http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2004/06/mcilwain.html
I think it was Harlow who used to say that after you set up the experiment
with great care etc. etc., the animal would do whatever it damn pleases. Or
was that Skinner?
[From Bill Powers (2009.02.23.1636 MST)]
I think it was Harlow who used to say that after you set up the experiment
with great care etc. etc., the animal would do whatever it damn pleases. Or
was that Skinner?
What a great article, Ted. It sums up the exact reason why I couldn't
warm up to the academic way of life. I read about Harlow's stuff and
thought it was cruel and stupid. I had thought the days were over
when science could be used as an excuse to pull the wings off flies,
but while I was at the VA Research Hospital in Chicago, having seen
delivered papers concerning the use of dogs to see the results of
breathing superheated steam, I quickly got over that impression. It's
really not a mystery why the more decent scientists had to convince
themselves that animals don't feel things the way we human monkeys
do. The ones who weren't decent laughed while they told you about
their experiments (personal communication), but the others at least
tried to convince people -- and themselves -- that it wasn't as bad
as it looked. The life sciences have a lot to answer for. And the
attempts to excuse what they were doing didn't do much to improve
their ability to theorize, either.
Best,
Bill P.
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ยทยทยท
At 10:49 AM 2/23/2009 -0700, Ted Cloak wrote: