1 result for (book:deavf2 AND session:910 AND stemmed:book)
[... 18 paragraphs ...]
I will have more to say on that subject later in the book.
[... 15 paragraphs ...]
However, if given a choice, Jane and I now would forgo the “benefits” stemming from animal experimentation, even if our own future welfares were to suffer because of a subsequent lack of knowledge—and providing that at a time of crisis we didn’t weaken in our joint resolve! Following such a course would actually be most difficult, so pervasive in our society are the results flowing from animal research: I even think it might be necessary to live as a hermit in the wild to get away from them. Using animals in the laboratory is imposing human goals and values upon other life forms, even though the modern scientific method is supposed to be value-free. For such research is carried out in the name of progress and the practical common good, of course—and that progress applies also in the remedial treatment of other animals, let us remember. We think that every reader of this book has benefited, and still does, from animal experimentation, some of it most cruel, in ways that he or she can hardly suspect, let alone specify: even benefiting from the use of animals in the study of medical and chemical, beauty and recreational products that can be found in practically every home in the country. Jane and I live in one of those homes. I see the passive, thinking and unthinking tolerance of animal experimentation as a classical case of a society using ends to justify means—yet in the United States, at least, we carefully teach each generation of our species that such rationalizations aren’t morally acceptable….
[... 1 paragraph ...]
3. Originally I’d planned a series of notes for this session, in which to explore Seth’s ideas on genetics versus those held by the scientific establishment. Those plans gradually evaporated as I realized that it would take many pages to compare the two viewpoints in any detail. We’re in the early stages of an extensive scientific growth involving genetics, and certainly by the time this book is published much more information will have been acquired, even if it’s of the same general kind. If they knew about it, I expect that most members of the scientific community would disagree with much of the excellent material Seth gave in this session. Not all would—or will—of course. But Jane and I don’t try to bend others to our way of thinking; the reality that our species is creating is too big and varied for that; we believe only that we’ll have to explore questions like those involving genetics and consciousness in our own ways, and with Seth’s help.
[... 4 paragraphs ...]