branches of the category tree. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:31, 14 January 2018 (UTC)
The reason I added this category was animal testing is one of the primary topics in the animal rights/cruelty domains. Every scholarly work on animal rights/cruelty speaks about scientific experiments (e.g., Peter Singer's Animal Liberation talks about in detail before moving on to other issues such as animal farming or religious cruelties). Such views of a spectrum of academic scholars are not generally brushed aside as POV for they only make it all the more worthy of critical analysis. Articles on the other similar issues, such as ritual slaughter and animal farming, come under this category. Even an article as this one discusses (or supposed to discuss) these welfare/right issues under sections like ethics, welfare concerns, etc. One can find "animal testing" in all animal rights/cruelty-related templates. Hence I thought this category should be included. There wasn't any hidden agenda from my side otherwise nor am I trying to use it as a vehicle for advocacy. Understanding the term "animal cruelty" is a sore spot for the researchers, I leave it to the fellow editors. Rasnaboy (talk) 10:36, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Thank you for your good faith participation in this discussion. I want to point out that Singer's book was written in 1975, and a lot of time has passed since then, with a great deal of tightening of the laws and regulations for research, at least in the US. There were things going on in Singer's time that would never be tolerated today. It's true that many works on animal cruelty discuss animal testing, but the reverse, whether works on animal testing tend to characterize it as cruelty, is an entirely different matter. That goes to what I said earlier about WP:DEFINING. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:43, 16 January 2018 (UTC)
Systematic Reviews and Meta Studies
I'd like to supplement this article with a list of Systematic Reviews (SR's) and Meta-Studies (MS's). Unfortunately the few that are mentioned do not seem to be accurately represented (e.g. this article states: 'such studies can be difficult to interpret, and it is argued that they are not always comparable to human diseases' but the paper cited for this claim actually states: 'Much animal research into potential treatments for humans is wasted because it is poorly conducted and not evaluated through systematic reviews'). Every SR and MS I could find is critical of animal testing, so the proposed article is titled 'Animal Testing: Contrary Scientific Views'. I believe this would contribute to a more informed and robust account of animal testing. If there are objections based on the negative accounts of the SR's and MS's, then if anyone can supply links to publicly verifiable material that is supportive, then those can be included too (I could not find any). Carlduff (talk) 19:47, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
Carlduff, Can you link 3-5 of the best studies, and the conclusion you'd like to draw from them? As I understand it, you'd like to note that animal testing is flawed as a research practice? Captain Eek⚓20:22, 16 November 2019 (UTC)
There is a lot more history underlying what you said than you realize. (If what I say needs clarification, please take it to my user talk, not here.) --Tryptofish (talk) 19:07, 14 January 2018 (UTC)