July 23, 2019 Tuesday
Bedtime Story
The Dilemma of Speciesists
What kind of treatment and rights would the
speciesists accord to reptiles such as snakes or scorpions in relation to
humans?
Going even further, would they also appeal
to research laboratories to terminate experiments on arthropods such as Caenorhabditis
elegans – the model organism nematode that spans barely a millimeter in length
and lacks respiratory and circulatory systems?
It is one of the simplest multi cellular
organisms with a nervous system comprising of 302 neurons.
It is the only multi cellular organism
whose mapping of neuronal connections has been comprehensively worked out (this
pattern is known as connectome which in general means mapping of the neuronal
connections of any brain or in other word the ‘wiring diagram’ of a brain of
any organism).
Even the neurons of this worm are unlike
ours; they lack fire action potentials and do not express any voltage-gated ion
channels that are fundamental to the functioning of neurons of most other
organisms in the animal kingdom.
If this befuddles them what stand would
they take on bacteria and diverse microbes that form the bedrock of biomolecular
and medical translational research?
Even further, what about the cell and
tissue culture of human cells and establishing of human cell lines that are
crucial for the development of vaccines against diseases caused to humans by
viruses such as poliomyelitis, measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox and
influenza?
Such cultures definitely results both in
the creation and death of cellular lives all controlled by average apes like me
(mercifully I can say this because I was involved with various experiments on
cell/tissue cultures in two dimensions in specialized flasks with liquid
minimum essential medium or to be precise Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium.
The names of these culture mediums are
derived from the names of two American scientists one being Harry Eagle who
invented the Eagle’s minimum essential medium and the other being Renato
Dulbecco an Italian-American virologist and Nobel Laureate of the year 1975 for
his work on oncoviruses.)
In spite of these arguments scientists like
Jane Goodall and Richard Dawkins believe that at least the nonhuman great apes
that are our closest cousins are not only sentient beings but possess self-awareness
and rationality.
Dawkins, my hero, has put his case against
speciesism in several of his books and documentaries such as “the Blind
Watchmaker” (1986), “The Great Ape Project” (1993) and his perhaps the
notoriously popular “The God Delusion” (2006).
His argument – say unlike Hindus or the
Jains - does not arise from emotional sentiments, compassion or religious
doctrines but are based on the combined theories of Darwinian natural selection
and Mendelian genetics taken to their logical conclusion.
He also makes use of the analogy of the
once ever-pervasive and deeply entrenched racism of the past to the present day
attitude of humans towards non humans that makes the concept of speciesism perspicuous
even if not acceptable in everyday practice to give up meat eating.
Stay tuned to the voice of an
average story storytelling chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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