Re: Fish don't have ethical feet it doesn't mean they can't move- was Re: Ethical feet


"whisky-dave" <whisky-dave@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:dcl3bn$9b6$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> "H Duffy" <Hester_Duffy_nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:3kun3aF1034hiU1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> It's tweo similar studies; they were both on the site which I pointed you
>> to. Remember you said that, to be reliable, experiments should be
>> repeatable by other people?
> Then point to them again or have you forgotten them or what they actually
> said.

Why? What's the point? If you didn't understand them them the first time, me
giving you the same address again isn't going to help. If you want to
re-read them, go back and find the address I posted the first time; it's
still there on google, and it may even still be on your news server.

>>Well, that's kind of the point here. If one group had done one experiment
>>and got those results, it would be interesting but not conclusive.
>>However, since two groups have done very similar experiments, and got very
>>similar results, that confirms that they are probably reliable.
> Yes reliable but not factual, if one person waves a red flag in front of a
> bull and it
> chances them then another trys it with a red flag then another then
> another
> and if a 1000 people all do it that does not prove a bull reacts to the
> colour red,
> well it may do to you but that doesn't make it a fact. On the site you
> said proves the point
> it actually tells you why the experiment conducted may be inclonclusive or
> even wrong.
> Because if the fishes brain hasn't the complexicty to experience pain then
> it won't.

Not my problem; _You_ said that you would accept my hypothetical experiment,
or another experiment like it, as proof that fish feel pain. If you'd
brought up these objections beforehand, that would be one thing, but you
didn't; you _only_ brought them up after the fact. That makes you either
quite stupid or quite dishonest, or both.

However, the point here is that, while fish may not have brains complex
enough to experience the emotional distress we associate with pain, they
quite clearly _do_ have brains complex enough to experience unpleasant
sensations associated with noxious stimuli, and to change their behaviour
accordingly. So it doesn't make sense to say that their brains aren't
complex enough to experience pain. it's like saying their fins aren't strong
enough to let them swim; they _do_ swim, therefore their fins _must_ be
appropriate. they _do experience npleasant sensations associated with
noxious stimuli and react accordingly, therefore their brains _are_ complex
enough to do so.

>>> If yuo could ask a bull to show you a red ball you might need to change
>>> the way
>>> you describe the colour yes, same to a colur blind person.
>>
>> Why?
> Because if you can't see the colour red how do you know it's red.
> Try looking at a black & white picture and tell me what colours people
> are wearing or what colour they are.

I'm not asking whether you can tell if something's red if you can't see the
colour; I'm asking whether it makes sense to use a different word for it.

>> By the way, are you suggesting that you didn't think about it when I
>> asked you whether it would prove that fish feel pain?
>>
> I have no problem believing fish can fill pain provided I'm shown
> real evidence rather than preconceptions.

And I've shown you exaactly the sort of "real evidence" that you demanded;
you asked that it be repeatable, and it is. You asked that it be by
scientists, and it is. You asked that it should not be biased, and it isn't
(unlike the evidence you've shown). You asked that it confirm that the
reactions of the fish were not due to fear or some other cause rather than
pain, and the evidence I've shown you does indeed demonstrate that.

So what else do you want?

>>> local Anaesthetic is difficult to contol in a fish anyway.
>>
>> What's your evidence for that?
> Various site that discuss different types of anaesthetic, including
> doesages
> and possible dangers to the fish.

Are they talking about local anaesthetics or general anaesthetics? WOuld you
like to provide the address off some of these sites?

>> But in this case, the fish with the anaesthetic didn't "reduce their
>> movements"; they were _more_ mobile than the ones which just sat at the
>> bottom of the tank, rocking, and the returned to normal feeding patterns
>> sooner.
> Sooner than what just how long did the anaesthetic to take effect.

Read the fucking paper, Dave. I've given you the address, now you can read
the paper. Don't ask me questions about what it says, because you can see it
just as easily as I can.

>> So if the effects of the anaesthetic were simply to slow the fish down,
>> we'd expect to see the _opposite_ of the actual findings, wouldn't we?
> Depends on the anaesthetic surely.

No Dave, it doesn't; read what I said. I didn't say "with anaesthetic, we'd
expect to see the fish slow down"; I said "if the effects of the anaesthetic
were simply to slow down, we'd expect to see the opposite of the actual
findings".
See that "if the effects of the anaesthetic were simply to slow the fish
down" bit? Do you understand what that means, or do you need it explained to
you?

