Science is defined as ‘the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behaviour of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.’ Science is by nature objective, rational, and based on real-world evidence.

So, who could be better than members of the scientific community to have an objective, rational, and intelligent discussion about animal experimentation, based entirely on the scientific evidence available? It just so happens there are popular subforums on a site called Reddit for that, called Ask Science and Ask Science Discussion. Both are moderated and actively participated in by real scientists. The rules for Ask Science Discussion in particular state:

Sources, especially peer-reviewed, are always helpful and appreciated. We are happy to discuss controversial topics, but we expect users to maintain some level of scientific integrity. Arguments that run counter to well-established scientific concepts may be removed. This subreddit is a subsidiary of AskScience and the same rules of civility apply. No troll, bots, spam, or harassment.

Very promising! A seemingly genuine platform for genuine scientific discussion offering a genuine opportunity to discuss a controversial topic where peer-reviewed sources are appreciated, scientific integrity is expected, and trolling or harassment will not be tolerated.

The First Attempt

The first attempt to initiate a discussion was based on a single question: What are the arguments or observations that could falsify the animal testing model since it is considered to be scientific?

For something to be considered scientific, it must be possible to prove it wrong. This was on the Ask Science subreddit.

This achieved a grand total of nothing. Not a single response. No interest whatsoever. Very interesting given at least 115,000,000 animals are experimented upon in laboratories every year as part of a practice considered fundamental to scientific research, especially in medicine. Apparently, questions relating to its scientific basis aren’t worth considering. Apparently.

OK then, perhaps next time I should try to stimulate a discussion on the matter by referring to scientific papers.

The Second Attempt

The second attempt to initiate a discussion was based on the citation of three systematic reviews and meta-studies on animal testing, published between 2004-2016. All peer reviewed and publicly available scientific papers. This was on the Ask Science Discussion subreddit.

It was a complete disaster.

As shown in the screenshot below, the only response that wasn’t ultimately deleted by the mods was a seemingly glib query as to whether my question was specifically about animal testing or not… despite my citing papers with titles and quotations explicitly about animal testing. This was also the most up-voted comment; an up-vote indicating a response is considered ‘solid science’, and a down-vote indicating a response is considered ‘not science’.

The first comment was received within a few minutes. It was from a mod – a cognitive scientist – to demand I remove a link to my blog article on the subject as it was ‘against their rules on self-advertising.’ There is of course no such rule as it would prevent scientists from referring to their own research since this would technically be ‘self-advertising’.

Still, I complied with the demand and asked that the rules be updated about ‘self-advertising’ to avoid any future misunderstandings. The mod responded by quickly deleting their own comment and my response to it without another word. To date, the rules have still not been updated. No record of this conversation exists.

The remainder of the comments – with the exception of the aforementioned glib question – consisted of personal attacks and accusations, mostly revolving around ‘vegan proselytising’. One particularly hostile Redditor even repeatedly attempted to get me banned from the Ask Science Discussion subreddit, even going so far as to admit combing through my posting history in an attempt to dig up some potential dirt.

My Analysis: Not a single attempt was made to address or refute the evidence cited. There was no indication that any of the respondents had even bothered to read any of the papers cited. No counter-evidence was provided. Repeated requests to stop personal attacks and instead focus on an evidence-based scientific discussion on a subreddit supposedly dedicated to evidence-based scientific discussions were ignored.



It was also notable that although the mods were very quick to confront me within minutes for a made-up infraction of a non-existent (and nonsensical) ‘rule’, they were very slow to act on real infractions of their rules on trolling and harassment; those comments were not deleted until the next day despite being reported. One might almost feel unwelcome. Almost.

I also cannot help but feel that if I had put a foot wrong – if I had responded with anger or retaliated in any way – the mods would’ve used this as an excuse to shut me down. Oh, well. Maybe this was just an unfortunate one-off. It is a public forum after all and these things can and do happen. I’ll try again.

The Third Attempt

The third attempt to initiate a discussion was based on the citation of twenty-three systematic reviews and meta-studies on animal testing, published between 1949-2018. This time covering a period of 70 years, again all were peer reviewed and publicly available scientific papers. Again, this was on the Ask Science Discussion Subreddit.

The first response in particular blew my mind. It was from a (easily verified) PHD graduate in biomedical science:

What exactly do you want to discuss? Most people who do animal work are very aware of the limitations of their model.

And I thought the query about whether or not I was asking about animal experimentation was glib. The implication was clear: those who experimented on animals – ‘animal work’ – knew this form of research was completely unreliable – ‘limited’ – but continued to inflict suffering and death on an industrial scale for nothing anyway.

