Animal Testing - Let it carry on? [Closes 06/03/07]

**GommeInc** · 12-02-2007, 06:10 PM

Originally Posted by dog-egg

you're right Gomme (got your name right this time)!! they do communicate - octopi are quite interesting in how complex their communication is, yet their brain structure is radically different to that of humans

Is there actually a set brain design for certain functions? If there was a life that we've not discovered that has the same intelligence as us, they probably could have a different brain structure. They don't need to be the same, although evolutionary probably plays a bit in this game.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

you're also right that animal testing is one of the most accurate forms of testing - my argument is this...

whether you want to call non-human animals inferior or not, we are still learning about them, and do we really know enough yet to justify using them like that?

I think we learn about animals, thus animal psychology, but I also think people disapprove of animal testing because we get emotionally attached to an animal and link it's pain to what we would think.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

and the most accurate method of testing would always be on a human, or some kind of incredibly accurate simulation (which is yet to be developed because we don't know enough about humans yet either).

But would we want to test a drug on a human? We are trying to save other humans. Doesn't animal testing also work on saving other animals?

Originally Posted by dog-egg

so we have a gulf between what would be the most accurate, and what we can use now, and that is largely filled by non-animal testing

I think it's changed now. I seem to find alot of stuff about lab testing on artificial cells and bacteria. So they seem to test a bit more using them. It still happens though, but they do have a reason for the tests. They're not killing for pleasure.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

i am not advocating an immediate cessation of non-human animal testing, as the scientific community isn't geared up to do that - it would halt progress...

If they didn't test on animals, how would scientists notice the effects? Artificial bacteria, diseases are a bit useless when it comes to stuff like this.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

what i want to see, and indeed it's already happening, is a phasing in of the alternative methods

Only problem with them, is testing on something living is going to give more positive feedback than something dead, to see the effects. It isn't nice, but that's life. The more dominant and powerful creature is what makes itself survive.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

i'm not the type to go around planting bombs at labs and attacking scientists who test on non-human animals- they're doing a job - the job is wrong not the individual

The job may seem wrong, but it is doing something vital to human survival in terms of surviving deadly diseases. I think what some people do, which isn;t bad, but it can be, is sympathize with an animal rather than think what it is doing. Even though we probably relate to the pain it was suffering, we do not fully understand if it will understand it like we do. Even though there is some proof they don't.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

there are plenty of products out there that haven't been tested on non-human animals and the people who use them aren't suffering undiscovered side-effects as a result (or at least as far as i'm aware).

It depends what they are. If they've been made using the same minerals and bacteria as an old drug, then they are bound to be safe. It only fails if a new drug has been created and untested, or when two harmless drugs are mixed and are not known to cause problems.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

as i said before, life saving drugs are a different matter, but lets face it - if you've got cancer, and there's already a drug that's been shown to help and it's been tested positively using tissue cultures, what have you got to lose? why wait that much longer and get more ill and maybe die while they test it on non-human animals? AIDs is a difficult one, and obviously a huge global concern - is it contractable by non-human animals? (i believe cats have a form of it) - how relevant and indeed dangerous might it be to test it on non-human animals? isn't it a bit like testing the effectiveness of mad cow disease treatments on crocodiles?

Obviously you won't wait for a new drug when there is already one that could help calm the symptoms or gently relieve you of suffering. I think they only test on animals to see what effects a new drug has. They only test using old drugs or slightly modified to see if they modifications have changed anything. You could expose an animal to AIDs (via injection or other way) and test out the new drug. The symptoms might vary, but if they disappear, then the first stage of testing is complete. It could then move to human testing, which is in-advisable, or bacteria/cell testing.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

your gun argument is a bit odd i thought - the rest was good, but if you point a gun at a human who's never seen one, they wouldn't know what was happening either as was often the case during the colonial period

Curiosity is something humans are very good at. Of course every animal has some aspect, but humans have a stage beyond curiosity where we can question what it is that thing pointed at us is. Rational thought, what animals don't have alot of.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

the pro-testing arguments have a strange ring to them as on the one hand they say "animals aren't like us so it's acceptable to test" and then they say "they are like us" to justify the accuracy.

