What you say is true. But what happened to Bobby ten to twenty years ago should not be brought up in an editorial that claims to want to improve conditions for chimps today, because we already have laws against such treatment. They should provide examples of the treatment that they think is bad, that is going on today, that their proposal would stop. Reaching instead for something more emotionally-engaging is pure Dark Arts manipulation; it has no relevance to the debate they claim to be engaged in.
Or they’re making the very valid point that apparently the existing laws are failing horribly at actually protecting the apes, as clearly illustrated by their choice of example...
Arguably they should focus on being stricter about existing laws, but it’s not abnormal for a society to say “okay, clearly the people doing X are abusing it despite our regulations, so we’re just going to take away X except in very rare, carefully licensed and justified exceptions.”
“Saying chimps should be used “only when there is no other option” is the same as saying chimps should never be used. There are always other options.”: -
If there “are always other options”, then why are we having this rediculous discussion. Ban it, “there are always other options” and research facilities are not following regulations as recent as this year.
I think one of those options is to do research much more slowly and speculatively.
Those 14 violations were at one facility. If violations are concentrated among a few similarly monitored facilities, that implies the problem is specific facilities. If they are evenly spread, it implies the problem is an inevitable consequence of using them. Do you have evidence either way?
Two of the violations were deemed “serious”: A baboon briefly escaped its enclosure, as did a rhesus monkey, which “gained access to an outdoor area of the enclosure at night when temperatures were below freezing.” Institute staff found the monkey “moribund” and euthanized it.
What were the non-serious violations? How many serious violations occur annually?
Those serious violations were nothing like the Bobby case. The animals merely escaped. My original suspicion is slightly more confirmed.
I don’t work for the government, I do not have access to violations. Only what leaks to the press. But, a violation is a violation. The guidlines and laws are not being followed. You asked for some in the last decade, I gave some. That was th point of the link. There are violations, even serious ones. If you all would lieke to find out more just google it. It took me about 2 minutes to find this article.
If you want to find out the answers to what the serious violations were, ask the author. Point is, they were serious. So, chimps being used are not being treated right and there are alternatives to the testing. “They should provide examples of the treatment that they think is bad, that is going on today, that their proposal would stop. ” That was the point, right? So there is an example from today.
You asked for some in the last decade, I gave some.
I asked for evidence to persuade me that option (a) banning testing, is preferable to (b) living with the amount of violations that would otherwise be expected to occur. I expect advocates to present what they think would be their most persuasive case considering the time they have decided to spend presenting a case.
An advocate of banning telling me that she and third party investigators do not have direct access increases how representative her single example is, since it is chosen from a smaller pool of examples than someone with access would have. You certainly subconsciously realize the importance of this as you led with it.
It took me about 2 minutes to find this article.
This is very relevant. The less time it took you to find a serious violation, the more prevalent violations probably are.
there are alternatives to the testing.
You are doing exactly what you should be doing considering I am weighing options (a) and (b) , you’re telling me that (a) is not as bad as I might have thought and that (b) is worse than I might have thought.
You are perfectly excellent at arguing for a point, like most humans, and using evidence correctly. However, at this site an enormous, excessive by many people’s standards, amount of time is spent trying to understand how evidence works. I am saying explicitly that at finding, determining, and using the most relevant evidence you are basically just as skilled as I am because I want to distinguish it from one skill at which I think you are not as strong. that skill is understanding why you make the correct choices you do when arguing about things.
So when you are arguing for the point you know exactly what is and isn’t valid evidence. But in the special case of describing the relationship of evidence to conclusions, I don’t think you know how to describe it well. Your arguments about how the evidence you present should be interpreted and the extent to which it is strong I basically think are wrong, unlike your arguments directly about chimp testing and indirectly about why your arguments are relevant. As an analogy: like a master carpenter who doesn’t know how to build a hammer very well because non-wood is such a major component in it.
According to my understanding of evidence, “That was the point of the link.” isn’t true—at least, you have correctly understood one point of the link but I argue that the exclusivity implied by “the point of” isn’t true. I think the link has several points, and the piece of evidence I am attempting to assimilate is not and should not be “the link” alone. It is rather (1) that an advocate of (a) over (b) (2) took a short time to find a (3) leaked case of (4) violations that led to chimps escaping.
Factors (1) and (4) make the piece of evidence—your presenting that article when and how you did—more something that supports (b) for me. Factors (2) and (3) make it more something that supports (a) for me.
That was the point, right? So there is an example from today.
Whether it’s actually a good idea or not (according to any individual’s preferences, which generally include both animals not being harmed and medical research not being hampered, and relevantly here, my preferences, which value both things) has nothing to do with how clumsily I may have phrased a request for more information. Of course, interpretations of my requests must be factored in when people present evidence to me.
The difficulty of finding cases of serious violations, the absence of evidence for the suggestingon that serious violations occur, is evidence violations do not occur to the extent to which were there violations, there would be less difficulty of finding cases of serious violations. If information is hard to get, then the difficulty of finding cases of serious violations is reconciled with the possibility many violations occur by the secrecy. Subconsciously you certainly understand this, which is why you brought up difficulty of access. What that means is that my original question was extremely important, and you have a suitable answer.
It is difficult to remember to, but important, to always be in “truth seeking” mode rather than “seeker of evidence that supports my conclusion” mode. The question “where are the cases?” is the sort people temporarily (both modes are temporary, though the first is always best) in the latter mode fail to see, even (because) when they have an answer to the question.
I didn’t intend my comments as attacks and hope they aren’t interpreted that way.
Welcome to LW if you choose to comment more or lurk!
Yes, I am an advocate. I was googling and came across this blog and I stopped and read it and read all the comments and found that I needed to say something on behalf of those that cannot. Thanks for your feedback on making my point clear and educated. I will need it on my journey.
