In response to Charlie's earlier posts about science being deliberately misconstrued by PETA, and on the theme of misinformation I would like to point something out about this.My intent is not to argue against the values of the people that carry out these attacks. There are, and always will be people who are of a militant turn of mind and they will use any excuse to attack other people. There is no way I could persuade them otherwise and so any deliberations on the subject are futile and deeply frustrating.
My objection to this is actually that the journalist in question has got his facts wrong. He strongly implies that it is the work of the ALF (Animal Liberation Front) who were the darlings responsible for my boat house getting burnt. In actuality, while they have no objection to arson, the ALF never knowingly endanger human life1. Their website is actually quite funny to read as all they seem to be is annoying people, viz: "5 Hens liberated from egg farm", "Meat advert corrected" and my particular favourite, "Chicken farm raided, 22 chicks freed". That was on the 5th of January, in the middle of winter. Letting chicks freeze to death doesn't seem very compassionate to me.
The most likely suspect for these attacks is a group called ARM who hit the news fairly recently for stealing the body of a grandmother from her grave because a guinea pig farm didn't close down when threatened. They have also voiced their desire to assasinate prominent Scientists involved in vivisection.
Luckily, judging by the success of their attacks, they are all bark and no bite.
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1. I would be the first person to give a member of the ALF a black eye, but they are hardly the worst activist group I can think of.
1 comment:
I especially like the line "ALF has not yet claimed responsibility" (emphasis mine). It shows thoroughly unbiased reported based on facts and not prejudice.
Of course, the misinterpretation of science is humorous to me, though I don't agree with a lot of the ALF/PETA/ARM people in their extremity, they do have a point about cruelty.
The most worrying thing for me, that I've seen recently, was in the NY Times article I linked to. A psychiatrist stated that because the researcher discussed human implications in his research (mainly by saying there aren't any)
“he has to take responsibility for the public response.”
Why? Why does he have to take responsibility for the public response? Isn't that like saying that Galileo was responsible for the Church's response? Is it just me who sees a problem with this - blaming others for your response? Please someone, tell me I'm mistaken and stupid.
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