The way their bodies are formed are like us, but their process of thought isn't. I don't think humans are going to try testing brain disease on an animal anytime soon. We've got a different build of brain.

Originally Posted by dog-egg

phase out non-human animal testing is what i say - because it really does go against the values that we hold closest - our own humanity.

Humanity and animals aren't really the same, value wise. Unless we have an emotional bond between them, where pets come in. Loving an animal you've not known isn't much. We just feel an emotional link with ourselves so we have some idea what it is feeling.

That is how I see it anyway

Originally Posted by dog-egg

btw - a big thanks for arguing in a non-personal way! we might disagree on things but that's all it is

I tend to steer away from it. It just gets you more focused on personal attacks than the argument. I also ignore insults, I find them pointless on a forum where something isn't that serious in the short run (if that's a phrase).

-Dispute · 12-02-2007, 09:49 PM

I like animals yeah, but I dont totally dissagree with it, because I'd be a hippacrit (sp) if I was like ' YEH STOP IT' Because, I buy any products,as do many of you, that have been tested on animals, but I wouldn't mind it stopping, for cosmetics sakes

A4AOwen · 13-02-2007, 02:28 PM

I don't really know, It's ok sometimes but sometimes it's not. If it hurts the animal alot I think thats harsh but if it doesn't hurt them I think it's ok.

Kymux · 14-02-2007, 12:29 AM

dont stop it.... kill a few animals to maybe save the lives of 1000s of people or even 1000s of animals... depends what theyre testing.... i think its good, but not when the conditions the animals are kept in are appaling....

Mentor · 17-02-2007, 06:53 AM

Originally Posted by dog-egg

however, i'd like to know how you see "4) we do know animals arent clever, and we know there not capable of communication." as a 'perfectly formed argument' ?

Thats not an argument, thats a claim, Arguments are what is used to back the claims up.

i realise that there have been some long and convoluted posts on here, which are difficult to follow, or just plain boring to do so, but there are some valid points in them

On this i solidly agree.

there ARE alternatives to testing on animals, such as tissue samples and voluntary human testing... as Mentor has said, a lot of testing IS done on tissue samples so the product is already pretty safe by the time that stage of testing is complete

That makes no sence? You say there "ARE" alternatives, yet you fail to suggest any. The tissue sample testing is a completely different stage in the testing, it is in now way, shape or form a replacement to animal testing. Its like claiming testing the seatbelt in a can be done instead of crash testing. There not the same thing. Just because a seatbelt works doesn't mean the front of the car will crumple correctly and not crush the occupant anyway.

Animal testing is still a very important stadge.

Anyway the point of my post rather than a response was more to attempt to present my argument in a clear and less confused and rambling way.

My view is: Animal testing is necessary and should continue

This belief is based on a number of other beliefs i hold.

1) Humans have the evolutionary right to use other animals for our own preservation.
The logic:
-We are an animal at the top of the food chain.
-All animals use animals lower in the food chain than them in order to survive, most commonly in terms of food.
> Animal testing is the use of animals in order to help us survive, hence i believe it is justifiable.

2) In the real world something has to die.
The Logic:
In the world something has to die, you cant save everything. Take rabbits and fox's. If you save the rabbits from fox's the fox's will starve to death and die. If you don't save the rabbits from the fox's the rabbits will be eaten and die.
I believe the same apply to animal testing.
If you save animals from being tested on, Humans WILL die and suffer as possible research and information WILL be lost, which would otherwise have been used to develop cures and save human life's (and the life's of other animals to). If you don't save the animals. Animals WILL die and suffer during the testing .

