Firebombs in Santa Cruz
If you haven’t heard yet there have been 2 firebombs set off at 2 UCSC researcher’s houses. The firebombs were set off in order to terrorize anyone doing animal research. One of the two researchers whose house was firebombed was Professor Feldheim who taught a Neuroscience course that I took. The firebomb that was set off at his house was at his front door requiring him, his wife and his child to escape out of some sort of fire ladder from a second story window.
If you have read my blog before you will note that this is not the first act from animal rights activists (I think animal rights terrorists is a more appropriate name) targeting researchers at UCSC . I’ve been pretty busy so I didn’t have the time to post this earlier or write more about it.
Yesterday there was a rally in support of the researchers and currently there is a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest of the individuals involved. I hope that the people behind this are stopped before they make another attempt to attack a researcher or their family.
Update:
NPR forum had a segment on the firebombings. In it they talk to someone who agrees with the tactics used. It is both interesting and frustrating:
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I’m always amazed by how some people use violence to protest the use of violence.
I really don’t get it - even if you think violence is justified to protect animals, why attack researchers?
Why not attack those giant industrial farms?
I guess researchers are easier to bully.
I read a great article, or maybe it was a chapter, about how typical animal rights activist arguments and animal research activists don’t actually disagree on all that many points. I don’t remember where, though, so that’s pretty useless.
One thing that gets left out of serious discussion of the use of animals in research is the acknowledgment of ethical failures in past research and an enumeration of how those failures are addressed. All animal research must be approved by an ethics committee, and that committee is required to include members of the community not affiliated with the institution doing the research. That was mentioned in the Forum bit, but it would have been even better if the provost had also said, “and here is how you can get on the committee… and here is how you can be involved in other ways.”
I realize it’s important to defend what really are very good safeguards against cruelty, abuse and waste in animal research. It is also important to constantly improve and refine the careful balance between use of animals and a need to advance science. While promising to improve won’t be convincing to anyone who staunchly believes any use of animals is immoral, it might help people who are uncomfortable with how animal research is done but aren’t opposed to it in principle.