Reaching for the Future- The Evolution of Humane Science Education

8/8/2019 Reaching for the Future- The Evolution of Humane Science Education

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A PUBLICATION OF

THE AMERICAN

ANTI-VIVISECTION

SOCIETY

Reaching for the future:

The Evolution of HumaneScience Education

F A L L 2 0 0 2


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Editor-In-Chief

Tina NelsonManaging EditorCrystal SchaefferCopy Editor

Julie Cooper-Fratrik

Staff

Tina Nelson,Executive DirectorMary Beth Armitage,Assistant Directorof Programs & AdministrationJeanne Borden,Administrative AssistantSara Chenoweth,Assistant Director ofDevelopment & Member Services

Nicole Green,Program CoordinatorKatherine Lewis,Education DirectorCrystal Miller- Spiegel,Outreach DirectorJennifer Peirson-Winterle,MembershipCoordinatorCrystal Schaeffer,CommunicationsCoordinatorJessica Sterner,Ofce AssistantLauren Zaprala,TechnologyCoordinator

GRAPHIC DESIGN/ILLUSTRATION:

Copyright 2002 Orbit Integrated

TheAV Magazine (USPS 002-660) ispublished quarterly under the auspices of

the American Anti-Vivisection Society,Sue Leary, President. Annual membershipdues: $20.00. Third-class postage paid atLancaster, Pa. Ofce of Publication:

801 Old York Road #204Jenkintown, PA 19046-1685Telephone: 215-887-0816Fax: 215-887-2088E-mail: [email protected] Site: www.aavs.org

Articles published in theAV Magazine maybe reproduced with written permissionand with credit given to AAVS. Also, weappreciate receiving pertinent newspaperand magazine clippings, including their

sources and dates of publication.When sending funds or making bequests,please use our legal title:

The American Anti-Vivisection Society801 Old York Road #204Jenkintown, PA 19046-1685

Organized and established in 1883.

The individual views expressed in theAV Magazine do not necessarily reect thepolicy of the American Anti-VivisectionSociety.

Printed on recycled paper.

CONTENTS

2 ANIMALEARN: ANIMALS, ETHICS, AND EDUCATION IN ACTIONBy Katherine Lewis, AAVS Education Director & Nicole Green, AAVS Programs CoordinatorAs a leader in promoting humane science education, Animalearn, the education division of AAVS, takes an activerole in not only touting non-animal dissection alternatives, but also in taking a hands-on approach by creatingrelationships with both students and educators.

3 WHAT THE HECK IS A DIGITAL FROG?By Celia Clark, President, Digital Frog International, Inc.A frog in a symbiotic relationship with a mouse? This seemingly odd pairing has given rise to an innovative computerprogram that has educators excited about teaching and students excited about learning.

4 A MEDICAL SCHOOL PHYSICIAN PROFESSORS CASE AGAINST VIVISECTION IN MEDICAL EDUCATIONBy Lawrence A. Hansen, M.D., University of California San Diego Medical SchoolThe use of animals in medical school education has drastically declined in recent years. Dr. Hansen offers his candidexpert opinion as to why medical students who are trained without animals will become qualied, empatheticphysicians.

8 COMPASSION AND INTELLECT: THE GOALS

By Lara Rasmussen, D.V.M., Director, Surgery and Clinical Skills,Western University of Health Sciences, College of Veternary MedicineEducators at Western University are revolutionizing veterinary medical education. Dr. Rasmussen shares herinsights into teaching and inspiring impressionable students to become qualied, caring veterinarians who areinstilled with a respect for and appreciation of their animal patients.

13 SCIENCE FAIRS: NO FUN FOR ANIMALSBy Crystal Miller-Spiegel, AAVS Outreach DirectorWhile some may think that science fairs bring out the best in young people, the reality is that these events oftenbring out the worst in science, encouraging students to create duplicative projects that can involve painful animalexperiments.

14 ALTERNATIVES IN THE TEACHING OF BIOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY LEVELS:AN ONGOING SUCCESS STORYBy George K. Russell, Professor of Biology, Adelphi UniversityA pioneer in the eld of humane science education, George Russell shares his thoughts on the importance ofinstilling in students a reverence for life in the study of the biological sciences.

18 HIGH SCHOOL DISSECTION: EVOLUTION BUT NOT YET REVOLUTION

By Jonathan Balcombe, Ph.D.While there has been some change in the methodology of teaching the biological sciences, there is still much morethat needs to be done before this area of education is revolutionized and humane alternatives to dissection becomethe norm.

24 MEDIAWATCHBy Mary Armitage, AAVS Assistant Director of Programs & AdministrationThrough the media, AAVS speaks out on behalf of animals used in experimentation, expressing outrage at thetreatment of animals in laboratories and discussing the ethics of utilizing them as research tools.

27 NEWSNETBy Crystal Schaeffer, AAVS Communications CoordinatorNCAA Scores One for Cows; Purdue Study Exposes GMO Ecological Risks; Virtual Rat Reality; Virtuality Finds Life inthe CAVE; Second Hand Smoke Linked to Feline Lymphoma.

30 ARDF UPDATEThe Alternatives Research & Development Foundation (ARDF) proudly announces the recipients of its 2002Alternatives Research Grant Program.

32 MEMBERSHIPThere are a number of new ways to give a donation to your favorite charity. Making tax-deductible contributions toAAVS has never been easier!

32 TRIBUTESSpecial friends honored and remembered.

F E A T U R E S

Volume CX, Number 4 ISSN 0274-7774

F E A T U R E S


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This site gives teachers and

professors information on:

A new way to teach anatomy

and physiology

What educators who use alternatives

have to say

Alternative lending information

Where to nd online alternatives

And much much more!