3)I don't believe animals can suffer in the same way as a human can.
A) Humans are the only animal that is self aware, and it is awareness of pain and suffering which is the cause of the great majority of that suffering. Without the awareness, suffering in terms of what we mean by it as humans, is meaningless. (hence why i apply the toaster analogy earlier on, as for a toaster suffering is equally meaningless, although this is a poor analogy as a toaster can not tell if its damaged, your computer on the other hand can, so makes for a better analogy)
B) My belief animals are not self aware stems from two main points.
i. Animals, bar humans, have no frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is what accounts for most higher functions in the brain, without it, we are not conscious.)
ii. Animals are unable to comprehend language**, from empirical observation* an animal is in not capable of comprehending and understanding the meaning of language. In the same way as a computer is not. Although you can type words in a to a computer, it can help you spell them, use them to tell you things, even hold a conversation with them (chat-bots) it still is unable to apply meaning to the words or understand there context. A dog my hear the word walk, and get excited, not because it understands what you mean by the word walk, simply because it associates that word with the walk which usually follows it. If you hold a conversation about walks when your going to take the dog, etc etc, then before every walk say "Potato"***, it will associate the word potato with the walk, hence get excited at that, regardless of you using words correctly the rest of the time. This is because the dogs knowledge comes purely from instinctual associative learning powers not the ability to comprehend language or understand words. This example can be applied to animals in the wild, for example how many social animals will communicate warnings to each other, it is obvious how this evolved, as its essential for survival. Comprehension above that though, is not, at least not in any other species than humans (we required the ability to communicate very complex ideas and concepts to each other due to are technology usage, and requirement for abstract thinking, an evolutionary path we are the only surviving species from.)

* Limitations noted.
** Language in this sense is used to cover all forms of advanced communication, not purely speech.
*** This is from a puppy, and older dog will likely have already learn word associations.

C) Arguments drawn from claims that different brain make up in different animals can also achieve self awareness are self nullifying.
If you believe self awareness can exist in non standard forms, we can bring up the issue of plants. Plants, lack any central nervous system or brain in any convention sense, most vegetarians will avidly argue that this means they cant feel pain, despite then attacking the meat eating community, whom are effect making the same argument, with evidence of the lack of a frontal lobe.
Empirical evidence has shown:
i) plants can count. The venus fly trap as a well known example, will not close unless it senses 3 or more movements, so as to stop it having to waste effort closing, if its just a stray twig, not a fly or something. this suggests intelligence of some degree does it not.
ii) plants can move, although often not noticeable to us, most plants will follow the sun around the sky all day, by night they will point the oppersit way they did the previous morning. Even with an artificial light source, they will follow it, where ever it goes.
iii) they make sounds, again beyond the human hearing range, many plants will "scream*" when cut, or if they don't have enough water.
iv) plants can tell where they are. Plant a see upside down, or side ways, the stem will still grow upwards.

So if plants can exhibit behaviors like these, isnt eating them even worse as there far more defenseless than most animals? And seeing as we do have to eat something, or we will die, as i put forward in the "something has to die" argument. If we want to live, we have to kill them(or animals) self aware or not. nullifying the entire argument against them.

*Scream is a questionable word to use, since it implys intention, but then again, animals screaming, is equaly questionable in reality.

4) Id rather an animal suffered and died, than a human.
The logic:
A) Im a human, my friends and family are humans, i have more attachments to humans. Hence humans to me seem more important.
B) As in Utilitarian philosophy. The greatest happiness for the greatest number. 10 die so a million can live is justifiable.

----------------
This i hope more clearly puts over what im trying to say, plus should make it alot easer to clearly target any of my arguments or beliefs put forward for criticism.
It should be noted, discrediting/disproving one of my claims alown, will not destroy my conclusion which can be reached via any one of the arguments put forward.

If you want to argue against animal testing, please put forward your beliefs, back them up, show the logic behind them, etc. Since you have asked for my belifes a number of times, yet haven't realty ever presented yours.

brodeo · 19-02-2007, 04:02 PM

For cosmetics, certainly not.

