Now that’s what I call grant money well-spent!
I just saw a youTube called “Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them,” and I’d recommend it to all! It was narrated by an ol’ white dude (presumably tenured), explaining what he did with some of his $cience grant money, and showed the old fellow actually being….nice to the animals. Quite taken aback, I wanted to send this out to everyone. Yes, the arguments that it’s okay to abuse and torture and exploit (in the Kantian sense of make use of for our own ends no matter how the critter may feel about it) animals because they’re automata, unfeeling, etc., etc., should’ve been defenestrated SO long ago, but I guess it’s pretty much the same $cience money$ that makes sure animal experimentation is still with us. (A rather simple individual with whom I was once mugged in downtown Jersey City said it like this: “Either animals are unlike us and performing painful and traumatizing experiments on them isn’t therapeutically useful anyway, or they’re like us and to perform such experiments on them is wrong.” What can I say, he was kind of a simple guy.) Even though they giggle and play and chase you around if you tickle ’em.
Angela Bocage 