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What more evidence do we need to stop killing pigs for food?

#1
C C Offline
https://aeon.co/essays/what-more-evidenc...s-for-food

EXCERPT: [...] Pigs aren’t just cerebral, though: they have heart. When others are in distress, they can express concern and act with empathy. A description of pig behaviours, derived from scientific experiments [...] is so impressive, you might think it was about chimpanzees, elephants or whales. We eat pigs, though, and we eat them on a scale unparalleled in comparison with the rate at which we consume other brainy mammals. [...] We value the taste of pigs far more than we value the lives of pigs.

[...] A good deal of the science writing on pigs aims to increase awareness of pigs’ capacities so that they are treated better. The biologist Donald Broom and colleagues at the University of Cambridge discovered that pigs, with only five hours of experience, can use a mirror to find the location of a hidden object. Mirror-naïve pigs search behind the mirror to find the treat, but after five hours’ practice, 10 of 11 pigs turned away to find the real location of the savoury items within 23 seconds. (A fan blew the food smells away, so that smell cues didn’t confound the process.) This is a cognitive feat because both the concept of the food and its position must be remembered, as interpreted from the non-real-world view of the mirror.

[...] It is useful to know that pigs can and do reason out problems. But recent science, and storytelling, is also revealing that pigs have a running internal narrative going on. They reflect on what happens to them, and what the past meant. Indeed, they think, they feel, they solve problems, they exhibit individuality. Should we be eating pigs at all? What mental or emotional feats would pigs need to pull off for people to stop eating them? Perhaps, though, this is not quite the right question....

MORE: https://aeon.co/essays/what-more-evidenc...s-for-food
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#2
Zinjanthropos Offline
Did not see any evidence for sparing pig from dinner plate in that link. Although convincing people that they should be spared is more easily accomplished by applying human qualities to the animal. We are less inclined to eat a human for supper.

Don't know why but this essay kind of reminded me of Facilitated Communication probably because the principle is the same. People do see what they want to see when there's an intense desire for an experiment to successfully attain the conclusion wished for.

Is this researcher saying it's ok to eat less intelligent creatures?
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#3
C C Offline
(Jul 29, 2017 03:40 AM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Did not see any evidence for sparing pig from dinner plate in that link. Although convincing people that they should be spared is more easily accomplished by applying human qualities to the animal. We are less inclined to eat a human for supper.

Or the discerning of fallaciousness and a formulation of why it is such might sometimes itself be grounded in assumptions which are taken to be necessary or irrefutable, but which the future might reveal to not be the case.

Anthropomorphism is usually defined as the inappropriate attribution of human qualities, capacities or emotions to other animals. But it’s not accurate to claim, as an a priori assumption, that happiness or grief (or profound intelligence) is human, and only human. Many people recognise the thinking minds and feeling hearts of the dogs and cats with whom they live.


Thinkers have opportunistically produced (slavery and oppression buttressing) doctrine in the past that _X_ human group was short on intellect and feelings / pain as internally experienced, if not lacking rich inner narratives to boot. Reason is recruited to defend the status quo as much as to spur change. It only contains "truths" and "oughts" to the extent of when it involves analyzing existing categories / concepts and evaluating whether any new item or proposal is compatible with the applicable one(s) -- granting that even the former hang(s) together coherently. Otherwise it's simply abstract routines (fill the placeholders of the operating templates with a choice of concrete content) -- there no "answers" already residing in bare, rational process.

Thus people arguably aren't so liberated themselves in their mental prowess over animals. Education and output of reasoning just constrict our thought to more systems (tradition). By the same token, the author seems to admit that most or many of us will continue to ride on the momentum of past custom, because we don't like our personal lives, goals, pastimes and enjoyments disrupted, penalized, and debt-stricken by grand utopian engineering schemes.

Turning pigs into food is a culturally embedded practice, bound up with tradition and family. No anthropologist would seriously argue that pig-eating could ever be eradicated. Further, even animals primarily identified as pets aren’t always kept out of the cooking pot, as the annual Yulin dog-meat festival in Guangxi, China, shows.


So the author's emphasis shifts to at least minimizing the brutal afflictions of the porcine folk.

But pigs suffer on an astounding scale on their way to our tables. Of the 100 million pigs annually raised for food in the United States, 97 per cent are confined to factory farms. These farms or CAFOs (concentrated animal-feeding operations) can best be described as ‘huge lagoons of pig sewage’. These farms do great environmental harm, and the pigs there endure short, miserable lives. A worker stationed in a slaughterhouse ‘blood pit’ who was interviewed by Jonathan Safran Foer for his book Eating Animals (2009) describes the culture of aggression that arises in slaughterhouses. [...] It is useful to know that pigs can and do reason out problems. But recent science, and storytelling, is also revealing that pigs have a running internal narrative going on. They reflect on what happens to them, and what the past meant. Indeed, they think, they feel, they solve problems, they exhibit individuality.


Quote:Is this researcher saying it's ok to eat less intelligent creatures?

Possibly not. Appeal is made to vegetarian optimism and idealistic expectations of tomorrow. With broad inclusion of the critter spectrum when it comes to feel-o-rama.

Some humans today hunt, but no one, properly speaking, is a carnivore. We are not like big cats locked in by evolution to stalk and consume gazelles, or house cats who can’t thrive on vegetarian or vegan diets. We’re not even obligate omnivores. At the species level, there’s no biological reason why we must eat meat, as long as we can supplement plant proteins with vitamin B12. [...] The evidence that other animals express emotions is simply abundant, and strong [...] humans are not the only animals whose lives include emotions, cognition, memory, attachments and more. Many animals, ranging from elephants and monkeys to ducks, mourn when a relative or close friend dies. They withdraw socially, or fail to eat or behave in the ways they had before. The evidence that other animals express emotions is simply abundant, and strong.


Quote:Don't know why but this essay kind of reminded me of Facilitated Communication probably because the principle is the same. People do see what they want to see when there's an intense desire for an experiment to successfully attain the conclusion wished for.

What the "let's make up new jobs for people" of special education giveth, psychology finally taketh away. Nothing like a privately warped, molestation-fixated caregiver to create a horrendous publicity nightmare for an autistic student's parents (like Gerry Gherardi specifically, historically).

[...]NARRATOR: Forced out of his home, Gerry Gherardi spent the next six months living at a friend's house, his family life destroyed because of the letters on the board. Despite the fact that there was no other evidence of abuse, the school, the social services and the police all believed that the words had come from Matthew, yet Gerry Gherardi protested complete innocence.

Mr. GHERARDI: I told Cathy, "There's got to be something wrong. It has to be happening someplace else. We have to call up the Autism Society in Washington and find out if they had any literature on facilitated communication and allegations of sexual abuse." When she called them up, they immediately sent us materials and in these materials it showed that it was happening all over the country.

NARRATOR: There were cases in California, in Texas, in Georgia, in Indiana, in Oklahoma, in New York. ["I hate my dad."] The accused included parents, teachers, care workers. ["--fuks me witha dilldo"--] Some, like Gerry Gherardi, had been forced to leave home. Some ended up in jail. Some parents had their children taken away. ["One afternoon the police arrived at my house to inform me that my daughter had [said through F/C] that she had been molested by my husband. They put her in foster care. Of course I couldn't know where because we were now a threat to her. I was frantic with worry. During her stay in foster care, she lost 10 pounds and suffered two black eyes. She had a severe ear infection which finally burst. Does it make sense that she never communicated to anyone [through F/C] that she was in pain ?"]

This is what happened last January to a family in southern Maine. Betsy Wheaton, a 17-year-old autistic girl, began using F/C at school in 1992. One day, using a letter board, Betsy and her facilitator wrote that everybody in her family -- her father, mother, grandparents and brother -- were sexually abusing her. ["He f--ks me and and hhe f--ks me and he makes me hold his penissss."] Betsy and her brother were immediately put in foster care while the case was investigated.

The court appointed a local attorney, Phil Worden, as Betsy's legal guardian. Worden realized that this was more difficult than the usual abuse case. Before considering whether the allegations were true, the court had to decide a more fundamental question: was Betsy the author of the allegations or had they come from her facilitator? ["It looks like ... a ... a slimy and ... white. I'm afraid. I am afraid. My father and my moth ..."]

PHIL WORDEN: I was most worried in my heart about were we going to do justice in this case? If the communications were real and she was being abused, the idea that on a legal technicality we might send the children back would be just absolutely horrible. On the other hand, if these were not real communications, the idea that all this would happen to this family and these children on a bogus idea was also unacceptable. So to my mind, the stakes were extremely high on both sides and it was very important that we reach a quality decision based on the truth. And so I-- you know, what I was looking for was a clean, simple and fairly quick way to just solve that one narrow question: Were these communications coming from the children?[...]


A Frontline special on the controversy of Facilitated Communication

TRANSCRIPT (excerpt)

Prisoners of Silence

[The following program contains explicit language. Viewer discretion is advised.]

Original PBS Air Date: October 19, 1993

Written, Produced and Directed by Jon Palfreman

[...] NARRATOR: The only logical conclusion of the test was that the terrible accusations had been authored not by Betsy, but by her facilitator. The Wheatons are now reunited. The facilitator, devastated by the test results, stopped using facilitated communication and persuaded Betsy's school to stop using it, as well.

After using F/C for over a year, the O.D. Heck Center in Schenectady began discussing whether they should do their own test of facilitated communication.

Ms. PITSAS: My first reaction was, "Why would we ever want to test it? It's working." We-- there were things that people-- that individuals who typed with me typed that I didn't remember consciously being aware of, so I thought, "Well, that's proof enough. Why should we need to test these people? It's their communication."

But just in thinking about it, I-- then I wanted the research to be done because I thought it would prove once and for all, without a doubt, that it was these people communicating and that we were not influencing them in any way, shape or form. I was convinced that it would prove their communication.

NARRATOR: A team of psychologists and facilitators led by Doug Wheeler devised a rigorous double-blind test.

