Is it more useful to learn from whales by studying them while they are alive than killing them on a large scale and study them when they're dead ?
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studying living organism is more useful to learn from them than killing them
- Thread starter Rik Meleet
- Start date
Is it more useful to learn from whales by studying them while they are alive than killing them on a large scale and study them when they're dead ?
Kraznaya
Princeps
This is pretty obvious Rik.. not sure why we needed a poll.
GenMarshall
Sin'dorei ISB Capt & Ghost Agent
Again, as most people state here. It depends on what you are studying.
Studying animal behavior is more useful if they are alive.
Studying animal behavior is more useful if they are alive.
There has been some debate over it - check the thread I quoted from.
I hope it is pretty obvious, but I don't take it for granted. I made this poll with very little pre-conceptions and out of a serious curiosity if it really was obvious. Let's find out.
And we have a winner. This goes for everything, really.
Rik, if you have a particular disease or condition in humans, can you learn more about how to treat it by treating a life person - or autopsying a dead person? Obviously, it depends, and if it's a fatal disease, then you'll probably need to use both.
It's not an either/or situation. You don't study the whales by killing them only, or by refusing to allow any harm to come to any whale, ever. You study them by doing both, to gather as much information as possible.
skadistic
Caomhanach
A more useful poll would have been whether or not its ok to endanger peoples lives with acts of terror on the open sea.
I felt like this one. But if you like that poll, why don't you create it ?
LesCanadiens
Deity
Depends on if you really are killing them on a large scale, or if a bunch of environmental nutjobs think you are in defiance of reality. So say I was a Japanese sailor working on a whaling vessel and only killed a few whales per year, insignificant relative to their overall population, that's fine.
very interesting
Please discuss that topic in the thread about the Japanese whaling-terrorists made smelly by righteous defenders of marine-life.
If you have an opinion on the most useful state (alive or dead) on research on whales then stay in this thread.
LesCanadiens
Deity
very interesting
Please discuss that topic in the thread about the Japanese whaling-terrorists made smelly by righteous defenders of marine-life.
If you have an opinion on the most useful state (alive or dead) on research on whales then stay in this thread.
You made a political statement on an issue by phrasing a question in such a way that makes it impossible to give an answer. You phrased it as a yes/no black/white issue, when that's simply not the case. Anyone with intellectual regard for the issue cannot answer your question. If you want to stimulate debate, I suggest you edit your OP and poll choices to better reflect the multi-faceted nature of this issue.
I quoted someone's statement I found in a thread and I find that statement interesting enough to poll it. That's all I did. If you are unable to answer the poll-question than don't give an answer or choose the "I Don't know" option.
You are free to not choose.
SS-18 ICBM
Oscillator
Why is there no middle option?
LesCanadiens
Deity
That's stupid and you know it. You took a flawed statement out of context and slammed it in our faces and in doing so made a political statement that whaling is evil. We all know it.
I know the answer, so I can't vote "I don't know." The correct answer is "it depends on what you're trying to study." If you wanted to completely map out a whale's internal organ systems down to the last detail, that's something you have to kill and dissect a whale to do. On the other hand, if you want to study the social behaviour of whales, it's probably best to try to do so while they're alive.
You're oversimplifying a complex issue in order to make your own political beliefs known. You simply cannot boil down the issue of whaling/whale research to a black/white yes/no response, or at least you can't do that and claim to maintain intellectual honesty at the same time.
Apparently Rik has a strawman fetish.
No. You are attaching way too much politics to this question and not enough science. There is nothing political about the question of what way we learn the most from a whale. Nor is there anything political about the question of what way we learn the most from a Quetzal, a Dytiscus marginalis or a Felidae.
True.
And that's why this is not an easy nor a "pretty obvious" question. It's a sincere and honest question with many sides that are easily overlooked. Shouldn't these questions be answered before the decision to kill whales is taken, for instance? And shouldn't these questions be answered before whales are labelled "unhuntable" ? And shouldn't everyone who likes to do research on whales be involved in this discussion before the research-stock of whales is decreased by killing them for research that requires their death ? It's more economical to first do non-killing research on a whale and then the killing research than vice versa. IMHO.
Au contraire - I am not simplifying this issue - I am addressing a different side to it.
lutzj
The Last Thing You See
Also, why does the "No" option involve killing them on a large scale?
You only need to dissect one animal to learn about anatomy, whereas you would probably have to study living animals "on a large scale" to learn anything that way.
You only need to dissect one animal to learn about anatomy, whereas you would probably have to study living animals "on a large scale" to learn anything that way.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Yeah, but not on a large scale.
The no option in the poll doesn't have that option. However, the quote this question is based on does. And that is because the person who I quoted said it like that and I like to quote correctly.
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