fear factor cruelty

[Rourke]

I don't think it's accurate to lump together the response to simple stimulus, such as an amoeba would, and the response to pain as a tarantula would.

The ameoba only reacts due to chemical receptors on the cell membrane. A tarantula reacts to pain which has been interpreted by the ganglion.

A ganglion is nothing more than a group of cells, each responding individually to stimuli through chemoreceptors in its membrane. Same goes for each of us. At the root, none of it is any more esoteric than that.

Maybe it would be helpful to think of the individual neurons as binary switches. A binary switch is profoundly simple. But put enough of them together interacting in the proper manner, and you have a computer. Neat, hey? But it requires a critical mass, an amplification of many orders of magnitude to achieve such a gestalt. To deepen the analogy, let's say that a bacterium is composed of a very few of these switches, 50 or so. Not very complicated.....maybe roughly on par with a zener diode-based rectifier or something. Then what is a tarantula, metaphorically? A calculator? No probably not even that. An early digital watch, maybe. A veritable infinity away from a contemporary computer. And even the fanciest computers can't touch the human intellect, right? I might argue that nothing which is not capable of grasping the concept of pain or suffering, or cruelty, is susceptible to any of those things.

What about a monkey? I say yes. Pain and suffering are possible. A dog? A cat? A bird? My instinct is again yes for all of these. A mouse? A fish? Well.....now I am less sure. You see, there is a large gray area here, and our current picture of integrative neurophysiology is not advanced enough to make the call in many such cases. I think we know enough, though, to place invertebrates, even cephalopods, well outside the boundaries of this gray area with respect to the very human concepts of pain, suffering, and cruelty.

Rourke

 

[Xanzo]

This topic is somewhat confusing (not because of the biology) but because I think everyone is approaching pain differently, if we are talking about reacting to pain then yes, tarantulas feel pain if pain equals suffering, then tarantulas suffer.

You (CM and Rourke) are going on the premise that tarantulas don't understand pain (I agree) thus don't suffer (I disagree).

 

[Code Monkey]

This topic is somewhat confusing (not because of the biology) but because I think everyone is approaching pain differently, if we are talking about reacting to pain then yes, tarantulas feel pain if pain equals suffering, then tarantulas suffer.

That's a syllologism that you haven't offered any support for. Pain (as a stimulus) no more necessarily equals suffering than a female human exiting a room necessarily equals a devastating breakup. You need a lot of emotional capacity to *suffer* or you're not talking about suffering but merely equating a pain stimulus response as suffering. You can make that tautological argument, but I'd hold that most people would consider that particular way of making your case invalid.

You (CM and Rourke) are going on the premise that tarantulas don't understand pain (I agree) thus don't suffer (I disagree).

That much is obvious, but I don't think you've really made a case to distinguish your "understanding" from "suffering" since I would wager most people consider them equivalent. Without emotive capacity to become distressed at the pain stimulus response, you can't have suffering in any way other than your tautology: pain = suffering.

 

[maxwellxxv]

As I have read every response to my posting, I am very interested in every reply to it. There are some very good arguments about the whole topic. If nothing else.. it certainly shows that we are all very passionate in our beliefs and views. I could take each argument and pick it apart. Even my own original post after reading the numerous responses..do they feel pain? yes or no
do they interpret pain? well i have to say that evey thing that is considered alive must feel pain as a self preseravtion response. the will and want to be and stay alive.

 

[Code Monkey]

I could take each argument and pick it apart.

Doubtful at best. You can refute the emotional responses as me and Rourke have, but that's not really picking them apart, and unless you care to tackle modern neurophysiology you won't be picking anything apart with our refutations to the emo responses.

do they interpret pain? well i have to say that evey thing that is considered alive must feel pain as a self preseravtion response. the will and want to be and stay alive.

Part 1, sure, pain stimulus response is necessary as a survival mechanism. Part 2, utter bollocks. Very little out there in the sheer volume of living things experiences anything such as 'want' or 'will'.


Also, when I read stuff like this:

As I have read every response to my posting, I am very interested in every reply to it....Even my own original post after reading the numerous responses.

I am thinking you are waxing very close to troll territory. Basically, you just admitted to doing a drive-by for the sake of stirring up controversey as opposed to genuinely expressing outrage at the show.

 

[tkn0spdr]

Also, when I read stuff like this:
I am thinking you are waxing very close to troll territory. Basically, you just admitted to doing a drive-by for the sake of stirring up controversey as opposed to genuinely expressing outrage at the show.

I read that too mean that he truly felt the way that he did when he posted originally, but upon reading all the replies he may have ammended his position - or at least is more open to other peoples views.

 

[Code Monkey]

I read that too mean that he truly felt the way that he did when he posted originally, but upon reading all the replies he may have ammended his position - or at least is more open to other peoples views.

I considered this interpretation but went with 'possible troll' as my favored interpretation because of the bold claim of being able to pick apart all the answers but without offering anything further. That just smacked of trying to add a little fuel injection to the thread at the point it had died down and became largely some semantic nitpicking between a handful of posters.

It may not be his intention, but as a mod it is my job to discourage simply trying to cause trouble versus genuine discussion.

