Dissection of animals for non-medical students

[Nerys Ghemor]

This may sound like an odd rant, but I am bothered by the fact that these days, even though computer programs now exist to provide students a cruelty-free alternative, that dissection is still allowed in classrooms for students who do not have a true need to practice on actual animals? Those going into human or veterinary medicine are the only ones I can see having a legitimate need to do something like that.

Some of you may not believe that this is coming from a meat-eater. And believe me, I think that the animals we raise for food should be in much more humane conditions than they are in, and that we ought to respect life sufficiently to not waste the enormous amounts of food that we waste. Food animals ought to live good lives before they go to feed us, and that life should end painlessly. And that life should not be disrespected by wasting what it has given us for our nourishment. One can learn to be thankful for the lives that feed us, to respect that life that we do not waste it or consume it out of proportion with our true dietary needs.

But dissection in non-medical classes...why? Just why?

Unless you have a true need to do so (such as learning how not to make horrible mistakes on living creatures whose job it will be yours to heal) is a cruel and unnecessary waste. I mean, you can't even eat the typical dissected creature, given the chemical preservatives and the unsanitary conditions under which dissections are conducted. All you do is cut it up and throw it away.

Even though it's been many years, it bothers me that when I went to school, people were treated as weak who had ethical problems with participating in dissections and were given punitively difficult and time-consuming work as their so-called "alternative." Granted technology wasn't as far along these days, but now, in 2011 I don't see how there is any excuse when we can simply sit a child down at a computer and let them point and click on a reusable 3-D model to learn the exact same thing, without forcing them to participate in the purposeless waste of a creature.

Yes, I know there are far more important problems in the world than this. But I don't care for wastefulness or inuring children to cruelty. Those are not traits we should be encouraging.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I think there's something to be said for doing a dissection with your own two hands. There's a verisimilitude to that which you can't get from a computer model. And yeah, if you eat meat, this is a rather silly thing to be worrying about. It's not like they're being killed for no reason--it's for education. Personally, I think that's a higher purpose than killing them for sport or for food.

 

[RoJoHen]

I had to dissect a baby pig in high school Biology. I carved my name into its liver.

Truth be told, I don't actually remember learning anything from the experience.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

For some people, there's no alternative to eating meat (due to it not being medically advisable)...however, there are educational alternatives to dissection available.

Unless you're going into medicine and you need that to prevent you from causing pain to a human or animal that you have to treat, I don't see a reason why total verisimilitude is actually required. You don't need that in order to survive, as some people require meat.

As for killing simply for sport, I have no use for that, myself. If you kill it, you should eat it.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I had to dissect a baby pig in high school Biology. I carved my name into its liver.

Truth be told, I don't actually remember learning anything from the experience.

That's rather disturbing. It doesn't sound like a good learning experience to me either.

 

[Hound of UIster]

I have dissected a frog, a shark, a pig and a pigeon. The last one was by far the most difficult.

 

[RoJoHen]

I had to dissect a baby pig in high school Biology. I carved my name into its liver.

Truth be told, I don't actually remember learning anything from the experience.

That's rather disturbing. It doesn't sound like a good learning experience to me either.

It's just something that everybody did in high school. I never gave it much thought.

Thinking about it now, though, I really do have to wonder what the point of it was.

 

[TorontoTrekker]

Unless you're going into medicine and you need that to prevent you from causing pain to a human or animal that you have to treat, I don't see a reason why total verisimilitude is actually required.

But how many high school students already know, with 100% certainty, that they want to go into medicine? I don't remember what I wanted to do with my life when I was 14 and taking high school biology, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't what I ended up doing as I had yet to write my first computer program at that age.

At the very least, it shows the kids who were thinking about going into medicine but who get queasy when they dissect that frog that perhaps an alternate career plan is in order. I don't know about anyone else, but I wouldn't want to be treated by a doctor who got sick to his stomach whenever called upon to perform surgery.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

So you think that student would stay in pre-med, in college, and become your doctor? It's a funny image, but not a logical one. By the time you get to college, I think you're pretty likely to know what will and won't make you sick, and if you find out in college, you can change your major. But better to restrict dissection to where much less of it will actually have a need to happen.

Even better--let prospective pre-med students go and observe what the upperclassmen are doing, to give them the information to make the decision before having to waste some creature of their own.

 

[Myasishchev]

I agree. The preservation materials make the subject so different in texture and feel from a living animal that it's borderline pointless even if you do intend to learn things.

I also suspect there are enough corpses (human and other animal) to supply professional track medical and veterinary programs. Some four million cats and dogs every year, for example (which is fucking monstrous in itself, but there we are). And if there aren't enough human corpses? It's called money.

That reminds me, can I sell a future interest in my corpse to science? I could use some cash.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I don't believe you can sell your organs or your body (no prostitution comments please; that's another thread). I think that's illegal. But you can certainly donate your body to science if you wish.

