Animal rights, human wrongs

Published 28 February 2008

As he takes up his new role at the Food Standards Agency, Colin Blakemore talks about animal rights, research and "pseudo-Buddhism" plus check out our debate on this controversial issue

"Ooooooof!" Colin Blakemore is stumped - a rare occurrence indeed. Professor of neuroscience at Oxford and Warwick universities, former chief executive of the Medical Research Council (MRC), the youngest ever Reith lecturer (in 1976) and winner of the Royal Society's Michael Faraday award for public communication of science, Blakemore is not a man known for shying away from controversy or being short for words. He thinks that alcohol and tobacco should be classed as more dangerous than LSD or Ecstasy, and that all drugs should be legalised. Never mind animals (more of which later), he believes human beings should be used as guinea pigs for medical research. He even defended the DNA pioneer James Watson after the Nobel laureate caused a stink with his crass remarks about race and intelligence last year.

But on the question of who in the past ten years has been his favourite health secretary, he cannot form an opinion; or, at least, not one he is prepared to communicate in public. "I'll pass," he says eventually, adding in a mutter combining a dash of sympathy with the suggestion that none of them has been much cop, "It's a very difficult job."

Blakemore is a busy man. He bustles into his office at the Science Museum in South Kensington, rangy limbs sticking like beanpoles out of his trousers (a keen marathon runner, he has the physique to show for it), lopsided smile on a face that has borne too many cares. He's late after being stuck in traffic, but "he's always late", confides his secretary, and no wonder.

On top of jobs at Oxford and Warwick, Blakemore has just started as chair of the new general advisory committee on science at the Food Standards Agency (FSA). The previous day, the Health Protection Agency asked him to chair another committee on electromagnetic fields - "radiation, mobile phones, power lines, all that controversial stuff". He is to give a lecture that evening for which he has to prepare, as well as write two articles on cannabis the same afternoon. And he is just about to jet off to Singapore, where he leads the government's Neuroscience Research Partnership.

"My life is overfull!" he exclaims. "I probably said yes to too many things when I left the MRC." But whatever he does for the rest of his life, Colin Blakemore will always be known as the scientist who stood up for vivisection. After his departure from the MRC last year, he had the unenviable distinction of being the only person to have left that position without a knighthood. In 2003 it came out that he had been turned down for a "K" because of his past work on animals, which had led to breakthroughs in preventing childhood blindness. He threatened to resign unless the government made clear it supported scientists engaged in animal research, which the then science minister, David Sainsbury, duly did.

There was still no knighthood, though. The finger of suspicion landed on Sir Richard Mottram, the Whitehall mandarin infamous for his indelicate response to the resignation of Stephen Byers ("I'm f*****. You're f*****. The whole department's f*****"). Mottram chaired the committee thought to have blocked Blakemore's nomination, which provided convenient cover for ministers. "In a letter to a colleague, Tony Blair was firm that the government didn't control the process," says Blakemore, with a dry chuckle. Of course not.

But this was no one-off. Blakemore has been passed over at least five times now, the last occasion being the 2008 New Year Honours list. "People tell me that every time it's been on the grounds of my involvement in animal research and the controversy [an award would cause] in public." When the Animal Liberation Front threatened a series of attacks on Oxford later this year, to coincide with the opening of a new facility housing all the university's animal testing labs, Blakemore's name inevitably came up. "The implication was that I would be the target," he says. "But I don't have a licence any more. I haven't worked on animals for five years and don't intend to, not because I'm changing my views on the legitimacy of it but because it would have been impossible to sustain while I was at the MRC. So I would be particularly pissed off," he half laughs, half shouts, "if I became the number-one target again."

Incendiary devices

The bitterness of his humour is unsurprising. Incendiary and nail bombs have been sent to his home in Oxford by animal liberation terrorists. On one occasion his children (he has three daughters) opened one; fortunately it failed to explode. Packages have to go through an X-ray machine before they can be accepted in the house, which is fitted with panic buttons, triple locks and a safe room. Mobs have smashed windows and tried to break down doors. Still Blakemore speaks out.