What you say is true. But what happened to Bobby ten to twenty years ago should not be brought up in an editorial that claims to want to improve conditions for chimps today, because we already have laws against such treatment. They should provide examples of the treatment that they think is bad, that is going on today, that their proposal would stop. Reaching instead for something more emotionally-engaging is pure Dark Arts manipulation; it has no relevance to the debate they claim to be engaged in.
Or they’re making the very valid point that apparently the existing laws are failing horribly at actually protecting the apes, as clearly illustrated by their choice of example...
Arguably they should focus on being stricter about existing laws, but it’s not abnormal for a society to say “okay, clearly the people doing X are abusing it despite our regulations, so we’re just going to take away X except in very rare, carefully licensed and justified exceptions.”
Someone’s citing that case makes me think they have nothing similarly supportive of their argument from within the past decade.
Here are 14 violations in 2009-2010: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/move-of-14-older-chimps-to-texas-research-lab-raises-questions/2011/08/12/gIQAYkAuDJ_story.html
“Saying chimps should be used “only when there is no other option” is the same as saying chimps should never be used. There are always other options.”: -
If there “are always other options”, then why are we having this rediculous discussion. Ban it, “there are always other options” and research facilities are not following regulations as recent as this year.
I think one of those options is to do research much more slowly and speculatively.
Those 14 violations were at one facility. If violations are concentrated among a few similarly monitored facilities, that implies the problem is specific facilities. If they are evenly spread, it implies the problem is an inevitable consequence of using them. Do you have evidence either way?
What were the non-serious violations? How many serious violations occur annually?
Those serious violations were nothing like the Bobby case. The animals merely escaped. My original suspicion is slightly more confirmed.
I don’t work for the government, I do not have access to violations. Only what leaks to the press. But, a violation is a violation. The guidlines and laws are not being followed.
You asked for some in the last decade, I gave some. That was th point of the link. There are violations, even serious ones. If you all would lieke to find out more just google it. It took me about 2 minutes to find this article. If you want to find out the answers to what the serious violations were, ask the author. Point is, they were serious. So, chimps being used are not being treated right and there are alternatives to the testing. “They should provide examples of the treatment that they think is bad, that is going on today, that their proposal would stop. ” That was the point, right? So there is an example from today.
I asked for evidence to persuade me that option (a) banning testing, is preferable to (b) living with the amount of violations that would otherwise be expected to occur. I expect advocates to present what they think would be their most persuasive case considering the time they have decided to spend presenting a case.
An advocate of banning telling me that she and third party investigators do not have direct access increases how representative her single example is, since it is chosen from a smaller pool of examples than someone with access would have. You certainly subconsciously realize the importance of this as you led with it.
This is very relevant. The less time it took you to find a serious violation, the more prevalent violations probably are.
You are doing exactly what you should be doing considering I am weighing options (a) and (b) , you’re telling me that (a) is not as bad as I might have thought and that (b) is worse than I might have thought.
You are perfectly excellent at arguing for a point, like most humans, and using evidence correctly. However, at this site an enormous, excessive by many people’s standards, amount of time is spent trying to understand how evidence works. I am saying explicitly that at finding, determining, and using the most relevant evidence you are basically just as skilled as I am because I want to distinguish it from one skill at which I think you are not as strong. that skill is understanding why you make the correct choices you do when arguing about things.
So when you are arguing for the point you know exactly what is and isn’t valid evidence. But in the special case of describing the relationship of evidence to conclusions, I don’t think you know how to describe it well. Your arguments about how the evidence you present should be interpreted and the extent to which it is strong I basically think are wrong, unlike your arguments directly about chimp testing and indirectly about why your arguments are relevant. As an analogy: like a master carpenter who doesn’t know how to build a hammer very well because non-wood is such a major component in it.
According to my understanding of evidence, “That was the point of the link.” isn’t true—at least, you have correctly understood one point of the link but I argue that the exclusivity implied by “the point of” isn’t true. I think the link has several points, and the piece of evidence I am attempting to assimilate is not and should not be “the link” alone. It is rather (1) that an advocate of (a) over (b) (2) took a short time to find a (3) leaked case of (4) violations that led to chimps escaping.
Factors (1) and (4) make the piece of evidence—your presenting that article when and how you did—more something that supports (b) for me. Factors (2) and (3) make it more something that supports (a) for me.
Whether it’s actually a good idea or not (according to any individual’s preferences, which generally include both animals not being harmed and medical research not being hampered, and relevantly here, my preferences, which value both things) has nothing to do with how clumsily I may have phrased a request for more information. Of course, interpretations of my requests must be factored in when people present evidence to me.
The difficulty of finding cases of serious violations, the absence of evidence for the suggestingon that serious violations occur, is evidence violations do not occur to the extent to which were there violations, there would be less difficulty of finding cases of serious violations. If information is hard to get, then the difficulty of finding cases of serious violations is reconciled with the possibility many violations occur by the secrecy. Subconsciously you certainly understand this, which is why you brought up difficulty of access. What that means is that my original question was extremely important, and you have a suitable answer.
It is difficult to remember to, but important, to always be in “truth seeking” mode rather than “seeker of evidence that supports my conclusion” mode. The question “where are the cases?” is the sort people temporarily (both modes are temporary, though the first is always best) in the latter mode fail to see, even (because) when they have an answer to the question.
I didn’t intend my comments as attacks and hope they aren’t interpreted that way.
Welcome to LW if you choose to comment more or lurk!
Yes, I am an advocate. I was googling and came across this blog and I stopped and read it and read all the comments and found that I needed to say something on behalf of those that cannot.
Thanks for your feedback on making my point clear and educated. I will need it on my journey.
One Love and Peace.