>> Yes, I would too. That's actually about the first smart thing you've
>> said in this whole discussion.
> Well I couldn't come to a conclusion without such a very basic test
> being carried out by so called professonals and I tried
> to think of a reason why it wasn't done, I can only think of a two
> reasons.
> 1/ incompetence
> 2/ doing so might prove something they didn't want proved.

Or possibly because it didn't seem like a useful thing to do. Or they ran
out of fish.

>> Amoeba don't have nervous systems, so there'd be nothing for the loca
>> anaesthetic to act on.
>> Besides, if you give an amoeba an injection, you'd almost certainly kill
>> it, either simply by puncturing its cell wall, or by bursting it by
>> introducing extra fluid into it.
>> You do know that amoebas are single-celled, right? And you understand
>> what that means?
> Yep they don't have a brain and can't feel pain but they can do things
> that
> animals & fish need a brain to accomplish.

Well, no, they can't. Animals and fish don't actually need a fish to make
automatic movements. They need a brain to make guided, voluntary movements,
and amoebas can't do that.

> Now if an animal moves away from a noxious stimili is it because they feel
> pain
> and if so why note assume an amoeba does it for the ssame reasons.

No, if an animal simply moves away from a noxious stimulus, it doesn't prove
that they feel pain.
If the animal moves away from the noxious stimulus, and learns not to go
near it in future, that suggests that it didn't like the experience of the
noxious stimulus. If the animal shows distress (for example, by not eating
for a while, or by rubbing the damaged or hurt part of its body against
things, or by making repetetive "rocking motions", that indicates that the
noxious stimulus has created what we might refer to as an emotional effect.
If the anmal doesn't show these symptoms when exposed to a noxious stimulus
_and_ a local anaesthetic, then that shows that the distress is due to what
we understand as pain, rather than to something else.

>> What about the "pain" experienced by, say, cats, or horses, or any other
>> animals?
> Differnt chemicals have differnt effects on animlas and humans and fish.

Well, yes, but substance P seems to be pretty consistent; in all animals
it's been tested on (certainly among vertebrates) it causes symptoms of
distress which are consistent with those caused by pain.

>> And that's what it is designed for, and it works extremely efficiently.
>> Why have a well-designed and efficient system for transmitting messages
>> if there's nothing to receive them?
> Why transmit them anyway especailly if nothing can be done about it.

*sigh* You keep saying that, and it's just as stupid a thing to say this
time as it was every other time.
Something _can_ be done about it. That's pretty miuch universally true. And
I've already explained this to you. If something hurts you, you can move
away from it and you can learn not to go there again, or touch that again,
or whatever, and you can protect yourself from further damage and give
youself time to heal. And that's what vertebrates do.
There would be no point in trees feeling pain, because they _can't_ do
anything about it, but we can, and other mammals can, and fish can. So
please, stop with the "there's nothing they can do about it" crap, because
it's stupid and untrue. OK?

>> Right. So it would be daft to have all the equipment for transmitting the
>> signals, but no equipment for decoding them, right?
> Not necessarily, evoilution may decide it's not worth the effort of
> producing
> something that has no real useful function.

But it _does_ produce it; fish have complex nervous systems which _do_ react
to noxious stimuli, and _do_ produce pain transmitters.
Please, read this carefully, DFave; we're not talking about nature deciding
not to make that stuff any more; nature _does_ make that stuff. it hasn't
fallen out of use, it is still absolutely as it ever was. Nature is still
making the equipment. So why have all the equipment if it's not being used?

>> Not true; a lot of local anaesthetics don't cause numbness, they just
>> prevent the transmission of pain signals.
> But tissue damge was done wan'tit ?

So? We don't necessarily feel "tissue damage", we feel "pain", which is the
reaction to tissue damage, caused by electrical and neurochemical messages
transmitted through the nervous system to the brain. If those messages can't
get through, for whatever reason, we don't feel pain, even if there is
tissue damage. Local anaesthetics don't prevent tissue damage, they block
the transmission of pain messages.

>> I had a local anaesthetic in my arm on Wednesday, as it happens, when I
>> gave blood (I'm a wuss, so i always request anaesthetic).
> I would too, but was told they weren't allowed to use anaesthetic as they
> didn't have anyone quaified to administer it. My mothers doctor won't do
> it
> either he always has someone there to do it.

Nurses are qualified to administer local anaesthetics, although a lot of the
people who work for the blood service are not fully qualified nurses, they
are "donor carers". (I think they used to be called phlebotomists, but
obviously that wasn't a fluffy enough name for them.)

>
>>I could feel the needle go in, but it hurt much less than it would
>>otherwise have done. At no point did any part of my arm go numb.
> Can you explain this feeling then, considering damage was still being done
> and that while you didn't feel pain you could still feel it.