He is particularly withering about the animal rights phil osophy of Peter Singer, which has provided a veneer of intellectual respectability to campaigns of violence. "Of course animals don't have rights," he says. "Where would they come from? We bestow rights on them, but they don't know about them, they don't earn them, by their own behaviour they don't acknowledge them." In terms of equality of suffering and entitlement, he says, "Where do you draw the line?" If not between humans and animals, then where? "In Animal Liberation, Singer says it's somewhere between a rat and a flounder. What's wrong with flounders? The answer is that they don't look like people. It's reverting to a very shallow anthropomorphism." I mention that another philosopher, Roger Scruton, used to have a pig called Singer; and that, chez Scruton, I once dined on sausages made from the deceased animal (he tasted rather good). Blakemore looks dubious. "I know Roger. I don't think I'm in quite the same territory as him," he says, leaning forward and twisting his legs uncomfortably round the side of a large armchair.

He prefers to reframe the whole debate, to talk of responsibilities, rather than rights. "The reason why I don't mistreat my own cat is not because it has some kind of rights. It's because I try to be a decent person. Our primary responsibility is to our own species. As for, say, mosquitoes, do we have responsibilities to them? No. Do you swat them? Of course. They don't have rights. They're bloody awful, carriers of disease. None of this, ah, pseudo-Buddhism."

Moral justification

So far, so solid: not a hint of retreat. But Blakemore goes even further in his defence of animal testing (for medical and scientific research only; he has long supported a ban on animal testing for cosmetics). "Of all the things humans do to animals - eating, looking at them in circuses, hunting - the one area which is the most highly regulated and is not aimed at pleasure is the most vilified. The one area that tries to improve the state of humans and animals is research. You could make the case that it's the most noble thing we do to animals. If their use in research benefits people, that is much more morally justifiable than eating animals for pleasure." So, does he? "In general, I don't eat mammals." He wouldn't touch factory-farmed chicken? "I try to avoid it, but how can you if you're at a restaurant? I wouldn't be fanatical about it." Would he wear a fur coat? "Keeping mink in decent conditions, killing them painlessly and then using their fur doesn't appal me.

"I know a fair number of animal researchers who are vegetarians," he adds and mentions a pro-animal research march he attended in Oxford. Among the thousands of scientists and members of the public was a group with a "Vegetarians for Animal Research" banner. "There's no inconsistency," he insists.

Blakemore is very straightforward, and is unbothered about the motives of supermarkets stocking healthier ranges of food and agreeing to indicate fat and sugar content on labels. "What matters is whether it's done or not." Although a self-proclaimed "old left-wing libertarian", he has no problem with using taxes as a device to steer behaviour. "I think it's well established. I mean, I'm sure the Treasury wouldn't have said that they would have been opposed to the smoking ban if it turned out that they'd have lost lots of revenue from tax. That would have been tantamount to encouraging smokers."

Then he reveals something very interesting: it turns out that the Treasury did consider this factor. "They did do an analysis of the impact of the smoking ban. Very conveniently for the government, they discovered that over a ten-year timescale, the gain, in terms of benefit to the health service, would outweigh the costs they lost." Being a no-nonsense consequentialist, he doesn't seem overly troubled by the implications. Others can only wonder what would have happened if Prudence had found herself in conflict with principle, and what this says about the government's real attitude to public health.

Where Blakemore is an idealist is when it comes to the NHS and state education. I ask him if he would disapprove of any MP or government minister going private. There is a very long pause, which I take to mean yes. "I've never had private health care, I must say," he begins. "If you're a very busy politician, then ahhh" - he sounds as though he's desperately trying to think of some attenuating circumstances - "you could argue that your time is of more use to the country than the principle of you waiting for NHS treatment. I would just say that it's unfortunate to have to make that choice."

Volunteers wanted

A working-class grammar school boy who won a state scholarship to Cambridge, Blakemore has a confession to make: he sent his children to public school. "I still suffer pangs of guilt about that," he says, looking tormented by remorse even though this must have been some time ago - he is 63 and he met his wife, Andrée, when they were both 15. "Although I'm quite sure it was the best thing to do - not the right thing but the best thing," he stresses. "It was against all my principles."

Despite this lapse, Blakemore is such a believer in the institutions of state provision that he thinks people should volunteer for medical trials currently being carried out on animals (it would cut the time and cost of new drugs). He has said this should be considered "just as much a part of the contract of the NHS as paying your National Insurance so that you can access it". "If only people could see it's in their interests," he says, "we could certainly have a cheaper health service if we committed to playing that part in research."

His enthusiasm for the NHS as a grand project in which we all share, participation in which is in itself virtuous, is rather thrilling. His keenness that we should all undergo testing and risk the fate of the six men who almost died at Northwick Park Hospital two years ago, on the other hand, is slightly unnerving. Reference to that incident prompts a reproach. "The very fact it was front-page news gives you a sense of how rare it is."

