Author (#3)August 2004 Archives

HOLY CRAP! I heard yesterday that if a certain volcano explodes in the Canary Islands, a three thousand foot wall of water will snuff out all life on the east coast of the U.S. Or did I?

I know that was the thrust of the report, and I hope that this usually reliable news source (NPR) just misspoke, or that I misheard. It only took me a few minutes with Excel and some very rudimentary knowledge of physics to figure out that the wall of water was going to be considerably smaller than three thousand feet high unless the volcano was dropping from space at several hundred miles per second. In fact, the actual estimates are a hundred and fifty feet, which is still an insanely large tsunami, but a full order of magnitude and then some smaller than the report suggested.

I wrote NPR, fuming over the mistake in their report or in my ears, but as I did, I realized that it was just part of a pattern in the media. Science stories are often distorted and misreported. I can't count the number of times that I've heard fantastic whoppers like the "gene for aggression" found in prisoners. The recent snakehead fish insanity in the Potomac River is another good example.

In case you have missed the story, there are now northern snakehead fish in the river, probably refugees from an aquarium, as they are native to China. Now the Maryland DNR is up in arms about the introduction of a nonnative predator to the ecosystem. The press has followed suit, blathering on about it, but I wonder if one intrepid reporter has worked out that the DNR itself made a few introductions. No, not the snakeheads, but walleye and some damn fish called a tiger muskellunge. Both of these are nonnative predatory fish. The difference is that they are considered tasty gamefish.

So the real story is this; there is a new predatory nonnative fish in the Potomac watershed and DNR expects that it will take hold. While it may present hazards to the balance of the ecosystem that is in place, it is important to realize that the natural ecosystem, as seen by John Smith, is long gone, and that many new species have been introduced, such as the walleye and the muskellunge. These two fish species were, in fact, introduced by DNR (the very people now worried about the snakehead fish) to improve sportfishing.

Kinda takes the wind out the snakehead's sails, doesn't it? But that is the actual, plain, unvarnished, unadulterated truth. The snakehead incursion will probably have an effect on the ecosystem. How large an effect, no one knows...introducing new species is risky for anyone, including the DNR.

The point is this; if the story is political or social, the press does a fair job of trying to ferret out the facts. When it comes to science, they just nod and report what they think they've heard, which can be quite a distance from what the scientist actually said at the press conference. In this increasingly technological age, we need better coverage of the sciences. Stupendous, earth-shaking discoveries require rigorous skepticism, not only from the scientific community, but from the press as well.

Scientists like to say that the more outrageous the claim is, the better the proof supporting it must be. The press must learn a similar mantra, the bigger the story, the more you have to investigate it, even if that means breaking out the high-school physics book.

Talk about noble causes gone awry. I agree with the premise that no creature should be made to suffer needlessly. That's fine and groovy and all. I am firmly opposed to, for instance, using specially bred rabbits for the screening of cosmetics for their potential to irritate human skin. I believe that we all deserve the same thing in the end, humane treatment during life, and a quick, hopefully painless, death. However, I cannot forget some simple facts of life.

FACT 1: No matter what you're eating you are ending life, unless you are a photosynthesizing plankton.

Celery is alive, until one cuts it, and puts it as a rather comical stirrer in one's bloody mary. It is just as alive as a cow, or you, or me. The fact that it is not sensate, in the ordinary understanding of the word, does not make it any less alive. As soon as you cut the celery, you have ended that life. For that matter, every time you breathe, millions of tiny lives are extinguished. I'll only consider the bacterial lives here, because no one is quite sure what to make of viruses yet. Just by being alive, you are a mass murderer.

Don't feel too bad about it. This is the condition of life. When you die, assuming you are not planning to carbonize yourself, the gastric bacteria that you have been slaying by the billions per day will have their collective revenge upon you by consuming your innards and flesh as it decays. Human beings are apex predators.

Does that mean we should gorge ourselves on the flesh of animals 24/7? Hell no. Atkins aside, you're not built for that sort of craziness. If you want to be a vegan, go ahead and be a vegan, what do I care? I know that the human body isn't built for that lifestyle either, but vegans, keep in mind that you're killers too. In the process of eating and surviving, there is no moral high ground.

FACT 2: You can now protest the use of animals in medical research for 50 years longer than you could have in the middle ages.

In a medicine-free society, I would be dead. I have had at least two violent episodes of "strep throat". This disorder is caused by a tiny little bacterium that can and does kill thousands of people every year, even in the presence of antibiotics. Modern antibiotics, even penicillin, have been thoroughly tested on animals before they were put to human use. Very few people over the age of 30 can say that modern medicine has never (at least potentially) saved their life.

There is an unfounded opinion out there that we can now use computer simulations, cell cultures, and other surrogates in place of animal testing. In fact, the medical community uses these all the time. The problem is that we don't know enough to make them particularly applicable, and an animal model is necessary at some point. Animal models do not match 1:1 with human testing, but they are a hell of a lot closer than a few cells in culture, or a heuristic algorithm.

The alternative is clear; going directly to human testing. I'm a biologist, and that idea makes me profoundly nervous, because I know exactly who would be lined up as test subjects. You do too, though you don't want to think about it; the poor, the indigent, the masses of the third world. These would be Merck's new mice. Can you say Tuskeegee? I prefer mice, thanks.

FACT 3: Most human beings in this world do not enjoy basic human rights.

Frankly, I think the animal rights movement is a cop-out on the infinitely more pressing question of human rights. It is simply easier for a pampered people who have never known real hunger and real oppression to get worked up about the state euthanizing a stray puppy than it is for those same people to care about the third-world wage-slaves upon whom they depend for their clothing and their lifestyle.

Trying to change the former is an easy thing. Go down to your local animal shelter, wave signs and chant slogans. To fix the latter, you have to stop wearing Nike shoes, driving Ford cars, and give up a whole range of products that we greedy, self-centered Americans love. Fighting a serious crusade against animal use only demands that you force your particular definitions of morality on your fellow human beings (a favorite Western European pastime anyhow). Doing away with, say, human trafficking and peonage, means ACTUAL PERSONAL SACRIFICE.

Last words

I could go on, but there seems little point. You can't convince the faithful. I used to think of PETA as a sort of odd collection of overly kindhearted but muddle-headed people, until someone brought to my attention that PETA considers chicken farms the moral equivalents of the Nazi concentration camps. That comparison isn't just insulting to the Jews and the Roma, or to the others who bore the brunt of Nazi hatred. It is insulting to all of us.

Oh and by the way PETA people, I don't own my cats. They agree to live with me so long as I feed them, brush them, clean their boxes, and generally do what they tell me to do. Just who is subservient to whom?