Essay topic:
Do you believe that experimentation on animals for scientific purposes is justified? Are there any alternatives to animal experimentation?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Science has been crucial in the progress of humanity in all aspects of its worldly experience. It has contributed in all areas of life ranging from health to technology. However, many ethical dilemmas have surfaced in our pursuit for advancement. One such hotly contested dilemma is the controversy surrounding the use of animals to drive scientific experimentation. In this essay, these ethical considerations shall be briefly discussed.
Critics of the role of animals in the scientific process are quick to highlight the plethora of animal right violations that inevitably come to light. This group argues that the controlled manipulation of animals to test varying hypotheses results in significantly animal cruelty. The use of rabbits, for example, to test fluorescent gene markers, alters the animal genome. This, in turn, puts the subjects at a considerable survival disadvantage. Similarly, the manipulation of gene expression to study organ development in pigs inevitably produces a species lacking vital organs. As such, it becomes obvious that animal rights are often ignored for the promise of scientific progress.
Despite these glaring injustices, it is important to note the significance of this type of experimentation. Data from gene manipulation studies enables the development of organ production technologies. These studies may, for instance, enable our future generations to produce organs from animals that can be transplanted to humans. This would solve the organ shortage crisis our species is experiencing on a daily basis. Kidney, lung, or even heart transplants would no longer be difficult to source. To achieve the same progress sans animal studies would not be possible without unthinkable human rights abuses. Similarly, drug safety profiles cannot be accurately predicted without the use of pig testing. The question then becomes, where does one draw the line? When is it acceptable to use animal models and when is it clearly unacceptable?
In my opinion, the answer lies in the risk-benefit relationship. In other words, one must gauge the amount of benefit being produced from such experimentation compared to the harm it is inflicting upon the subject. Ethic committees are invaluable in determining this very balance.
Fortunately, this dilemma may not be relevant for much longer. Bioinformatics and computational biology are two emerging areas of science that are using a combination of mathematics and computer science to produce accurate virtual representations that enable the same type of data collection.
In conclusion, the role of animals in scientific endeavours is questionable. Both critics and supporters have important points to add to the discussion. It is thus important to concentrate on risk-benefit representations in discussing this issue. It is hoped that technological and scientific advancement would make this discussion irrelevant.
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Score: 8.0 out of 9
Category: Excellent Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 29 15
No. of Words: 439 350
No. of Characters: 2401 1500
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Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.577 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.469 4.6
Word Length SD: 3.189 2.4
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No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 78 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 15.138 21.0
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Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.223 0.35
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Number of Paragraphs: 6 5