I was appalled to read in "U.S. Officials Defend Animal Research" (The Scientist, Jan. 8, 1990, page 1) of scientists succumbing to our age of images and dissimulation to gain support for animal research. Frederick Goodwin's advocating the use of young, attractive spokespersons is as emotively tactless as antivivisectionists parading around children with kittens. What happened to the compelling force of reason and logic - especially in the sciences?
As a teaching assistant in the Applied Ethics program at Colorado State University, I would have given any student with strategies like Goodwin's an "F" for lack of substantial argumentation. This goes for people on both sides of the problem. I also cannot fathom how the creation of "Robert Redford-image" scientists holding hands with poster children is any less of a "disguise" than the tactics of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Personally, I take a balanced approach...
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