For medicine, yes. It comes down to the question, ten years down the line would you rather your mother/father/sister/brother die of an illness which a vaccine could have been produced for if it was tested on animals?

dog-egg · 19-02-2007, 05:57 PM

"Thats not an argument, thats a claim, Arguments are what is used to back the claims up."

Fair enough Mentor, but saying that doesn't make your claim any less incorrect - your claims about the language capabilities of non-human animals are quite inaccurate considering chimps can understand and speak sign language, forming their own simple sentences; whale language has been shown to be incredibly complex; bees can inform other bees of locations through body language... the more you look, the more you'll find!

the stuff about us being at the top of the food chain is fair enough - eat other animals by all means, but don't play with your food

your info on plants is also true - you only need to watch timelapse to see that they respond quite dramatically to different stimuli - but again, I have no problem with eating plants - testing and eating are separate arguments

if you look at my other posts after the one you referred to, i cited several methods of testing that would ensure that a product could be safe enough to then move onto the voluntary human testing without the non-human animal testing phase

it seems that you maybe missed the point of that scenario i mentioned with the guy nailing a puppy's paws to the ground and letting it starve - i'm pretty sure that nobody would agree that it was an ok thing to do, so why is it suddenly ok if it's in the name of medical research?

you want my beliefs? i think i made them pretty clear, but maybe i didn't:

a) dominance or perceived superiority over another living thing does not give you the moral right to do whatever you want to them - Hitler tried that one and he wasn't too popular...
b) eating non-human animals (and plants) is obviously fine, unless you're making a protest about how they're kept on farms. and in reference to the plant thing, i don't like tidy gardens - i like wild ones, where plants are left to their own devices
c) non-human animal testing is not as accurate as testing on humans, so if you want the products then speed the testing process up and volunteer, and don't be put off by one scare-mongering incident in millions of unreported successful human testing cases
d) support alternative testing methods (see earlier post for a list) as they can do away with many of the tests currently done on non-human animals
e) we should realise that we're still learning what non-human animals can and can't do, so we should be open to the very real possibility that we could be wrong about how much they can suffer
f) the point is, they DO suffer to some degree and it's unnecessary when there are other alternatives
g) a random guy buys a chimp, cuts it's skull open and puts electrodes in it in his living room for no apparent reason is condemned by much of the western world, but if he's a scientist and does it in a lab to test theories on the brain then suddenly it's ok
h) as someone once said, 'sometimes logic only allows us to be wrong with authority' - it all boils down to whether you care about non-human animals or not, and logic from that point can take you to a case on either side: from my perspective, i don't like to see any kind of suffering so i would like to see non-human animal testing phased out for something more accurate and less destructive
i) with reference to your number 4 point above:
"Im a human, my friends and family are humans, i have more attachments to humans. Hence humans to me seem more important."
then presumably you'd rather someone you didn't know in another country died than someone you do know, as most people do: that's one of the reasons WARS break out... surely, all life is precious and until people get that then there will not be an end to killings and suffering amongst us... look at how soldiers make it easier to kill by giving the enemy labels that make them seem less intelligent or sub-human, and take the **** out of their language... then take a look at your arguments about non-human animals and draw some parallels...
don't say 'i'd rather they died than me', say 'i'd rather nobody was dying'
then apply that to non-human animal testing
j) the argument of 'just a few animals dying, to save millions of people' kinda falls down when you look at some of the statistics of how many actually die or suffer each year... search on the net - plenty of quite scary results

Summary: phase it out - it's morally wrong, and volunteer for testing - your drugs will arrive a lot quicker and be more effective... and they won't be at the expense of another life that's incapable (we currently believe) of having a say in what was done to it!

