Stop Torturing Animals in the Name of Science
别以科学为名折磨动物
By Hope Ferdowsian
Perhaps no one has been more vilified for his sentiments about and actions toward animals than René Descartes. Many scholars attribute the 17th-century belief that animals were mere machines devoid of fear, pain or pleasure to the French mathematician, philosopher and scientist. Animals' feelings, even if present, were morally irrelevant to Descartes, who attempted to prove his point by subjecting dogs and rabbits to exquisite torture.
也许没有人比勒内·笛卡尔更因为他对动物的感情和行为而受到诽谤。许多学者认为，17世纪存在的认为动物只是没有恐惧、痛苦或快乐的机器的看法应归因于这位来自法国的数学家、哲学家和科学家。对笛卡尔而言，动物的感情即使存在，从道德上讲也与他无关。笛卡尔试图通过对狗和兔子进行严刑拷打来证明这个观点。
Today, within society and the sciences, these Cartesian views are rarely tolerated. On the contrary, multiple disciplines within science and philosophy have evolved to better understand the minds and experiences of animals. New generations of learners have demanded that their curricula include attention to the suffering of animals. Scientists have also become more concerned with how the pain and distress animals experience in the laboratory may affect interpretations of data obtained through animal research.
今天，在社会和科学界，很少还有人能容忍笛卡尔的观点。相反，科学和哲学中的多个学科已经得到发展，来更好地理解动物的想法和经验。新一代的学者们要求他们的课程关注动物的痛苦。科学家也越来越关注动物在实验室经历的疼痛和忧伤会如何影响对动物研究中获取的数据的解释。
In 1959 concerns about the research implications of pain in animals led zoologist William Russell and microbiologist Rex Burch to propose the "3Rs" framework, which emphasizes replacement of sentient animals with “less sentient” animals or non-animal methods, reduction in the numbers of animals used in research protocols and refinement of the pain and distress animals experience during research. Researchers, reviewers and oversight bodies continue to rely on this framework more than 60 years after its original publication in The Principles of Humane Experimental Technique. National and international guidelines governing the use of animals in research have been drafted and continually updated to reflect compliance with the 3Rs. Yet the 3 Rs framework allows for experiments that parallel those performed by Descartes—if the cruel character of the research can be justified in the name of science.
1959年，动物学家威廉·罗素（William Russell）和微生物学家雷克斯·伯奇（Rex Burch）对动物疼痛的研究结果表示关注，他们提出了“3R”框架，强调用“不那么有知觉”的动物或非动物方法取代有知觉的动物，减少研究方案中使用的动物数量，改善研究期间动物的疼痛和忧虑体验。研究人员、评论员和监督机构在《人文实验技术原理》一书最初发表60多年后，仍然遵守这一框架。各种有关在研究中使用动物的国家和国际指导方针不断被起草并得以更新，以反映对3R的遵守情况。然而，3R框架允许进行与笛卡尔所做实验类似的实验，只要研究的残酷性可以以科学的名义进行辩护。
The expectations for animals used in research have evolved differently from those for human research. Despite a painful “science first” history fraught with injustices such as racism, sexism and ableism, human research has become more ethical. Public outrage over human research practices, including the 40-year-long U.S. Public Health Service Syphilis Study at Tuskegee and the 14-year-long hepatitis studies at the Willowbrook State School in New York, led Congress to establish the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research in 1974. Within five years, the commission published the Belmont Report, which set forth foundational ethical principles to guide human research. Using a broad framework of justice, the commission’s approach highlighted the importance of avoiding actual and potential harms—particularly in research involving individuals who could not provide consent or those who could be targeted because of their vulnerabilities in society.
