The speciest Spike

Spiked Online clearly has an agenda in favour of promoting animal experimentation and they're masking it by using their "science section" as a guise for their pro animal torture propaganda.

The UK based Spiked claims to stand for "liberty, enlightenment, experimentation and excellence," but clearly they have no interest in ensuring animal liberty or promoting an enlightened sense of compassion. They are, however, excelling at promoting animal experimentation and de-legitimizing those who they refer to as animal rights "cranks."

Judge for yourself. Here is a sampling of recent articles they have listed in their "science" section:

- We need more drugs testing - on animals and humans: We mustn't let the disastrous trials at Northwick Park hospital blind us to the need for further medical innovation.
- Animal research protests: what next?: The demo to defend the half-built Oxford lab was a very good start, but there are bigger beasts to slay than a handful of animal rights cranks.
- The hard arguments about vivisection: Some scientists advocate experiments on animals while simultaneously apologising for them. Bad move.
- Animal testing: Qui vive? [which is really a link to the Times Online article, I'm on the side of medical science and that entails animal experiments]
- Pro-Test: supporting animal testing: A new campaign by Oxford students makes the case for scientific progress and medical research.
- Man is more than a beast: The primatologist Frans de Waal says we should get in touch with 'our inner ape'. Speak for yourself.
- Chimps and humans: what's in a name?: Whether we classify chimpanzees as pan or homo is a matter for evolutionary biology - not morality.

This last one by Chris Pile really got my back up. He asks, "Could a chimp ever be charged with murder?" referring to a Daily Mail article that pondered the issue of classifying some apes as human. Clearly, the terminology is skewed here and Pile's sensationalistic tone is deliberately meant to mislead; the issue is not whether an ape is human and subject to our social contract, but whether it is a person deserving of protection. Yet, Pile goes on to conclude that "we should be wary of attempting to draw moral conclusions from scientific findings."

What!? We should be wary of attempting to draw moral conclusions from scientific findings?

I'm incredulous. If scientific, rational, and empirical methodologies can't inform our morals or ethics, then what exactly should? The bible? Gut feelings? Come on, Chris! I'm sorry if science is ruining your speciest agenda by undermining all the falsehoods you carry around with you about what animals are capable of doing and feeling.

To my readers: please do me the favour of either deleting your Spiked Online bookmark (if you have one), and/or writing them to let them know your feelings about their lack of journalistic standards, how you resent journalism-as-lobbying, and their depraved indifference to animal welfare.

Tags: animal rights, animal welfare, speciesism, personhood.