More fishy goings on...

[grobelaar]

There was something on the radio this morning, apparently some scientists at some university have found proof that fish can actually feel pain... I was quite surprised they needed to do a study - I thought the way they writhe about in agony on the end of a hook then flap about suffocating on the deck of a boat was proof enough that they may in fact be in some sort of discomfort...

Any way I digress - the presenter said that they had some stuffy old professors in the studio and that they would be discussing how these findings would affect anglers, animal rights groups and vegetarians...

I tell you how it affect vegetarians - it doesn't - because get this for a piece of logic:

VEGETARIANS DON'T EAT FISH...

I mean I've heard some people justify this, and clearly the fact that fish don't feel pain was probably a large part of this whitewashing, but I've heard people say that fish are just like 'water vegetables'... eh?

I mean where does wooly thinking like that end - oh yes please, I think I'm gonna treat myself, to a nice juicy rare 'Land-Fish' with all the trimming...

[wheezer]

wtf? this can't be serious - it's a basic biological fact that in order to survive, you need pain as an internal alarm that "something is wrong"...

[bitch one]

ah - but the phrase 'feel pain' implies higher brain processing - and fish don't have this. they do not 'feel pain' in the same sense as us. if you programme a little robot to writhe about in apparent agony when you press a button, would you then say the robot was 'feeling pain' ? this is anthropomorphism, ie attributing human characteristics to behaviour that looks like something we do but is in fact totally different.

[Sheridan]

I say if you have a central nervous system you feel pain. it kinda of comes with the territory. and if you don't believe that sea creatures feel pain that riddle me this: why does a live lobster screech and try to claw it's way out of a pot of boiling water? you can't tell me that it is writhing about because it is happy to be in a 'hot tub'.

[Loz]

There was a philosopher, can't remember which one he was, who said that Dogs didn't feel pain. Although if you hit a dog, it seemed like it felt pain, it would scream and roll around, it wasn't feeling pain. It just seemed that it did. Sort of like programming a robot to say "ouch" if you slap it.

Do dogs really feel pain? Only the dogs know.

[tjackalko]

Pain is just in your head, like everything else. Just shut it down and thats it

[bitch one]

Originally posted by Loz
There was a philosopher, can't remember which one he was, who said that Dogs didn't feel pain. Although if you hit a dog, it seemed like it felt pain, it would scream and roll around, it wasn't feeling pain. It just seemed that it did. Sort of like programming a robot to say "ouch" if you slap it.

Do dogs really feel pain? Only the dogs know.

i disagree. dogs have emotions.

fish do not have emotions.

i would say there is an important difference between 'feeling' and 'awareness'. 'feeling' involves emotions. fish are 'aware' of a sensation which they try to avoid. humans can be aware of pain without 'feeling' it - eg when on heroin. the 'feeling' is the emotional bit, the bit we worry about, the bit animal rights campaigners tug our heartstrings with. fish don't 'feel' things in the sense that we (or other animals possessing limbic systems) do. that seems pretty obvious to me...

[tsr_tomas]

word !

we do not eat fish... how stupid can scientists be ?

it reminds me of a teacher in school who talked about a situation that recently had happen in school... somebody had laid Surströmming(a really bad smelling fish) in the school ventilation and then he said "it must be some Vegans who had done it" infront of the whole class.... how stupid and naiv can he be ? if he might of said some like it was some Youngsters or Miltantactivist or something in that style i might of understand what he was talking about.

[Lady E]

ha ha grobelaar, i heard that too. classic john humphries.

im a pescatarian myself. fish is good for you.

i was vegetarian for so long that i couldnt go back to eating meat as a matter of course, but when i was doing my finals i decided i could use some brainfood and ive never stopped. i am an ethical consumer of fish and have decided that my problem with meat eating, animal products in general is not that eating them per se is wrong but that factory farming is very very wrong.

i also think people eat too much meat so if you had a couple of meals of nice free range organic meat per week from your local butcher, no problem.

[decadnids]

Yeah agree with you Emma,
I am veggie because I don't believe the meat industry is doing any favours to itself or to the consumers, and least of all to the animals that it treats as "PRODUCTS" - which I find totally wrong. I have nothing against animals being eaten, at all.
I dont eat fish as for me, I feel that If I am going to eat any animal then I should at least go and catch it myself.

