This message was posted to a listserv affiliated with the Ecological Society of America. It was one of the more thoughtful replies to an active discussion about a controversial topic. The ethical implications discussed extend well beyond toe-clipping; rather, they are relevant to wildlife research generally. Although the author appears to come from a particular religious tradition, his ethical arguments could be consistent with any belief system or lack thereof.

Date: Tue, 17 Feb 1998 07:48:48 -0700
From: Chris Wells
Subject: Natural science and ethics
To: ECOLOG-L@UMDD.UMD.EDU

This is a (longish) response to an argument concerning mark/recapture animal research. I thought you'd enjoy the clarity of thought, regardless of how you feel about the subject. I'm glad I'm a botanist.

---chris

______________________________ Forward Header __________________________________ Subject: Natural science and ethics
Author: "Raez; Ernesto Francisco" at NBS-Internet-Gateway
Date: 2/16/98 10:33 AM

Greetings. When we natural scientists are confronted with ethical issues, it happens exactly what is happening now in this list on the issue of digit amputation of small mammals and amphibians. There is a lot of horrified people (those not involved or experienced in the specific business), there are those in favor of the practice upon the base of the lack of something better (usually the practitioners), there are those in favor of cost/benefit and other "objective" approaches (the stereotypical cold-minded scientist), and a fair amount of people who make use of the anthropomorphic fallacy either in favor or against the practice.

What this shows is simply that we natural scientists as a group are rather confused when it comes to ethical issues. Why? Because we are not explicitly trained in ethics. This is probably the single most important shortcoming of education in the natural sciences. Increasingly, though, we are coming to realize that science, just as any other human activity, must explicitly FOLLOW ethical principles. I am not saying that there is only one ethical system. What I am saying is that ethics comes first, and then comes science. Thus, for instance, if we as a society agree that animals must not be subject to painful treatments for the sake of knowledge, then it DOES NOT MATTER what is the importance of our research, we will not consider subjecting animals to damaging practices, period. No cost/benefit analysis needed here, since the decision is taken in a completely different domain. That is the domain of ethics, and it recognizes the fact that we are SOCIAL beings with CONSCIENCE and EMOTIONS, and it recognizes the fact that our conscience, our emotions and our social interactions often DO PROVIDE the best indicator to guide our behavior.

In other words, those horrified people are the ones who got it right. In the ethical system that I follow, causing pain and permanent damage to an animal that is the subject of research is wrong (and I suspect that is bad science too). I am sure that if we all agreed on the moral rule, we would soon invent a reliable method to permanently mark small mammals and amphibians without amputation. Claiming that "there is nothing else available" only demonstrates intellectual laziness. Are you telling me that if all those years of "toe-clipping" had been also used to think hard on an alternative method, we would have been unable to find it? Are we so technologically weak? Are small-mammal and amphibian scientists so dumb? I doubt it.

Advocating for "objective" analysis misplaces the problem in the wrong domain. The suggested rule is: first you decide what you will not do, based upon ethics, then you go and do your science. Ethics, a social construct, changes with society. And science (another social construct) has influenced ethics quite a lot. But those who think that, for instance, we should not discriminate upon the base of sex BECAUSE science has demonstrated that men and women are equally smart (or stupid), got it all wrong. We must not discriminate based upon sex because we do not want our children to learn to mistreat another human being, because we decided that all human beings must be equal in rights, because we believe that non-discrimination is a keystone condition for achieving a happier society, etc. It does not matter if men or women are more intelligent (I vote for women, though). We already decided that ANY differences in intelligence that could be found are NON SIGNIFICANT in ethical terms and for all practical purposes. It is not science but the accumulated experience of our culture what leads to this conclusion. Science may help us to improve our ethical system, because it helps us to understand our world. That does not mean that morality should be based upon science. Those who jump to that conclusion simply learned their logic all wrong.

Hopefully, the day will come when explicit training in ethical thinking becomes a common practice in our schools and universities. Hopefully then natural scientists will stop taking their scientific texts as a replacement for the Bible. Cordially,

ERNESTO F. RAEZ-LUNA
CIAT - Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical
A.A. 6713, Cali, COLOMBIA