Because feelings other than pain are arried by a different sub-system of the
nervous system. There are two types of nerve cells (that's a simplification,
actually; there are many more than that, but we only need to consider two of
them right now); the sort that carry pain messages (nociceptors), using pain
transmitters such as substance P, and the sort which carry other messages,
such as those relating to pressure, moderate temperature, and other tactile
sensations. Local anaesthetics block the pain system, by preventing the
release of the neurotransmitters like Substance P, or by preventing the
cells from transmitting the message. They don't block the other more
generalised cells, so those ones carry on doing their job.
It's a bit like having a radio which can receive on two different
frequencies simultaneously; if you block _just_ the emergency frequency,
you'll get the normal radio messages, but not the emergency ones.

>> transmitting-substances, such as Substance P. (Nerves operate in two
>> ways; the signals travelling along the "wire" of the nerve are
>> electrical, but those signals then have to cross a "gap", called a
>> synapse,
> And the total number of these vary according to the size of the brain,
> a smaller brain means there's less of them. The smaller the brain the less
> complexity of functions it has. One reason a human can do things a monkey
> can
> not is due to brain size.

Well, it's more to do with proportional brain size than absolute brain size;
a lot of dinosaurs had a brain the size of a turkey, but couldn't do much
with it. The brain is a complex thing; you cvan't tell how able an organism
is simply by looking at its brain size or counting it's neurones; after all,
we don't use half of ours.

>> But that's the thing; we _can_ see evidence of pain in humans,
> via preconception. I will probably never know what it's like to give birth
> the closest analogy I have is it's like having a really big *** when
> constipated.
> But is that pain the same as giving birth, unlikely I think, but do you
> actually know?
> BTW I'm assuming you haven;t given birth.

I haven't, no. And no, I can't absolutely know, I can just extrapolate. But
that doesn't mean we can't see evidence; we can. We can look at behavioural
and physiological reactions to stimuli which would hurt _me_, and see that
they are very similart to my own, and therefore we can say beyond reasonable
doubt (although not beyond all doubt) that what that person is experiencing
is pretty much the same as what I experience when i'm in pain, although
possibly to a greater or lesser degree.

>> we just can't be absolutely sure that all humans experience pain exactly
>> the same way, just as we can't be sure that they experience the colour
>> red in the same way, or the emotion of love, or all sorts of other
>> things. So all we _can_ do is examine the nervous system, and confirm
>> that the neurological processes are the same or similar, and look at the
>> behavioural evidence (in people, that's likely to be verbal reports as
>> well as things like breathing hard, sweating, instinctive "protection" of
>> a wound site or painful area, and so on) to see that it is similar.
>> And just as that's all we can do in humans, that's all we can do in
>> non-humans too, although obviously they can't give us verbal reports.
>
> So we have to go by observations and testing various theories,
> there's usually no harm in thinking animals experience things exactly
> the way we do, but as the animals gets smaller we assume
> that it feels less of the things we do by observation without intelligent
> observation we can get things wrong, two fish who's lips are joined
> are not passionately kissing they are in combat !.

Absolutely; and that's why people do experimental studies like the ones I
showed you. They clear up those sort of doubts.

>> Yes, many of them do (not all; there are a lot of different species of
>> bats). And many (again, not all) bats _also_ use echo location or sonar
>> as an additional sensory method, and that is generally more accurate than
>> human eyesight.
>
> So they don't see what we do even if they don't fly into trees at night.

Well, they see better than we do, and they also use echo location. I'm not
sure what it is you're asking here.

> So if someone says bats have better eysight than humans that's why
> they see in the dark, they'd be wrong.

Well, no, they'd be right; bats _do_ have better eyesight (on average), and
that _is_ why they see in the dark. it's not, however, what allows them to
catch insects in very dark conditions, or to avoid fast-moving obstacles;
for that, they use echo-location.

>> Well, it still wouldn't make it mean what you seem to think it means, no.
>> I've read it; I know what it says. it says that James Rose's article is
>> interesting, but that it relies on an analogy which doesn't actually hold
>> up, because it doesn't match the facts. It agrees that fish's brains are
>> different from ours, but not that that proves they can't feel pain.
>
> Well it doesn't prove they like or dislike a particular type of music
> but I bet you could do an experiment that showed fish behaving differently
> to different music signals but I doubt that would prove preferences for
> different
> bands but it might prove something about frequency responses in fish.

You could probably test for preferences to particular bands fairly easily
though. I have a feeling there was a study a while ago looking at whether
pigeons could distinguish between paintings by different artists, and it
turned out they could, perfectly well.

H


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