DOUG WHEELER, Psychologist, O.D. Heck Center: Well, this is what we had in mind. It's just a simple T device. The table's split down the middle. Myself, as the researcher, I can stand back here and I'm pretty much out of view of the--

NARRATOR: The facilitator and autistic individual sat side by side, with a screen dividing their visual field. Sometimes they were shown the same picture, sometimes different ones. They tested 12 clients facilitating with 9 staff members, many who were trained in Syracuse. They ran dozens of trials. The results were shocking.

Mr. PAGLIERI: We literally really didn't get one correct response. I mean, it was unbelievable, really, given-- given, you know, our prior belief systems about the whole thing.

Mr. WHEELER: We had-- we ran 180 trials. There were 180 trials where valid communication could have been demonstrated and none-- none did. We had overwhelming evidence for facilitator control. That was the main finding. And it began to dawn on us that the impact on the facilitators was going to be traumatic. Their belief had grown to such an extent and was continuing to grow at that point where it really had become an essential part of their belief system, an essential part of their personality, and people would use phrases like, "F/C is my whole life." "F/C is my life." These people were dedicated. They spent their own money doing training. They spent their own money to buy communicators. The dedication was phenomenal. And we-- and we had evidence that these people were all controlling the typing and we were-- we knew it was unconscious. We knew these people had no idea they were controlling it. That was clear. So, yeah, we began to be very concerned.

Ms. PITSAS It was devastating to see the data just there in black and white in front of you. It was mind-boggling. There was no arguing it. It was clear-cut. To see the look on Doug's face, seated across the table from me, someone who I work with, whose opinion I trust, whose work I trust-- I knew you couldn't argue-- I couldn't argue with those results. It was-- it was devastating to look at it and see it there in black and white in front of me.

Mr. MARUSKA: It's like taking your best friend and going out and they're getting hit by a car and they're dead. It had the same effect. It's just like going through the death process. I mean, all of a sudden, you're slapped with this thing. It's not there. It's a belief. It's something that's ingrained in me. I believe this. This is-- I-- I centered a lot of things around this and now, all of a sudden, "No, it's not."

NARRATOR: Life at O.D. Heck returned to the way it had been before facilitated communication. The clients learned the life skills they would need to survive outside. No longer were they expected to express their thoughts and wishes in complex sentences.

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#5
Zinjanthropos Offline
Agree with MR here, the pig is dead so might as well eat it.

What about this CC? Being incredibly adaptive gives us a huge edge over other tasty but slower evolving creatures. There is no way that our favorite 4 legged food can keep pace. I think it also means that some of us will survive a cataclysmic event, should it occur here.

Now we all have different talents, skills etc. This may aid in our species survival. For example, if something should happen where survival depends on hunting, killing and preparing our food then thank goodness some of us are comfortable and well suited for that. I'm not likely to hook my sled to a ballerina troupe in order to make it. IOW we need to retain our taste for meat just in case....lol.

Can I use the Ice Age as an example of meat over vegetable as dietary preference. Our ancestors probably looked at an animal like the mastadon or mammoth as absolutely necessary for survival, thus the seed/veggie gatherers needed to learn a new skill, one they didn't have.

Perhaps genetic engineering can grow all the meat required by us in Petri dishes so it may be a good thing to accept what they do.
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#6
C C Offline
(Aug 1, 2017 06:10 PM)Zinjanthropos Wrote: Agree with MR here, the pig is dead so might as well eat it.

What about this CC? Being incredibly adaptive gives us a huge edge over other tasty but slower evolving creatures. There is no way that our favorite 4 legged food can keep pace. I think it also means that some of us will survive a cataclysmic event, should it occur here.

Now we all have different talents, skills etc. This may aid in our species survival. For example, if something should happen where survival depends on hunting, killing and preparing our food then thank goodness some of us are comfortable and well suited for that. I'm not likely to hook my sled to a ballerina troupe in order to make it. IOW we need to retain our taste for meat just in case....lol.

Can I use the Ice Age as an example of meat over vegetable as dietary preference. Our ancestors probably looked at an animal like the mastadon or mammoth as absolutely necessary for survival, thus the seed/veggie gatherers needed to learn a new skill, one they didn't have.


Yep, "what we ought to do" seems to evolve with the quality of our living conditions or degree of prowess over the planet. The assorted sensitivities, empathies, moral / rights changes, and POVs that have incubated into effect via the luxuries of modern times probably couldn't be maintained in earlier, more primitive eras. Even if there was philosophy or religion of "enlightenment" dominant in an ancient population, either the resource burden of maintaining it or hypocrisy or failure of tribal management to take up its tenets would be the worm in the apple.

Quote:Perhaps genetic engineering can grow all the meat required by us in Petri dishes so it may be a good thing to accept what they do.


That's the ultimate solution. Or transitioning to postbiological bodies that won't need "food" in any familiar sense.

- - -
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#7
Zinjanthropos Offline
In the back recesses of my mind I'm thinking that being able to genetically engineer our food may go down as one of the greatest adaptations in evolutionary history. It might save the human race one day from extinction. Many spin offs from this including humans being engineered as well.
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