I dont think veg. feel pain, but I could be wrong, and anyhow I gotta eat something ;)

[Lady E]

yes - products, totally expendable..its sickens me to my core.

i agree on the catching yourself bit - i think i could easily catch a fish, and have done(when i was much younger) but id have to be in quite a life or death situation to kill a chicken let alone anything larger.

i think we have a really warped notion of animals in this country...we anthropomorphise them and make them the recipient of our emotions but we cant deal with the flesh and bloodness of animals. in some ways the ritualistic nature of hunting carries on mythic / magic systems of sacrifice and is a bit more of a healthy attitude than your average town dwelling shrinkwrapped chicken buying types. not that im pro-hunting.

[decadnids]

Yeah catching an animal and having to kill it is very powerful. when I was growing up I used to go rabbiting and stuff like that, so have experienced the act of catching and killing your supper.
you can go on fishing trips from the marina - I am thinking of going soon, as I think it would be fun, and also I could eat some fish ;) if managed to catch one!.

its true, people get a nice piece of meat on their plate, or wrapped up in a super market, and it no longer is an animal, just a "product" to bung in the oven and scoff. I think all meat eaters should have to kill an animal, and look it in its eyes as they throttle it. (probably a little harsh, but thats how I feel)

[Yer_Maw]

remembeer the vegan that came runner up on countdown and instead of taking the leather bound dictionary, she got a cd rom of it instead.

fanny.

[Lady E]

ha ha ha

[animal night train]

i have a vegan friend who beat rats to death with a rolled up newspaper when he had an infestation at home. vicious, he was, too.

[grobelaar]

Haha, I find it funny that people will go to an anti-hunting rally and probably head home via Sainsbury and pick up some convenient shrink-wrapped dead animal products...

...and singularly fail to see the depths of their hypocrasy..

[The Janitor]

waaaahhhhhh!

[Loz]

For some reason, this conversation reminds me of the Cow in The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe - bred simply to be eaten, and genetically modified to be quite accepting of it's fate.

"OK, sir. I'll just go into the kitchen and kill myself now. Don't worry, I'll be very humane."

[Basic 2: The Revenge]

lol

[Sheridan]

I'd go back to eating meat if you could get meat like in the simpsons where homer was in the garden of eden and the pig just laid back and let homer take some of his ribs without hurting him.

[tonyrohr]

"you don't win friends with salad, you don't win friends with salad, you don't win friends with salad...."

[filthydave]

i'm of the if you're gonna eat it, catch it and kill it yourself camp
it's why i gave up in the first place i realised that i couldn't ask anyone else to do my dirty work

i realise if it was life or death i'd have to, i just feel that in the west we have so much available in the way of non meat food we're completely insane to not eat it and turn animals products like we do

of course animals feel pain, the only reason it's different to us is we have languages we understand in order to communicate that pain to others but the basic nerve paths to the brain are the same
whose to say dogs cats fish or whatever else don't have languages anyway?
i've always said learning to speak dog and cat are two really good ones to know
just because they don't have words we understand it doesn't mean they can't communicate to each other, it's just on another level, one we as humans have all but forgotten about

if darwin and the theory of evolution is true we've all (man woman cat dog whatever) got bits of the reptiles (fishes - they came from the sea) brain left in us anyway and that's the part that deals with pain, hunger (form of pain) and sex (pleasure/pain/survial of the species)

ergo - meat eaters are cannibals!

[bitch one]

are you saying you think fish have conversations? what about oysters? do you think oysters have feelings too? bacteria?

i had the nicest bit of smoked salmon i've ever tasted last week in a small village on the mainland near kyle of lochalsh called plockton where they filmed hamish macbeth. it was cured in cognac and dill and virtually melted in the mouth. i'm all for looking after salmon properly, but i don't think you can train them to fetch sticks.

[filthydave]

yeah why not?
cuttlefish do whilst mating all be it in the language of colours
communication isn't just the spoken word ever heard of body language?

[bitch one]

what do you think oysters talk about?

[filthydave]

scent vision and just the feel of someones energy all play a part

[filthydave]

the way the tide is going?
i don't know what do you talk about?

[bitch one]

i'm not an oyster

i do like oysters tho (for eating, not conversation)

[filthydave]

ne'er tried 'em

never really thought somat with the feel of jizz would slide down my throat easily