 Welcome to Teens On Topic, I'm your host Emma Arnston and today we're talking about animal testing. But first, let's hear from some people around Davis. Do you think that testing on animals should be allowed? I guess from a scientific standpoint, you know, there's some validity to that. Sometimes I feel like, you know, it might not be ethical to try to. But sometimes, like, lab rats are, you know, they are bred for that reason. So I mean, I sort of do, you know, sort of agree with it. Like, it can be acceptable at some points, I think. Yes, I do. It depends on what sort of testing they're doing. If it's for things like the betterment of human health, things like that, without necessarily the, like, the detriment to the animal, then I kind of, I'm for it, sure. No, I don't think that animal testing should be legal. I think that it's very harmful for not only the animals, but the people involved. I feel like maybe on small animals like mice, but nothing bigger than that. Yeah, I kind of agree. I don't really care what the animal is. Basically, if we're going to solve for diseases and a lot of the problems that humanity is facing, we obviously have to test that out and experiment with that. And doing it on humans is probably not a great idea. So animals are the next best option. I think animal testing should absolutely be legal. To expand on that, you know, animals, we have dominion over animals. You know, it was said in the Good Book that Sweet Baby Jesus said that we should be able to test animals and make them suffer if we like. No, not at all. I think there are better ways to determine if a product's safe, especially if they have the test from previous animal testing, they can just recycle that without testing on more animals. So it's like completely, it doesn't make sense. Yeah, basically what she said, I mean, she wrapped it up pretty well. I mean, I don't really know everything about what goes into animal testing, but I think there are a lot of, you know, health problems or like, you know, different dangers for the animal specifically. And I don't think that's really necessary. Thank you guys. Awesome. Well, that was some interesting things that people had to say. Most of them had to say that they agreed with animal testing, but what did you guys think about their opinions? I just learned that Sweet Baby Jesus went for animal testing and for animals to suffer. I did not know that. Yeah, I didn't remember reading about that one. I was learning new things all the time. One of the things that I thought was interesting is how, like, people talked about animals, like testing on animals to help prevent any diseases, but one thing that I feel like people didn't touch on was, like, how harmful it is when they test on animals for, like, makeup companies and, like, hair products and stuff. And so, like, I feel like I try to steer away from companies that are known for, like, harming animals with animal testing just because I feel like if you're buying your makeup from, or, like, hair products from someone that's more, like, ethical, you're getting a better product. I think one of the people there brought up a good point. There's a different, there's a wide variety of ways you can test animals, cosmetic, medical, and, you know, food applications. And it just really depends on if you're hurting the animal, if you should do so. I believe that if you are hurting the animal, you probably shouldn't, but if you're simply, I don't know, rinsing the animal with a product that is designed for humans and won't hurt the animal when I feel that it should be okay and should be allowed. The only important part of animal testing is that, like, it's hard to tell whether you are hurting the animal until you do it, which is kind of why they do testing. I want to go back to the theological implications of this. I think it's, it is interesting the idea that mankind is, I mean, he said he's the word Dominion, that we have Dominion over animals, and the idea that we're allowed to make them suffer. I think it's interesting when you think about how far is too far. You know, I don't know. But it's really tough, and who should be making these pronouncements about what's too far in animal testing? Well, I mean, I feel like about how far is too far, you kind of have to look at the individual case of something. Like, I mean, I don't know really anything about how the process of cosmetics being made and tested works. I feel like that's probably not something where you really need to cause a lot of pain to create them well. So I feel like you should, you know, try to, you know, based on what kind of test you're doing, see, okay, is it really necessary to cause pain? Is there some way we can be more careful about this? But I know, I mean, I feel like in terms of experimenting with medical treatments that could potentially go wrong and harm animals, you know, if that's going to, in the future, help us to prevent the deaths of a lot of humans or the sickness of a lot of humans, I think it's okay that we test that out on animals. And I mean, I feel like the worst pain is the pain that kind of comes with being able to process things more, you know, that kind of comes with self-awareness. So I feel like testing things on animals that aren't self-aware, the pain that they feel, I don't feel like just on a, just instinctually I don't feel like is as bad as the pain that self-aware animals can feel. So I think maybe we should ban testing on, like, octopi and dolphins. For sure. I definitely agree with that. Yeah. And as far as, like, medical treatments and stuff go, like, obviously, if it's going to save lives, like, that is a whole other different story. But it's hard to determine, like, how to, like, what part of that testing is helpful and harmful or unnecessary. But I definitely agree that when it comes to medical stuff, it's a whole other story than just cosmetics. What do you all think of when laboratories breed animals with specific