Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Scientists may discover some cool things from time to time, but sometimes they're real assholes...

Source
Did you guys ever read about the group of scientists back in the 60's who did experiments on kittens to work out if they could make them blind without doing anything to their eyes [link]?

Yeah, I know.  Uber creepy.  Apparently it's not enough to be able to blind someone by damaging their retinas, you have to use psychological and developmental methods to screw their eyesight up from infancy if you really want to make it as an evil scientist.

I think what they were trying to determine was whether eyesight is an instinctual or learned skill, and they got their answer.  One kitten's eyesight developed normally while the other seemed blind, even though there was nothing wrong with it's eyes.

But seriously, if you're going to do a bunch of weird and highly questionable experiments, why on earth would you choose to do them on kittens!  No matter what results you came up with, people were always going to be appalled by what you did.  If you do them on rats you have a 50/50 chance that someone will be horrified, but everyone loves kittens!

You might be wondering why I'm even bringing it up.  It was fifty years ago, after all.  People did weird things back in the 60's, like building nuclear bomb shelters and wearing flares.  What's a little kitten experimentation compared to that?  But the fact is that kittens are still used for similar experiments, like the ones who had their eyes sewn shut not that long ago to study crossed and lazy eyes [link].

Now THAT disturbs me.

I'm not exactly anti animal experimentation, provided there is no other way that research can be done.  I love animals, but I love human beings more, so I'm always going to be on the side of helping people.  But still...

Kittens!  They're just widdle baby kittens all fluffy and mewling and adorable!  How on earth were those scientists able to do it!  I'd be eating my heart out if it was me.

But I suppose those evil scientist types are made of sterner stuff.

13 comments:

  1. They may NOT be human...possibly from another planet.

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  2. I agree....that's disgusting. I'm surprised PETA hasn't tracked them down and just beaten the crap out of them.

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  3. Experimenting on kittens?!?!?!? That's horrible. Those guys are giving evil scientists a bad name.

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  4. Like you, i only think animals should be used for experiments only when nothing else will do, and not for silly stuff like cosmetic research.

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  5. Intellectually I realize that hundreds of un-adopted kittens are euthanized every day, but still this all seems crueler than ehthanizing...it is torturing. If you are going to torture animals (including rats) please at least cure cancer...cross-eyes? Please.

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  6. Somebody needs to slap the shit out of those scientists.

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  7. X is a scientist. A mad scientist.

    Love,
    Janie

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  8. My goodness, can't they use ferrets for this kind of thing?
    Oh great, now I've hacked off the ferret people.

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  9. Too bad they couldn't use murderers and rapists to experiment on!

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  10. Why don't they use the losers on death row?? They're just sitting there eating up the tax payer's money. They might as well be good for something. Once you hit death row I don't think human rights should play a huge part in your day to day living. - Thus I don't run the prison systems or the country. :p

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  11. I'm just concerned as to why they're picking on kittens. Can't they move on to puppies, kids and joeys?

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  12. KITTENS? What the hell is wrong with these maniacs? Kittens? It boggles the mind!

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  13. When you put it that way, scientists are assholes! Mind = Blown!

    Hugs!

    Valerie

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