The behavioural cue of ‘flexible self-protection’ is a way to establish whether an animal feels pain, scientists say

Crickets that received the hot probe “overwhelmingly” directed their attention to the affected antenna – they groomed it more frequently, and tended to it over a longer period of time, he says. “They weren’t just agitated and flustered. They were directing their attention to the actual antennae that was hit with this hot probe.”

Link to the paper

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I'm not a scientist, I'm sure there's a clear ethical code doing these experiments.

Instead choosing to stay blind is a dumb choice. How can we improve animal welfare by being blind.

Research like this can improve the circumstances and decisions we need to make regarding pain. Blindly assuming can often do more harm than good.

Instead of pointing fingers, try to reflect and think about it. I can easily point out several cases where your assumptions do harm.

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago

Please elaborate: You can point out cases where the assumption that something can feel pain causes harm?

[–] Solumbran@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

How can it do harm, to assume that other living beings might be suffering? What kind of situation could ever be worse, by just being a bit less self-centered?

[–] Lumidaub@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Wait, sorry, you're arguing in favour of the research, not in favour of harming other beings because you think they don't feel pain. Bit confusing.