It is unfortunate that the search for moderate reform in animal research is so often ignored in favor of the more flamboyant arguments at either extreme. Most members of our society believe that there are morally important differences between humans and animals, but few would argue that these differences bestow on humans complete freedom in their treatment of animals. The real challenge lies in determining an ethically defensible intermediate position regarding our duties toward nonhuman animals.
This has led to what many consider an unprecedented triumph of politics over science. Laboratories churn out press releases, the scientific equivalent of junk mail. Physicists publicly hail their results as though they were bulletins on the Second Coming, simply because if they did otherwise the politicians and the funding agencies might not believe they were getting anything for their money.
"It used to be," says Dick Taylor, a professor at the Stanford Linear ...
