[genomer]

It’s what you think it is, and it happens to more than just mice. I toured a bioengineering lab where they were actively severing the spines of chimpanzees to perform fiber rerouting experiments. I think the normal citizen never thinks much if at all about this kind of thing because they’re never exposed to it. A few researchers have opened up to me personally about their personal psychological trauma caused by involvement with animal experimentation. A couple PhD candidates I know changed fields entirely. One to ecology and another to environmental engineering. I personally moved forward with bioinformatics.

Edit: that isn’t to say that this result isn’t exciting for human welfare. We’ll see if it translates…

[nonameiguess]

I was originally a biology major and only ended up finishing the minor in part because of this. We had a lab assignment to do a live vivisection of a limpet to be able to view some of the circulatory systems in play in a still-living creature. We were supposed to paralyze them first, but whatever I did was incorrect. That thing was writhing and squirming and trying to get away and showing all the outward physical signs of being in pain the entire time.

Limpets don't even have brains, just cerebral ganglia, so it's likely it isn't really a sentient creature that has any conscious awareness of what is happening to it, but man, that scarred me. It felt like I was torturing something horribly and I knew that was not the career for me. There is no way I'd have ever been able to do that to a mouse.

[tkahnoski]

This is absolutely in the moral gray. The greater good, lesser of two evils, however you want to describe it whether it's right or wrong will get down to your personal beliefs.

I had a family member involved in a cancer research that used mice and although he admitted it was sad, he did call them heroes. Understandably, I don't think that satisfies anyone strongly aligned with animal rights. In many other sciences we've been able to use simulation as a first step, but that is still out of our reach for biological systems.

[dtgriscom]

A hero makes heroic choices. These mice aren't making choices.

[tkahnoski]

Indeed. No more than any other farm animal really.

[bodge5000]

Reminds me of "The ones who walk away from Omelas". Clearly not a one-to-one analogy, but close enough to make the connection.