对动物研究的期望与人类研究的期望有所不同。尽管有过一段令人难过的“科学优先”的历史，充满了种族主义、性别歧视和体能歧视等不公正现象，人类研究已经变得更加合乎道德。公众对人类研究实践表现出巨大的愤怒，包括在塔斯基吉进行的长达40年的美国公共卫生服务梅毒研究和在纽约威洛布鲁克州立学校进行的长达14年的肝炎研究，这些都促使美国国会于1974年成立了国家保护生物医学和行为研究人类受试者委员会。在五年内，该委员会发表了《贝尔蒙报告》，其中规定了指导人类研究的基本伦理原则。委员会的要求基于广泛的正义框架，强调了避免实际和潜在伤害的重要性——特别是在涉及不能提供书面同意书的个人或由于处于社会弱势地位而可能成为受害者的个人的研究中。
The Belmont Report revolutionized regulations related to human research, although its call for respect for autonomy and obligations to justice, beneficence and non-maleficence—the principle of “do no harm”—remain aspirational in many ways. Still, few would dispute its significance as an ethical framework that places anti-maleficence and justice front and center in decisions about whether human research projects should proceed.
《贝尔蒙报告》彻底改变了与人类研究相关的法规，尽管它对尊重自主权以及对公正、善行和不行恶义务——即“不伤害”原则——的呼吁在许多方面仍然是理想化的。尽管如此，很少有人会质疑它作为一个道德框架的重要性，在关于人类研究项目是否应该进行的决策中，它将反恶行和正义放在首要位置。
The time is long overdue for a similar aspirational framework for animals. The practice of research involving animals must come to terms with centuries of scientific findings that lay bare the capacities and experiences of nonhuman beings.
为动物制定类似的理想框架，早就是时候了。涉及动物的研究实践必须与数百年来揭示非人类生物的能力和经验的科学发现相适应。
Today there is broad consensus among people who study the capacities of animals that many species are conscious, feel acute and chronic pain and discomfort, and experience emotional trauma in the form of disordered psychology. When animals in laboratories are held captive, subjected to painful experiments, separated from family and peers, forced into sexual activity, exposed to ongoing threats to their own lives and witnessing harm to other animals, their bodies and minds are substantially altered. In laboratories, these harms accumulate and multiply in settings in which animals have no real opportunity to build resilience and experience the richness of life.
今天，研究动物能力的人们达成了广泛的共识，即许多物种都有意识，会感到急性和慢性疼痛和不适，并经历精神错乱形式的情感创伤。当实验室中的动物被囚禁，经受痛苦的实验，与家人和同伴分离，被迫进行性活动，自己的生命受到持续威胁并目睹其他动物受到伤害时，它们的身心都会发生重大变化。在实验室中，当这些动物没有真正的机会锻炼自身韧性并体验生活的美好时，这些伤害会积累并扩大。
Extending the Belmont Report principles to animals would set the stage for a just and anti-maleficent framework for decisions about the use of animals in research. It would also help promote increased transparency, improved academic standards of publishing and greater investments in more reliable and translatable human-centered, modern research methods. It might also have the benefit of recruiting younger and more diverse learners who care deeply about justice to participate in scientific innovation. Four hundred years after Descartes, isn’t it time?
将《贝尔蒙报告》原则扩展到动物，将为关于在研究中使用动物的决策建立一个公正和反恶行的框架。它还有助于提高透明度，提高学术出版标准，并加大对更可靠和可转化的以人为本的现代研究方法的投资。它还可能有利于招募更年轻、更多元化、在乎公正的学者参与科学创新。笛卡尔之后四百年，不正是时候了吗？
【VOCABULARY】
1. vilify v. 诽谤；中伤
2. sentiment n. 情绪；感情
3. subject vt. 使服从；使隶属；使遭遇
4. justify vt. 替 ... 辩护；证明 ... 正当
5. evolve v. (使)逐步形成；(使)逐步演变；进化
6. revolutionize v. 彻底变革；使革命化
7. beneficence n. 仁慈；善行；赠物
8. maleficence n. 邪恶行径；邪恶性
9. resilience n. 适应力；弹性
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