Sayonara

Those are just chemical foreplay.

Does anyone else think chilli is probably a euphemism for "explosives"?

Ha, that's a matter of opinion. Stupid humans.

I rather thought the idea of the USA's free speech model was that it guarantees the right of people to speak their mind, but that they are still very much responsible for what they might choose to say, and by extension responsible for the consequences for other people. I am guessing that in this particular case, that's the angle the jury came from.

Also let's not forget that the unique events which affect you outside school will influence the insights and responses that you experience in school.

I am pretty sure the right to free speech ends when you are vindictively and with malice aforethought going out of your way to offend and emotionally wound people who have just suffered a tragic family loss. In the UK there is an offence under the Public Order Act which requires the complainant only to be caused alarm, harassment, or distress. Free speech is not a get out clause in most cases, especially if the "free speech" is actually a hate speech. So if the Phelpses were to try their stunts here, they would be arrested and charged every time. Is there no equivalent in the US?

I don't think this discussion is going to improve at all.

But the last post by rigadin refers to a photon as the observer, which makes your post rather superfluous.

Except in the case of light, where everything pretty much turns out okay.

Assuming you had an observer with no rest mass, they would always measure light moving at light speed, no matter the direction of travel and regardless of their own motion.

Do you WANT to fight me in the sack of argument? DO YOU?

The sack of argument... I like it.

This is actually not true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Royal_Family#Civil_List_and_Parliamentary_Annuities

Are you supposed to have a happy Halloween? I too am pretty sure that photo shows a normal evening in the YT household...

Fair enough. I don't think you will find many here who are critical of a healthy dose of scepticism! This is why I did not specify "animal testing alone", nor did I suggest that there were no alternatives. Perhaps I should have said "assists the relief of" instead of "relieves". Well this is the thing, isn't it? Does a flinch response to pain or a learned evasion response indicate a form of suffering which is comparable or analogous to the human perception of suffering? Read back a few months for previous discourse on that issue. For a start, I did not state that I was tired of discussing anything - I am simply pointing out to you the danger of replying to a discussion without reading it first. Also it's not like I have been looking at this thread for three years straight, although that would be pretty darned impressive.

I am sure there are plenty of drugs and products which were tested on animals which we could have done without, but this would only reduce the number, not remove the need. Since ample evidence exists, this suggests that you are prepared to adjust your definition of "humane" as the evidence is presented. Is that what you intended to say, or is it more that you are incredulous at the thought of justification being possible? (There is nothing wrong with that per se, just establishing context) Read the entire thread and you will see that the major question we attempt to address in this discussion is, in fact, "do animal test subjects suffer?", and that an appropriate definition of suffering is a secondary but pivotal concern. This would only be a concern if humans were for some reason bound to only do "natural" things, which clearly we (a) are not and (b) do not desire. Hand-waving. Human morals are subjective in both their derivation and application, and they are as much a product of our society as they are a product of our evolution. Why should such a moral framework apply to non-human species? And even if it is somehow forced to apply, against what measure of suffering should it be applied? Comparisons are only valid if they compare like for like; despite immense efforts no such likeness has been identified as yet. Because we are making a judgement call on the following basis: 1 - We definitely know that testing on animal subjects relieves massive human suffering, 2 - We do not yet know whether or not testing on animal subjects causes animal suffering. The question you highlighted has already been identified and we have had a jolly good go at discussing it sensibly. The reason it is coming up again now is because it occurs "somewhere" in the 300+ posts between these ones, and the one that was replied to by whoever bumped this three-year-old thread. Your question WAS faulty, on the basis that it attempted to compare cases of an attribute that is invariant between species. I believe you actually intended for the "life of a child" and "life of a lab mouse" to be compared according to some kind of value system, but you failed to identify any such system. Readers are not likely to randomly pick out the specific words in the specific post that you were thinking of when you wrote "life"; they will simply take your post at face value. If in doubt, define your terms!

But this is only because we can't observe any other species doing anything similar on the same scale. There is no real reason to believe that it is "unnatural" for an intelligent species to exploit less developed species to reduce clan suffering. At least, there is no reason that is as compelling and rational as the moral objections are subjective and anthropocentric. Providing an answer to a faulty question can lead the questioner to believe they have a usable answer, so it needed pointing out by someone.

Your first yes is meaningless, since as I tried to explain earlier, a mouse is no more or less alive than a child. Unless you can give the "value" of different organisms a rational basis for comparison, equating them in an argument can only be seen as proposing a truism.

"Equal lives" as a possible outcome of comparison implies unequal lives as another outcome, which is a meaningless concept, since the only states of life are 'alive' and 'dead'. I think he (and therefore you, by extension) is confusing the state of life with a state of sentience, self-awareness, capacity to suffer, or some other anthropic attribute which we associate strongly with the "value" of human life.

I think ParanoiA's underlying idea that it will all sort itself out probably stands in that scenario

Wetlandsmiss, your posts appear to be agenda-bashing, rather than inviting discussion. We are a public forum, not a public soapbox.

I think you may have hit the nail right on the head there. Quoted for emphasis.

You never know. Some civilisations might find "let's use these prisoners to cure [malady]" more acceptable than "Let's inject steam into these prisoners' rectums just to see how long it takes them to die".

I don't think psycho understands the IP system.

No; atheism does make the specific claim that there is no god. Unwillingness to align with a belief either way is agnosticism. Hear hear.