So what can we expect from Professor Blakemore in his new role at the FSA? If not legislation, certainly intervention. "The state has the right to intervene if there is a burden on the taxpayer from the consequences of individuals doing silly things with their lives and their health." The number of people with severe weight problems "certainly affects the health service. It's going to affect the economy. We should all feel that we carry a burden because of the epidemic of obesity."

Off he goes, ready to fight another battle. He reminds me of the type of teacher that used to be found in those schools he feels so bad about sending his daughters to: strict but encouraging, clever, certain of the benefits of a cross-country run, and with a slight cussed streak that speaks to a deep sense of duty and purpose. No doubt there were one or two at his old grammar. A man of old-fashioned values, that's what Blakemore is. It's good to be reminded of those from time to time.

Blakemore:the CV

1944 Born 1 June in Stratford-upon-Avon. Educated at King Henry VIII School, Coventry

1962 Wins state scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to read natural sciences

1968 Gets doctorate in physiological optics at University of California, Berkeley

1976 Reith lecturer on "Mechanics of the Mind"

1979 Appointed Waynflete Professor of Physiology, Oxford

1989 Awarded Royal Society's Michael Faraday Prize

1992 Co-founds Boyd Group, a think tank on animal research

1997 On World Day for Lab Animals, 300 activists surround his home in Oxford

2001-2004 Chairman, British Association for the Advancement of Science

2003-2007 Chief executive, Medical Research Council

Research by Aditi Charanji

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20 comments from readers

Pablo K
28 February 2008 at 12:23

The claim that Singer's philosophy provides a 'veneer of intellectual respectability' for terrorism is patently ridiculous. Not only has Singer never advocated or justified such a strategy, he is not even absolutely opposed to animal testing itself. Rather, he asks certain questions about the difference between animals and humans which cannot be resolved by appeals to 'common-sense'.

One does not have to support disgusting acts of violence against Blakemore's children or argue that there should never, ever be any research on animals to grasp some of the basics.

Why is there a moral difference between doing open-brain experiments on certain apes and doing them on disabled children who will never be capable of the high-level functioning of, say, a chimpanzee? Ranting that there is 'obviously' a difference because 'our primary responsibility is to our own species' is not a satisfactory answer, either scientifically or morally. The line is arbitrary, and that is precisely Singer's point.

Singer does not argue that rats deserve better treatment than flounders because they 'look more like people' and it is deeply silly of Blakemore to say that he does. Singer's criteria are much more reasonable and centre not around anthropomorphism, but on the capacity to experience pain. There are perfectly objective criteria for such a hierarchy to do with nervous systems, degrees of self-consciousness and observable behaviour.

You don't have to be a vegan to accept that or understand it. And judging a philosophical approach by its lowest common denominator (i.e. making animal rights about sending bombs to the children of prominent scientists) is fairly pathetic too.

As for no inconsistency in 'Vegetarians for Animal Research', I would suspect that Singer would agree. As a vegetarian, so do I. But accepting that there is a strong case for animal research in some cases is not the same as either being *for* animal research, regardless of the context (which is not science, but dogma) or failing to realise that there are reasons (historical and ideological) why we consider it acceptable to kill and experiment on other species that are not necessarily as obvious, as scientific or as rational as some people like to think.

david
28 February 2008 at 21:48

The problem for Blakemore is that he fails to show any evidence of even having read Peter Singer. Peter Singer - in the introduction to Animal Liberation, for starters, but also in most of his books - makes it fairly clear that he believes the idea that anything - animals, fetusus, disabled kids - have rights to be nonsense. He's never argued animals have rights, and never will, because he is a utilitarian thinker.

Blakemore repeats the same pathetic argument against Peter Singer in every single article he writes, getting away it every time heaven knows how. Peter Singer never even mentions "flounders" in AL: this is Blakemore's invention. Even if he had, the charge of "antropomorphism" would somewhat collapse on the grounds that rats are hardly humanoid in shape.

But Blakemore doesn't care, and the journo doesn't care, just throw in the ill-defined, hack neyed charge of "antropomorphism" (with not a trace of any philosophical depth of understanding of the concept) and you'll win the moron's vote.