 

[scotpens]

Granted technology wasn't as far along these days, but now, in 2011 I don't see how there is any excuse when we can simply sit a child down at a computer and let them point and click on a reusable 3-D model to learn the exact same thing, without forcing them to participate in the purposeless waste of a creature.

What, exactly, is being wasted? In high school biology, we dissected sheep hearts that came from slaughterhouses. We also dissected frogs from educational supply houses, meaning the animals were probably raised specifically for that purpose. American bullfrogs aren’t on the endangered list, and not too many people want to eat them.

Yes, I know there are far more important problems in the world than this. But I don't care for wastefulness or inuring children to cruelty. Those are not traits we should be encouraging.

What cruelty is there in dissecting an animal that’s dead, assuming it was killed painlessly?

As for living animals, we used frogs that were “pithed” (insert joke here) prior to dissection. That means their little brains were destroyed with a tool resembling a wire whisk attached to a hand drill, rendering the frogs instantly unconscious but allowing autonomic functions like respiration and heartbeat to continue for some minutes, so we could observe them. The animals did not suffer.

BTW, since I don’t believe in funerals or burial, I plan to donate my body to science. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get dissected by a cute female UCLA med student.

 

[Kestra]

I've done a few frogs, a cat and a pig. The frogs are the worst. I don't mind dissection and I think it can be really useful, but I've had experiences that seemed unnecessary as well. I had a lab where the frogs were anesthetized in a solution, then we had to cut off their heads with scissors, pin them down, slice them open, and put different solutions on their still beating hearts to observe the changes.

I didn't like any of it, found it pretty disturbing, and didn't do the lab. I think a simulation of that particular exercise would have sufficed just fine.

However, most dissections aren't done under circumstances like that, so I don't think it's that much of an issue.

 

[T'Baio]

BTW, since I don’t believe in funerals or burial, I plan to donate my body to science. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll get dissected by a cute female UCLA med student.

With you 100%!

 

[farmkid]

I've dissected a number of things in various classes in high school and college. I can't even remember all of them. The most memorable was a calf we dissected in high school. One of the teachers at my school had a herd of cows and had a two-headed calf born that morning. Naturally, it didn't survive, so he brought it in for our AP Biology class to examine. My teacher cancelled what he had in mind for the day and we gathered around the dead calf while he dissected it. That was over 20 years ago, but I still remember a lot of the anomalies we found. That class (and the few dissections we did in it) were a significant factor leading me to my current career as a scientist. If I hadn't taken that class, or if it had been taught in a different way, I probably wouldn't be doing what I am today.

As for the idea of replacing dissections with computer models, I don't think it's a good replacement. Seeing a picture on a screen is a poor substitute to actually seeing it in your hand and being able to turn and move the parts and feel the texture and consistency. Doing it on a computer would allow you to learn how the parts fit together, but you wouldn't get a good sense of it all. It would be akin to the difference between merely studying the rules of football, watching some games and talking to players versus actually playing the game for yourself.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

I think there's a huge difference between donating one's own body to science--which is something one consents to and puts into legal force of one's own free will (and I do think is a generous thing to do)--and what we're talking about here. That's not even in the same league.

But frankly, if you are not serious about going into medicine or biology beforehand, then I don't think it's worth it to kill or torment some creature just for your information when if you're just a casual student, all you need to know is "how the parts fit together."

And the fact that someone bragged about a vivisection in this thread, like that was fun? That only proves my point about the cavalier attitude towards life encouraged by such wanton, wasteful practices. Unless you are in medicine and doing this to save the lives of people and other animals, it's simply needless and cruel. (And even then--vivisection? Really? That is way too far and points to an even more severe problem.)

 

[T'Baio]

...I don't think it's worth it to kill or torment some creature...the cavalier attitude towards life encouraged by such wanton, wasteful practices....it's simply needless and cruel.

You really should stop eating meat. There's far more cruelty committed to living things in the meat industries than there ever will be in high school science class.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

This thread really brings to mind the expression, "First World Problems."

 

[Kestra]

Who bragged about vivisection?

 

[Holdfast]

Nothing helps you learn anatomy like dissection, nothing.

3D computer simulations are certainly a big help (I wish I had them when I had to learn it, not to mention the massive help the current animations available would have been in learning embryology), but even they're still not the same. And it's not just doctors who need to understand anatomy well; other scientists need to as well, so there is a very valid reason to continue dissection at university level.

Dissection in school, rather than university, well I think its value is more open to debate. I don't think it really helps high school level biology understanding at all. However, and this is important, it's often a very memorable experience for potential young scientists, and might help convince them to study science at a higher level. So I think it has benefits unrelated to its direct educational value.

The argument about vivisection rather than dissection, I'm not going to get into; that's an area that attracts some remarkably extreme opinions and I don't really have the patience, inclination, or indeed, strong enough opinions, to engage in that particular clusterfuck.