diseases so that they can find a cure? Do you think that's also... Yeah, the point that the guy was bringing up about lab rats, I feel like doesn't make a lot of sense. I mean, they're still animals. I feel like on some level that is even worse. I mean, raising them to have diseases, at least when you don't look at the, like, external consequences of that, that seems pretty immoral. I don't really feel like there are any problems in and of themselves with, like, genetic modification of animals. Maybe things where there's not really an end goal. Like, people, like, scientists have genetically altered some bunnies, I believe, to make it so they glow in the dark. They're obviously not going to try to make glow in the dark humans. So I feel like if you can kind of have some expected consequential, like, impact, you know, some expected thing that is going to help humanity, that it's justified, but I don't think if you are really... I think if you're just doing it for the idea of pure science, then you shouldn't cause suffering. Yeah, I'm just going to take the opposite view of Adam. I think that it's totally fine to have lab rats. I wouldn't want to ever work in that kind of environment. I wouldn't want to be around them. That's kind of creepy to me. But I think it's totally fine to have animals that have little to no significance be there for the betterment of science. But what does scare me is the genetic influx. You see all kinds of scientists around the world coming up with chimeric animals where they're human genes and brain cells put into these animals. And I think it has very, very scary implications for our rapidly changing genetic engineering landscape. And then, yeah. I think another variable we should take into consideration is that no matter how closely related we may be to a certain animal, you know, because we're mammals or whatever, it's not a human. In the end you also got to think that these animals, you know, they cannot 100% predict what the outcome will be on a human. Yeah, exactly. Do you guys think we'll have animal testing forever or do you think this is something like an intermediate step before we come up with something better? I think that we're going to have animal testing for a really long time. I mean, obviously the idea that it would be indefinite is kind of hard to predict, but I think that as of right now, it's kind of just the way to test things without testing them on humans, especially like lab rats and bunnies and stuff like that. So, yeah, I think it's not going to go away anytime soon. It's just about regulations and stuff. I feel like before any experience it is really, really difficult to predict the consequences of some kind of new medication. I mean, to avoid having animal testing, I feel like what you'd have to do would basically be like you create some pill in a lab and say, okay, we know 100% that this is like going to cure X disease in humans and have no side effects. I don't think that's really possible to do before looking at the impact on some animal. Yeah, I definitely think it's going to be here for the long haul. I think as we mentioned before, it's going to change significantly towards genetically modified animals towards these, you know, it's not just going to be lame bunnies, it's going to be a lot of different stuff. It's kind of scary, but I think it's also going to be, I mean, science is always moving us forward and helping us in a lot of ways. So I think despite the possible dystopian aspects that we kind of worry about, there's a lot of good for the human race out of this. What were the bad aspects that you were bringing up? Well, just genetic modifying and chimeric animals and then just the abuse of animals when you look at testing them nowadays. So what do you think is like the bad, where is the bad in like splicing animal DNA? I think when you're mixing human DNA into animals, that's incredibly scary. Just as a reader of comic books. Sure. It's also another thing. What if a human volunteer is to be tested on? What would the case be then? Would you guys know? I don't know. I mean, nowadays we do have clinical trials, right? Yeah. Why don't we just stick to that in that case? I'm not questioning you. I think it's just like starting on a smaller scale, like with lab rats or something like that, like that is like they start there so then they can move on to clinical trials and stuff like that. So just to ensure that there is going to be less harm done to people by the time that they're coming around to clinical trials because a lot of the times like if they're making a medicine like they wouldn't know what exactly the side effects were going to be so they don't just want to kill a whole group of people who signed up for a trial. Right. And I feel like sometimes it's not entirely your choice either. I mean, if you are told that you are going to get like $10,000 to participate in some clinical trial that has some small chance that it will kill you, you know, should we allow people to participate in that? I mean, there are probably going to be a lot of people who are really poor who are going to take that chance and I feel like that will result probably in a lot of kind of horrifying genetic modification of people because of their economic status. Yeah, I don't necessarily think a lot of it is because of money. I think a lot of it is when people start running out of established methods so I think a lot of people when chemotherapy doesn't work in cancer that's when people start moving on to experimental methods. So I do think it will be a lot more to be a lot of medical desperation than economic situations. That being said, I still think that it has the potential for good and bad. Yeah, definitely. Does anyone have any last thoughts they'd like to share? No. Well, thank you all for joining me and us here at the studio. It's been a great time as always. Tune in next time when we have a very interesting topic that pertains to a lot of teens in America.