Anti vivisection doesn't start and end with Singer. In fact, few animal activists have any particular affinity for his views. Bernstein, Regan, Adams, Harding, Dunayer, Francione - and hundreds of other academics - have all surpassed Singer into terms of intellectual weight and credibility. Why Blakemore continues to focus on a lightweight like Singer (and to not even bother represent his fairly fluffy views accuratetly) is quite clear: Singer's essentially a strawman.

Francione V Blakemore in a debate. That would interesting, wouldn't it? Blakemore would be wetting his pants within minutes. Hence the focusing on a nobody like Singer, obliged by a journo who no doubt knows diddly squat about the issue.

Stephen Newton
01 March 2008 at 12:34

It's a shame interviewer Sholto Byrnes is so clearly in awe of Blakemore, because the interview adds little to debate as a result. The idea that we should experiment more on humans, for example, does lend a degree of intellectual consistency to the pro-vivisectionist, but how far would Colin Blakemore actually take this? Would he, for example, invite a group human subjects to consume a particular substance to point where at least half of them were dead? I'd like to think not, but you never know.

ian
01 March 2008 at 13:10

Of course animals have rights just as my recently born son has rights. He doesnt know about them, he didnt earn them and by his behaviour doesnt acknowledge them.

In my edition of animal liberation Singer infact talks about extended equal consideration to animals.

Blakemore doesnt mistreat his cat because he 'tries' to be a decent person! He is simply expressing tge power our species holds over others.

Of course animals have rights. Just look at the complexity of the natural world. A single of ' Life in cold blood' should leave us in awe. Shingleback lizards in Australia pair up for their 20 year lifespan.

Of course Blakemore supports the vivisection industry. It has paid his mortgage and paid for his children to have private education. How he agonises over his decision to send his daughters to private school. He did it because he had the power and wealth to do so.

Much of human illness is due to an excess of one sort or another whether it be food, cigarettes or alcohol. Why should animals pay with their lives for our self inflicted harm?

yankee
03 March 2008 at 02:59

Blakemore is just another vivisection hack. He has made money in experiments and if that involves pain and suffering for other creatures then that's just the way it will have to be. These people will do anything for money and nevermind these experiments are not helping sick people. GO SHAC!

Joe Wilson
03 March 2008 at 09:39

Blakemore has got some views which are more for the people but this is just a front for the governmental official who beleives the way we are governed is correct, like ian said, the system has payed for his life and his daughters lifes to be sustained in wealth and confortability,, and not question the opinions of animal rights, even if he did see animals haviung rights it doesnt change a thing, because he has lived testing on them and that will be be stowed upon him for the rest of his and his daughters lives.

And yes animals do have rights as much as we, the diffrence between humans, a pig and a mosqiuto is that humans and pigs are classed as centurion beings, we have been giving the power to feel emotions of happyness sadness, pain this gives animals the rights to freedom and to be themselves who are we to take these animals out of there natural ways and shove them in pens where they are beatan and giving the most inhumane emotions ever, and the best excuse came up with is "were top of the food chain". i say bo****ks, lifes unfair to us when things go wrong but we can shout about to everyone making them feel sorry about us, animals cant do this act of sympathy and thats what makes us greater what a load of crap.

gnuneo
03 March 2008 at 17:39

i admire most of his expressed opinions here, but on the subject of animal/human medical experiments, i have to ask - what experiments has he performed upon himself, for the medical industry?

or are such only to be performed on less 'vital' personages in society, like the poor?

RYates
03 March 2008 at 18:53

It is indeed remarkable that Blakemore knows so little about animal ethics that he does not even know that Peter Singer is not an animal rights advocate! One might think a person would read up on a subject before they decided to be "withering" about it.

I hope the New Statesman eds have the fairness of mind to invite Professor Gary Francione to pen an article in order to put the record straight about animal rights as a philosophical idea.

RYates

Colonel Blimp
04 March 2008 at 14:43

I met Sholto Byrnes once and found him in ore. I have never met Sholto Byrnes. Why would I, damn you?

pet_pamperer
06 March 2008 at 01:51

I would like to ask this question of God. Why did you create humans and animals and then tell us to slaughter them and cook them to give you a pleasing aroma? That is why I'm not sure of anything anymore. I just know I cannot stomach the killing or suffering of any animals let alone eat them.

maria
06 March 2008 at 09:21

Of course animals have rights or better should have everywhere in the world, just like the human animals,

which we are and prove to be every day by mishandling

our co-animals so desparately everywhere in the world.

