- Feb
- 19
Are You as Kind as a Macaque?
Posted by Alisa Mullins at 5:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (10)
Nearly 50 years ago, a now-infamous study by Stanley Milgram, Ph.D., revealed that most people would administer what they believed were painful shocks to another person if an authority figure ordered them to do so. The shocks weren’t real–but the test subjects didn’t know that. Most kept on administering “shocks” long after the supposed recipient began screaming in “pain” and asking to leave. Recently, a similar study closely replicated those findings. Psychology professor Jerry M. Burger found that 70 percent of test subjects would have continued to shock another “subject” beyond the point that they cried out in pain if they hadn’t been stopped.
Shortly after I heard about this study, I was reading an advance copy of PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk’s new book, The PETA Practical Guide to Animal Rights (sorry, it’s not out yet, but it will be later this spring-we’ll keep you posted). In it, she prints an excerpt from a great book by the late Carl Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors. That book explores the behavioral similarities between humans and animals, especially primates. In the excerpt cited by Ingrid, the authors talk about a sickening experiment in which monkeys were fed only if they pulled a chain that administered an electrical shock to another monkey who could be seen through a one-way mirror. Eighty-seven percent of the monkeys opted to go hungry instead of pulling the chain, and one refused to eat for 14 days. The authors write:
The relative social status or gender of the macaques had little bearing on their reluctance to hurt others. If asked to choose between the human experimenters offering the macaques this Faustian bargain and the macaques themselves–suffering from real hunger rather than causing pain to others–our own moral sympathies do not lie with the scientists. But their experiments permit us to glimpse in non-humans a saintly willingness to make sacrifices in order to save others–even those who are not close kin. By conventional human standards, these macaques who have never gone to Sunday School, never heard of the Ten Commandments, never squirmed through a junior high school civics lesson–seem exemplary in their moral grounding and their courageous resistance to evil. Among the macaques, at least in this case, heroism is the norm. If the circumstances were reversed, and captive humans were offered the same deal by macaque scientists, would we do as well?
Well, according to Dr. Burger’s study, we probably wouldn’t.
What do you think? If you were faced with being forced to hurt someone or starve, would you be as kind as a macaque? And should experimenters be allowed to conduct invasive, painful experiments on animals who probably wouldn’t treat them with the same disregard if the positions were reversed?
Posted to Family & Friends | Posted to Tags: behavior, ethics, kind
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No worries Renata - our brains see exactly...
angela gunn says...
February 20th, 2009, 8:19 pm
I personaly wouldnt inflict pain on another humanbeing but most of all I wouldnt even consider inflicting pain on an innocent animal they feel pain and have feelings the same as humanbeings so I dont agree with anyone experimenting on animals at any time in there lifes that is heartless and inhumane humanbeasts I think this world is full of complete madness and I wish the world and humans would completely change there attitude for animals and make this a better world to live in I will probably die feeling exactly the same as I do know I wish folk would wake up and realise what they are doing in this world is completely wrong mankind is so cruel I am ashamned to say I am a humanbeing but I know the difference between right and wrong and this is completely wrong big time
Nancy says...
February 20th, 2009, 11:08 pm
Immediately after I read the cruel experiment it struck me that isn’t that experiment the prototype of the movie SAW…yes, very sickening. What appalls me is that how stupid a person could be to carry out cruel experiments such as this. By observing the nature and the animals it’s not difficult to tell that animals love and take care of one another. Animals are without cruel mind, humans with a serious problem are.
If I’m forced to hurt an animal to survive, I’d rather just hurt myself or just starve.
Christina Qualls says...
February 21st, 2009, 12:41 am
This article screams loud and clear and really makes one think about the hubris of humankind. It very clearly points out how most human animals are willingly evil and how very innocent non-human animals are. Also, we are the only species on planet that kills for pleasure….doesnt that say something? Great article, thank you very much.
Amy says...
February 21st, 2009, 11:49 am
This story just proves that animals are selfless. We had to do this test to prove that? Didn’t we already know?
Bonnie says...
February 21st, 2009, 11:53 am
this is a touching story and very intriguing!
Yuliana Rodriguez says...
February 21st, 2009, 11:58 am
My family is from Cuba. Imagine no freedom of speech of any kind and being forced to work in camps. When several soilders ran away from the camp, my great granfather who was a very religious man refused to tell were the runaway soilders were hiding. He was stripped of all his clothing, and he was forced to kneel outside with no food or water for several days. He never told where the runaway solders went. We are human, but I noticed that sometimes people forget. How you treat an animal is how one is going to treat a human being.
anna says...
February 21st, 2009, 4:15 pm
i think it should be illigal to perform expiriments that are painful on animals or even cause them to die its just so wrng they are living creatures to, just b/c they have no say and are animals people abuse them that way, and i hate it and think its so wrong to hurt or even kill for stupid purposes, how would people like it if they were in the animals position, its sick.
Barbara Kalinoski says...
February 22nd, 2009, 12:41 am
I totally agree that animals are higher species than us human. My dogs can read my mind. If I just think to take my dogs for a walk, without any vocal expression. My dogs know, I am going to take them for walk and get all excited.
Dan Bekkering says...
February 22nd, 2009, 9:12 am
So it is clear then, animals need rights too.
Google: “Party for the Animals” and learn how to get animal-rights into your constitution. Make animal-rights a political issue and fight for their rights from the inside out, instead of climbing the high slippery walls of politics from the outside in.
There must come laws to protect cattle, they are a forgotten group who suffer the most horrific tortures in the Bio-Industry.
Gabriela says...
February 24th, 2009, 12:32 am
Sometimes I have been critized because I say “Entre más conozco a los humanos, más quiero a mi perro”; “The more I get to know human beings, the more I love my dog”; but after this article; I cannot say anything else; I mean, I truly believe in human kind, thought, sometimes it’s the hardest thing ever! I wish, all of us could ever learn something, anything from animals; they seem to be more sensible and sensitive than we, humans, are.THANX for the article!