and one last thing for you to ponder Mentor - give someone an apple and he has 1 apple right? give him another and he has 2?
but in reality, the apples aren't identical and they are different sizes, so is a bigger apple still 1? is there an exact size of apple that denotes 1 apple to which all other apples can be compared to? no
mathematics is all about approximations, and taking something as a 'given' in the first place - there is no such thing as an exact science
by simplifying things down into equations, a mathematician ignores a myriad of external factors that would make the equation impossible to solve... beyond maths and logic, there is LIFE where morals play their part:

what may seem like perfect logic can also be terribly wrong

Mentor · 20-02-2007, 09:18 PM

Originally Posted by dog-egg

"Thats not an argument, thats a claim, Arguments are what is used to back the claims up."

Fair enough Mentor, but saying that doesn't make your claim any less incorrect - your claims about the language capabilities of non-human animals are quite inaccurate considering chimps can understand and speak sign language, forming their own simple sentences; whale language has been shown to be incredibly complex; bees can inform other bees of locations through body language... the more you look, the more you'll find!

This is why i didnt want to bring up the ideas of true language acquisition and mentioned there would be little point. You have no idea what the hell im talking about. There is a very big difference in the communication levels being talked about. I can write a program for my computer which will allow it to communicate on a level way above that a chip is capable of. I can even make it so my computer can learn new words, the Alice Chat bots are good examples of this functionality. The computer still lacks anything close to true language aqusition or sentience.

the stuff about us being at the top of the food chain is fair enough - eat other animals by all means, but don't play with your food

your info on plants is also true - you only need to watch timelapse to see that they respond quite dramatically to different stimuli - but again, I have no problem with eating plants - testing and eating are separate arguments

Youd move to ban plant testing?
Plus whos playing, animal testing is used to obtain information which we can use to survive. Thats not the same thing as playing.

if you look at my other posts after the one you referred to, i cited several methods of testing that would ensure that a product could be safe enough to then move onto the voluntary human testing without the non-human animal testing phase

I haddnt actually looked at the majority of the argument after my last post up until my next one.
Although, it see it very likley that most if not all these methods are already employed. Hence making it safe enough for Animal testing. Having no concept of volentearing, the who vol entry issue is pretty irrelevant to an animal, making it so is just anthromphiseing under your own values. After animal testing shows somethings safe, then we have the human testing.

Because theres stuff before animal testing, doesn't make animal testings data any less important. In a few 100 years this may not be the case, but currently we simply dont know enough to not use animals, we may think we know somthing, but when we test it the results could be completely differnt. Are knowlage on the subject is finite, which means are abilty to predict the effects without testing on a full lifeform is also finite.

it seems that you maybe missed the point of that scenario i mentioned with the guy nailing a puppy's paws to the ground and letting it starve - i'm pretty sure that nobody would agree that it was an ok thing to do, so why is it suddenly ok if it's in the name of medical research?

A) that sort of thing doesnt happen in animal testing.
B) animal testing is for survival, not for pleasure. Suffering is essental for the first, but not the second, and pleasure from it is a little ****** up IMO, dispite being based more in the anfromophising of the animals in order to gain it.

I dont belive suffering should happen when it is not nessassry. But in the case of animal testing, it is.

a) dominance or perceived superiority over another living thing does not give you the moral right to do whatever you want to them - Hitler tried that one and he wasn't too popular...

Your on a roof with a sniper rifle, hitler is below in the streets, before is reign is in full swing. You have the abilty to kill him, and stop all the suffering and pain that follows and is caused by him? Do you think its right to kill him?

You have an animal, from testing on it you could cure canser, save millions of lifes, animals and humans alike. is it right to test on that animal, possibly kill it in order to stop all that suffering?

The situations are the same. The dominance over an animal doesnt give you a moral right to do what you want with it. BUT weighing up the alternatives does give you moral justifcation.

Save the rabbits, let the fox starve to death, a slow painful death. Let the fox kill the rabbits, rabbits suffer being ripped apart alive. fox doesnt die.