But this was just an implication. Maybe I misinterpreted. To be sure, I – politely and objectively – presented strong evidence of high failure rates (e.g. over 99.9% of animal experiments involving drugs don’t even proceed to human clinical trials) and the real-world consequences of this unreliable ‘animal model’ (e.g. two very effective cancer treatments yielded negative results in animal testing). No accusations, no personal attacks, just the evidence. Their response was:

First, I would just like to point out that you would have much better success fostering a discussion if you dropped the accusatory tone. As I said before, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who uses animal models that is unaware of these studies and the inherent flaws that accompany animal work in general. Throwing all these studies at people and asking them to respond is pointless. To turn it back on you, what do you propose as alternatives to animal experimentation? What are the limitatioms [sic] of these alternatives? These are the sorts of questions you should be asking if you truly want a discussion

There it is. A biomedical scientist involved in vivisection admitted that they – as well as others in the business – are well aware that experimenting on animals is bad science, is completely unreliable, and hinders genuine scientific research. They essentially torture countless millions of animals every year for literally nothing except to line their pockets with money. But apparently this is not a problem. The only problem is the ‘accusatory tone’ of ‘pointless’ requests to respond to overwhelming scientific evidence. Not-so scientific scientists.

As for ‘turning it back on me’ to provide alternatives, I quoted one of the 23 papers which stated:

Some have suggested we should not criticize animal models unless we have better suggestions for research and testing. It is not incumbent upon us to postpone criticizing animal models as not being predictive until predictive models such as in silico, in vitro or in vivo are available. Nor is it incumbent upon us to invent such modalities. Astrology is not predictive for foretelling the future therefore we criticize such use even though we have no notion of how to go about inventing such a future-telling device.

There was no further response from this redditor. What a surprise.

The rest of the comments from other redditors – again – consisted of yet more (and increasingly mean-spirited) personal attacks and accusations. Again, my requests to avoid making things personal and to focus on the evidence instead were ignored. Three redditors did at least try, albeit while still becoming increasingly furious and hostile:

One – by their own admission – found four papers in ‘less than a minute’ that they didn’t even bother to read. I read them and pointed out two were hidden behind paywalls (and were not relevant anyway), one actually supported my argument and undermined theirs, and the last had no relevancy to the discussion.

Another – again by their own admission – found three papers after ‘2 minutes on google’ that they also didn’t bother to read. I read them and pointed out one was hidden behind a paywall (and was not relevant anyway), one was just an opinion piece (i.e. fluff), and the last – you guessed it – actually supported my argument and undermined theirs.

The last simply linked to lay websites, not peer-reviewed, scientific articles. One of the links falsely claimed (with no evidence) that animal testing helped to develop penicillin (toxic to animals such as Guinea Pigs) and treatments for cancer (at least two highly effective treatments were held back by animal testing).

The result was more fury, personal attacks, and accusations. Some redditors even tried to claim that I:

Provided too much evidence to be plausible with the demand that I provide counter-evidence to undermine my own argument on their behalf (because they had none).

Should pay out of my own pocket to read paywalled papers cited despite those citing them not bothering to do so themselves (and despite those papers having no relevancy).

Was ‘scientifically illiterate’ for quoting extracts from cited papers that undermined their arguments (e.g. explicit admissions that the animal model is completely unreliable).

Shouldn’t consider the failure rates of animal experiments as they are not important (i.e. despite the unnecessary suffering and death caused to both animals and humans as a consequence).

Should instead consider the frustration of vivisectors at having to comply with existing rules and ethical standards (I kid you not).

The most bizarre thing is that this utterly insane and irrational crap came from otherwise highly articulate, intelligent, and educated people.

My Analysis: Despite a vivisector admitting the truth, this was ignored by every other redditor commenting in the discussion. There was no indication that any of the respondents had even bothered to read any of the papers cited, not even their own. Again, the primary focus was on personally attacking me to undermine my credibility rather than the evidence itself.

And again, it was notable the mods were nowhere to be seen despite increasingly hostile and aggressive trolling and harassment. Most notable of all however was that not a single comment showed even the slightest concern (or even mentioned) the unnecessary suffering of countless millions of animals and human beings as a consequence.

Final Thoughts

It is very easy to sink into despair to find out that scientists and supporters of science – just like anyone else – simply do not care about evidence or any kind of rational discussion. Even when their opinions have absolutely no merit, no evidence to back them up, and no outcome other than to cause unnecessary suffering and death while impeding genuine scientific progress.

Perhaps the sages are right. It’s not about the mind but the heart.