Science, Butcher!
People who care about animals have every reason to embrace science and technology.
If we care about animals, about our health, about our environment, we have no valid reason to see science and technology as problems. They are parts of a solution.
Scaremongering is entirely counter productive. Pseudo-scientific mumbo jumbo on topics such as climate change, vaccination, biotechnology or cancer research is not helping anybody. We must understand that trusting people who can use google to make their fear look grounded over trusting highly qualified experts is a fundamentally bad idea.
Granted, big companies with vested interests do, on a regular basis, sponsor research. Now, science itself doesn’t have a political or financial bias and results are results …as long as said results can be published and adequately analysed when they go against their sponsors.
Nothing is black and white.
We cannot use this as an excuse to reject science when it does not confirm our dogma, prejudice, fear, whatever we call it. Charlatans who regularly publish anti-scientific non-sense and get free advertising from bystanders sharing their inspirational quotes on social media are making a small fortune on the back of our ignorance. At the end of the day, we can be pragmatic and take a look at results and consequences. That’s how we know that climate change is real and human activity has an influence on it, that the Earth is not flat and that the Sun doesn’t rotate around it. That vaccination works and is essential and that GMO food is safe for human consumption.
What we can do is support research and more funding for science. We can do so when we vote but we can also directly support an independent lab or an independent scientific initiative.
I cannot tell you how much I wish I was in San Francisco last week for the New Omnivore conference:
More and more people involved in animal issues are understanding the crucial importance of understanding science rather than opposing it.
Virginia Messina, also known as Vegan RD is a an expert in the field of vegan nutrition. It was heart warming to read her wise words on the topics of science and technology in a recent interview with Reasonable Vegan:
I think vegans need to consider the broad range of possible outcomes of genetic engineering, some of which can clearly reduce animal use. Genetic engineering allowed us to stop using insulin from slaughtered animals to manage diabetes. It has given us a vegan flu vaccine. These may be small examples, but they speak to the potential for alternatives to animal use. And of course, there are other exciting possibilities like the Real Vegan Cheese project.
Similarly encouraging is the sound and inspiring v-blogger Unnatural Vegan whose recent entry on GMO and related matters is spot on:
What do we want?
On one side, I see people who believe that rejecting science is an option. I don’t care much for a world where we are back to relying on plants to combat illnesses, where life expectancy is short, where animals might be left alone, free to kill each other and die of various illnesses.
On the other side, I see possibilities to cure diseases, live healthier and longer lives, create a wide variety of animal friendly food and medicine where science and technology can be used to help humans and sentient animals.
Happy Cow was founded in 1999 as a public service to assist travellers and people everywhere find vegan, vegetarian, and healthy food. They are a bit of an institution. I was stoked to see my interview of Jamie Foley from Vegan GMO published in their blog:
Ryan Bethencourt is is a scientist, entrepreneur, and biohacker best known for his work as program director and venture partner at Indie.Bio, a biology accelerator and early stage seed fund. […] Ryan has worked over the last decade in the biopharmaceutical industry to partner on and develop novel drugs from first IND submission to FDA approval with many major biopharmas including Pfizer, AZ, J&J, Sanofi, Takeda, Amgen, Genentech, and other companies in the U.S., E.U., and Japan. He’s also served as COO at Genescient Pharmaceuticals, a longevity focused biotech startup and CEO of Halpin Neurosciences, an ALS focused startup. Ryan’s work has been featured in Wired, TechCrunch, Forbes, the San Francisco Business Times, and other publications. He regularly speaks on biotech innovation and writes for Biocoder, an O’Reilly Media publication.
Ryan prides himself on disrupting the current status quo in both medical and consumer biotech. He was previously the Life Sciences head at the XPRIZE Foundation, the co-founder and CEO of Berkeley Biolabs and the co-founder of Sudo Roomand Counter Culture Labs, where he still retains a board seat.
If you have not yet read my interview of Ryan here at The Animalist, please do:
Be on the right side of history!
The title, “Science, Butcher!” is supposed to be a bit of a pun on “Science, Bitch!” (“Yeah Science, Bitch” is an expression associated with the character Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad. On the web, the phrase is often used to humorously express one’s enthusiasm for new discoveries and practical applications of scientific knowledge.)
So in my mind, you have an enthusiastic animalist facing a butcher, saying “Yeah Science, Butcher!” as we use science to help make lives better for animals instead of eating them and treating them as commodities.
Yeah, I struggle with titles.