The decision depends really on weather your a fox or a rabbit in the scenerio, somthing has to die, id rather i wasnt that somthing. The same really applys here, since im the human, id rather it was the other thing that died as opposed to myself and other humans.

b) eating non-human animals (and plants) is obviously fine, unless you're making a protest about how they're kept on farms. and in reference to the plant thing, i don't like tidy gardens - i like wild ones, where plants are left to their own devices

In a wild garden your going to have trouble in getting the crops required to feed people. Fields are necessary for that purpose, the same is true of farms, as the human population is far to large to be sustained without us taking control of many of natures variables.

c) non-human animal testing is not as accurate as testing on humans, so if you want the products then speed the testing process up and volunteer, and don't be put off by one scare-mongering incident in millions of unreported successful human testing cases

Humans and other animals are very similar, the data may not be as accurate, but it still has a high degree of success in judging these things, useing a one type of tap, may not provide completely accurate results on what would happen when you use another type. despite this, most of the time there the same. Id much prefer 20 rats die in animal testing due to a problem with a drug, than 20 humans. That may just be me though.
(remember, the drug failures in animals go unreported, the reason nearly all human testing is successful is down to the animal testing happening first)

d) support alternative testing methods (see earlier post for a list) as they can do away with many of the tests currently done on non-human animals

Many of these tests arnt specifically done as they focus on small arias, which any drug devloped should already almost certianly have worked out, or a few people are gona be looseing jobs.
The tests arnt specifcaly done on animals, the rest a result, since you cant test the effects of somthing on an animal without also gathering information such as noteing the toxicity of certain things

Animal testing happens becuse its testing the whole animal. Testing the tyres on a car, the windscreen, the engine, are all important yes. But testing the car as a whole, with all the bits put together, is also an important stadge. Thats what the animal testing is.

e) we should realise that we're still learning what non-human animals can and can't do, so we should be open to the very real possibility that we could be wrong about how much they can suffer

It isnt possible to conculstivly demostrate one way or the other, absoulty to whom is right here, its a matter of opinion based on the limited amount of evidance avaible to us.
What i will say is, even if animals can suffer, just as much as humans, my argument stands uneffected, as its based more on the nessisity, and the fact im a member of the human one.

f) the point is, they DO suffer to some degree and it's unnecessary when there are other alternatives

As ive said, i dont belive any of these alternatives come close to reproduceing the real thing. In the same way a computer simulated car doesnt compare to a real car. And we can simulate cars one hell of alot better than we can come close to, in simulating an animal.

g) a random guy buys a chimp, cuts it's skull open and puts electrodes in it in his living room for no apparent reason is condemned by much of the western world, but if he's a scientist and does it in a lab to test theories on the brain then suddenly it's ok

This is more an outlook question, if in doing this, the guy somehow figures out a cure for deminsia, he'll probably be hearled as a hero.
Its ok when the scientist does it becuse, there doing it for a reason, and the likely hood of success is actualy pretty high. The reaserch is nessary for improveing our own understanding and helping to preserve ourselves as a species.
The random person doing it for a random reason, is not nessary and provides no benifit. Suffering without nesseisty = bad.

h) as someone once said, 'sometimes logic only allows us to be wrong with authority' - it all boils down to whether you care about non-human animals or not, and logic from that point can take you to a case on either side: from my perspective, i don't like to see any kind of suffering so i would like to see non-human animal testing phased out for something more accurate and less destructive

Id like to see the same thing. Unluckly, im a realist. I know and accept, there arnt any real alternatives, scientist dont cause animals to suffer becuse they think its fun, they do it, as they know there isnt another option, if the partical aria of reaserch is to be looked in to.
If we knew enough to perfectly simulate an animal, wed most likly know enough to perfectly simulate a human, so no testing would be needed. The facts how ever that we dont, so we cannot.

then presumably you'd rather someone you didn't know in another country died than someone you do know, as most people do: that's one of the reasons WARS break out... surely, all life is precious and until people get that then there will not be an end to killings and suffering amongst us... look at how soldiers make it easier to kill by giving the enemy labels that make them seem less intelligent or sub-human, and take the **** out of their language... then take a look at your arguments about non-human animals and draw some parallels...