How can we influence those who have the power (the power animals) to use their heart together with their

mind in decision making abt. animal law!!!!!!

I say YES.

maria

cleo
07 March 2008 at 00:57

Blakemore says he does not mistreat his cat 'because I try to be a decent person'

I believe a large part of his personal experimentation on animals involved very unpleasant and distressing procedures on kittens.

I would be interested to know how this makes him ' a decent person'.

In what way is his pet cat any more deserving of kindness than the unfortunate animals he destroyed.

Carla Lane OBE
07 March 2008 at 12:26

Mr Blakemore has had long enough to try and prove that his work is valid. He is not a man of conscience but someone created by an accident of nature. He has no feelings or guilt or any other quality that he seems to think he is blessed with. It is time to leave the kittens alone - too many have already suffered in his name. We have never supported his cruelty and his hunt for fame and the time has come to end it. Carla Lane OBE.

Ruth
07 March 2008 at 18:50

If the New Statesman is serious about a balanced debate on animal experimentation I suggest they contact Europeans for Medical Progress, Tel.0208 265 2880 and Uncaged Campaigns, Tel.0114 272 2220 for an interview for inclusion in the magazine.

Kathy Musker
07 March 2008 at 21:05

Blakemore shows his usual arrogance (demanding a Knighthood indeed )! with his statements regarding mink. Surely a man of his 'intelligence' realises that mink are not killed painlessly not kept in decent conditions, what planet is he living on. He also thinks it is OK for the state to interfere if we mere mortals do 'silly things' with our health. What a dangerous philosophy. 'A man of old fashined values' this article states, a man of no values nor honour in my book. SHAME ON HIM and all those who condone vivisection.

Junedazzle
08 March 2008 at 00:15

Why on earth does Blakemore think he can demand a knighthood. Not only does it show how out of touch with reality he is but also shows a total lack of self-insight.

Let us hope that this man will never recieve this award for inflicking his appalling experiments on millions of creatures. Which were needless.

gnuneo
10 March 2008 at 15:45

i want you to imagine a near future, Earth has been invaded by an alien species with vastly advanced technology, energy fields so our weapons can't hurt them, and enough individual firepower to wipe out cities easily.

imagine also this species is vastly ahead of us in the arts, in the eternal question of how to create a human and just society they had done extremely well, this is a species and society far above our own in every sphere. The idea of war between them is laughable for instance. For an example, see Iain M Banks 'culture' ('Player of Games' is a good introduction).

Yet they had a problem - a virus had broken out, and in a very short space of time the virus would kill them all, too short for them to solve it by artificial means. But they had discovered mankind were close enough in physiological similarity that we could be experimented upon in time to save themselves.

however, the experimentation would definitely kill large numbers of humans.

Now, the question is, as they are so far above us, are they justified in doing so?

and if not, why not?

Eric the Half a Bee
24 March 2008 at 23:45

Can we please have someone vaguely knowledgeable about the scientific issues doing the interviews with scientists in future ? Then we might be able to hear Prof Blakemore pressed to defend statements like "If their [animal] use in research benefits people, that is much more morally justifiable than eating animals for pleasure." For as anyone even remotely familiar with the field will know, there is no systematic evidence supporting claims that drug testing on animals has any predictive power.

Tell you what, Sholto: I promise not to interview Wynton Marsalis and ask how he came to be so great a sax player if you promise not to do any more interviews with scientists.

xx_husky_xx
07 April 2008 at 18:01

Animals Rights versus Childrens Rights? - Let me think.........................

No competion.. Animals win hands down!!!!!

After all -.

Their mothers dont have their off-springs taken from them at birth and given up to hit some "Forced Adoption" targets in order to comply with some government financial insentive....

There is no "Human Being" would take away newborn babies from their mothers breasts whilst feeding them what nature intended... Yet it happens every day of the week to "Humans Children"

Yep - Animals Win Hands Down - But then again -

Have they wrongly diagnosed MSBP yet in animals??

Some very serious issues and allegations have to be addressed on this point.

A wronged mother.

Scotland

wallyma
03 May 2008 at 22:21

to ian 1 march 08--Of course animals have rights just as my recently born son has rights. He doesnt know about them, he didnt earn them and by his behaviour doesnt acknowledge them.

don't attribute what did you give birth to, a dog or human? humans don't have to earn rights--why or rather when does your son 'earn' his right to stay alive in this world? who decides that?