According to NIH's Tom Wolfe- quoted in "Improving The Lot Of The Laboratory Animals" (The Scientist, January 9, 1989, page 1)—it now seems to be acceptable for scientists to adopt an anthropomorphizing attitude in their research with animals.
Why, then, did the Department of Agriculture receive 142 comments from the research community criticizing the department for defining pain in terms of human standards as "too anthropomorphic" in its proposed Animal Welfare Regulations?
Bioethicist Arthur Caplan implies in the same article that the research community isn't keeping up with the ethical views of the public at large. Precisely.
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