Your right. But i see it as a somewhat pointless question, Would you rather your parents died, or some person youve never heard of. We value those we have connections with, more than those we dont. its human nature and im a human.
Humans by defult dont really like to kill, which is why in war times, they can only do what they do but ignoring the enimys own humanity. despite this reacent stats show, 70% or higher people in WW1 for example aimed to miss. Most people dont really like killing. But the options not always there, sometimes for your own survival, or even that of others killing is necessary. animal testing is also nessary.

I don't say 'i'd rather they died than me', say 'i'd rather nobody was dying'

But, as ive said, we live in the real world, not fanticy land. Im a realist. The option isnt always there.

Fox dies or rabbit dies. Its impossible to save both, weather you want to or not.

j) the argument of 'just a few animals dying, to save millions of people' kinda falls down when you look at some of the statistics of how many actually die or suffer each year... search on the net - plenty of quite scary results

How many what? how many people die? millions every day? or how many animals die in testing, alot less. Animals in the wild. Alot higher.
Its becuse of animal testing we dont see that so much now days, most familys havent got at least half the orignal number dead by one of many decises around now. We reap the benifits already.

Summary: phase it out - it's morally wrong, and volunteer for testing - your drugs will arrive a lot quicker and be more effective... and they won't be at the expense of another life that's incapable (we currently believe) of having a say in what was done to it!

Morally wrong, according to your morallity, not mine.
Alot more humans will die in the testing, without the animal testing first. It will become very unsafe, which will put most the human testees of i exspect.

and one last thing for you to ponder Mentor - give someone an apple and he has 1 apple right? give him another and he has 2?
but in reality, the apples aren't identical and they are different sizes, so is a bigger apple still 1? is there an exact size of apple that denotes 1 apple to which all other apples can be compared to? no
mathematics is all about approximations, and taking something as a 'given' in the first place - there is no such thing as an exact science
by simplifying things down into equations, a mathematician ignores a myriad of external factors that would make the equation impossible to solve... beyond maths and logic, there is LIFE where morals play their part:

what may seem like perfect logic can also be terribly wrong

Actualy.. an apple isnt a mesurement of the subtance apple. its a thing in itself. If you have one small pool and one big pool, you have 2 pools. Since a pool is an item, and the amount of an item has nothing to do with the size or value of those items. So no simplifcation is takeing place, if a mathmatition wasnt asking how many apples you had, much how much apple you had. We would be useing the weight of the apples instead, although thats till two simple, differnt types of apple, have differnt nutrational content, differnt shapes, some may have bad bits, some may be more dence.
This is why in science so many varibles and controls have to be strictly noted and understood, it deals with very low level stuff, and will look at a great deal of it, as the averge is a better refrelction than a one off.

Humans have one life, the worth of those lifes has no effect on that count.

The math you learn in primary school is simplifed, the math you learn in high school is a little less simplifed. The math you learn in A levels is less simplifed still. Undergrad -> post grad. At the top, that simplifcation doesnt exist, its just for those not takeing a job useing math, a massive understanding of it is not requred, so teaching it to such a high level has no use and is a waste. But just becuse we only expernce the simplifed stuff, doesnt mean the real math doesnt exist.

The flaws you point out are only from your limited view point of a subject, and should not be taken to reflect the actuality of the subject. Also your misusing words. 1 apple will always be 1 apple, despite its size or any number of other facters, since the count is other the amount of apples, not of an apples value, worth or any over varible you may wish to apply to them.

dog-egg · 21-02-2007, 03:26 AM

ok Mentor - you've said a lot of the same things again here, some of which are answered by my earlier posts but i'll respond to a few just for clarity