For more information on ordering

alternatives for your classroom, please

call us at (800)729-2287 or e-mail

[email protected].

This site gives students and

activists information on:

Animals used in education

Students rights Other students testimonials

Alternative lending information

And much more!

For more information on ordering

alternatives for your class or advice

on implementing a students choice

policy at your school, please call

us at (800)729-2287 or e-mail

[email protected].

As a teacher looking foralternative projects,

www.animalearn.org was

all that I needed. The site

provided me with information

as well as a free program to

try out with my students.

Jennifer Walker,

10th grade Biology teacher

Being a student opposed to

dissection, I found rescources

on alternative projects hard tond....www.humanestudent.org

saved me from having to dissect

in my class. It also helped other

students in my class who didnt

want to dissect animals.

Kevin

11th grade

A student-focused online resource foralternatives to dissection information!

animals harmed: zero

www.animalearn.org

www.humanestudent.org

A teacher-focused online resource foralternatives to dissection information!

1-800-729-2287

[email protected]


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Medical school faculty arent

the only doctors opposed to dog

vivisection laboratories. Regular

doctors in private practice alsooppose wasting animals lives

for repetitive teaching exercises.

Some local doctors who were

especially troubled by unnecessary

vivisection set out to discover

if their medical peers would

join them in trying to end the

University of California San

Diego (UCSD) dog vivisection

laboratories.

These doctors against dog labs

wrote a petition expressing thesimple sentiment that killing

dogs is not necessary to teach

physiology and pharmacology, nor

is it a necessary step to becoming

a good doctor. Would surgeons

and emergency room doctors,

internists, and pediatricians sign

this petition? Yes, indeed!

Many mature physicians

expressed surprise that such

archaic labs were still in existence.

Some medical senior practitionershad been so unimpressed by

dog labs that now, years later,

they had to strain to remember

if theyd even participated.

Other physicians retold horror

stories of dogs surfacing from

inadequate anesthesia midway

through vivisection. Others

remembered that their dogs

died prematurely, just part way

into the demonstration. Many

younger physicians, graduates of

schools that no longer vivisect,were incredulous upon hearing

the descriptions of dog labs.

Nearly every doctor who was

asked, in every specialty, from

hospitals all over town, readily

signed the petition. Only a fewa

very fewdoctors felt the one-

day teaching labs during the

rst year of medical school had

MEDICAL EDUCATION

about the patient, which requires empa-

thy. Teaching medical students to sup-

press their natural empathy for the ani-

mals they are instructed to vivisect runs

contrary to the highest motivation stu-

dents have for entering medicine in the

rst place, the desire to relieve suffer-

ing, not to cause it. Physicians, of course,cannot be immobilized by their empa-

thy: they must develop a capacity for

objectivity in the midst of emotional-

ly charged circumstances. Some vivi-

section proponents go so far as to cele-

brate the tough-minded obliteration of

empathy necessary to vivisect a dog you

would, under other circumstances, play

with or pet. They equate treating a dog

as a physiologic preparation with de-

veloping a capacity for objectivity. But

this mistakes a vice for a virtue, as de-

scribed in the Tibetan Buddhist con-cept of the near enemy. All virtues have

cousin vices, termed near enemies,

which supercially resemble them but

are really distinctly different if not op-

posite in nature. Jealousy looks like

love but is not, just as apathy resembles

equanimity but is not. So too, the cal-

lousness required for vivisection appears

similar to the scientic virtue of objec-

tivity but is actually the vice of indiffer-

ence to the suffering of others.

It is humbling for a physician to ad-

mit it, but probably the best deni-

tion of empathy comes from a lawyer,

not a doctor. The lawyer was Abraham

Lincoln. Once, when discussing a fel-

low politicians lukewarm enthusi-

asm for outlawing slavery, Lincoln re-

marked that some men feel the lashpretty well when it is applied to their

own backs but feel nothing when see-

ing it applied to the backs of others.

Empathy is the ability to feel the lash

applied to anothers back. Students

capacity for empathy should be en-

couraged, strengthened, and rein-

forced by their medical education, not

destroyed by it.

Enlightened Buddhist insights

about the near enemies of virtue and

Lincolnesque empathy for the suffer-

ing of others are probably too much toexpect of medical students being told

to vivisect by their revered professors.

It is more realistic for physician facul-

ty members opposed to vivisection to

hope for the attitude of John Updikes

Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom. Harry once

recalled that when he was a boy, he

sometimes saw other kids amus-

ing themselves by using a magnify-

ing lens to burn ants. Harry, although

hardly a paragon of virtue, never par-

cipated in this recreation because,

en as a chi d, he recognized that

eople were cruel enough without

orking at it. We hope that medical

udents, once in ormed that vivisec-

on is unnecessary in their education,

ill conclude that it represents anoth-

r example of people working at cruel-

and decide, ike Harry, not to work

it with them.

r. Hansen is professor of pathology and the

urosciences at the University of California

n Diego. He is also the Director of the

lzheimers Disease Research Center Brainnk.

e opinions expressed in this article are my own,d should not be interpreted as expressing any of-l positions by the University of California San Diego

edical School or its Departments of Pathology and theurosciences.


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The American Anti-Vivisection Society801 Old York Road #204Jenkintown, PA 19046 -1685

A Non-Prot Educational OrganizationDedicated to the Abolition of Vivisection

NONPROFIT ORG.

U.S. POSTAGE

P A I DLANCASTER, PA

PERMIT NO. 53

I touch the future,

I teach.Christa McAuliffe

Documents

Reaching for the Future- The Evolution of Humane Science Education