 

[flamingo-kid1]

Happy Happy Joy Joy

If you need to know what's cruel and what not, please post the example and I'll decide for you.

Usambara vs. Emperor...cruel! I've already tried this, the Emperor just pulls the legs off the Usambara...very disappointing pay-per-view.
:liar:

Please tell me whether or not it is cruel to make me have a mental image of your home-made pay-per-view as well as, as well as the exact same time, listen to Presidential poll returns. Jeez.

You owe me a drink.

 

[shogun804]

well i feel that it sucks to kill any animal if they feel it or not....but if they cannot feel it..it puts my mind at ease knowing that they do not get hurt like we do...so killing animals inverts whatever is wrong it happens all the time and its a way of life i feel bad for the little T's but if it brings them no pain it brings me no pain....IMO

 

[dangerprone69]

I won't argue the LOGIC behind what you are saying..
Do inverts have the capacity to 'feel' pain? fear? distress? the same as verts, probably not.. there's alot of evidence to support that.

Be careful those of you who are letting emotions get in the way here, don't be hypocritical..
How many of you keep crickets and allow many to die, be cannibalized?

My earlier post was just to point out a contrast

Now for Fear factor... should we ( as a race ) be condoning such behavior i.e. the disregard for life.?

Well my beliefs are probably NOT popular..
If for a purpose YES.

Should Avon put their products in the eyes of rabbits? NO
Should Bristol Myeres inject rats with substances to test toxic doses.. YES
Should you be able to put a worm on a fishing hook? a cricket? a slug? .. YES
Should you be able to shoot a dog that enters your property and threatens you and your family.. YES YES YES..
Should we feed crickets to our T's?? YES..
Should we be able to get rid of a rodent from our house.. YES.

ARE ALL creatures of equal status and equal rights? NO.
DOES ALL life deserve some respect YES..

FIND your own position on the continuum..

WELL STATED.

I may not like or agree with some of what they do on that show, but I'm not one of the morons who watches it. I let dozens of crickets get eaten by my T's and scorpions each month, as well as being cannibalized by their own kind. There's not much difference between what we do with them and what FF does.

But I would love to see an episode where FF's producers get locked in a tank with a couple full grown T. Blondi's.

 

[tkn0spdr]

I considered this interpretation but went with 'possible troll' as my favored interpretation because of the bold claim of being able to pick apart all the answers but without offering anything further. That just smacked of trying to add a little fuel injection to the thread at the point it had died down and became largely some semantic nitpicking between a handful of posters.

It may not be his intention, but as a mod it is my job to discourage simply trying to cause trouble versus genuine discussion.

That's why you be the mod and I be the peon!

 

[Professor T]

Actually we do: it "feels" nothing as even that is indicative of more anthropomorphosising. The nervous system of most inverts is non-centralized, non-complex. They are no more aware that they have lost a limb than you are another hair fell out - they continue to try and carry out hardwired subroutines when all manner of damage is done to them because there isn't any central consciousness that registers the damage in any sense that you or I could fathom. You want a skinner-box, the tarantula is it.
.

OK tough guy, I'm going to have to call you out on this one!

First of all, apples and SUVs on the comparison between capacity to learn and capacity to feel.

Show me one valid peer reviewed scientific study that concluded Ts can't feel pain. Just one. You can't, because you just pulled it out of your arse. No scientific basis, just a myth you might have learned in school.

On a different topic, FYI many primative animals are driven by instinct, but show trial and error behavior. Just because a T can't function in a box designed for a rat, doesn't mean human's couldn't latter devise a test to show Ts function with 99% insinct and 1% learned behavior. Even the instinct behavior in some animals has some learning involved (ie. imprinting behavior).

You're making some conclusions that you need a complex nervous system to feel pain. Define what a complex nervous system is!?

Did you know that Ts have a central nervous system? All the nerve fibers passing from the periphery toward the central nervous system are called afferents. Large arachnids like Ts possess many more afferent fibers. In some ways T peripheral nerves are very different than insect nerves. Their functional implication is still unclear, but according to Rainer F. Foelix, "we must assume some nervous integration is already taking place".

Ts have neurobasts form within each segment that form ganglia that produce a coherent mass of nervous tissue. All adbominal ganglia migrate into the large subesophageal ganglion. The cheliceral ganglion shifts anteriorly so that becomes part of the supraesophageal ganglion. The proto and deuterocerebrum of the supraesophageal ganglion develop as part of the cephalic lobe and become connected with the subesophgeal ganglion. The outgrowth of nerve fibers gives rise to a neropil and the peripheral nervous system.

My point is how are you so sure Ts can't feel pain, with all these nerves, when nobody else has been able to make a similar conclusion? Are you getting ready to publish an earth shattering neurobiology research paper?

 

[Code Monkey]

My point is how are you so sure Ts can't feel pain, with all these nerves, when nobody else has been able to make a similar conclusion? Are you getting ready to publish an earth shattering neurobiology research paper?

Not in the slightest, but you are arguing like a creationist using a lot of good science sounding arguments, and I think you're still bickering about semantics regarding what pain is.

It is not on me to prove the negative. Plenty of very good neurobiologists would smack you upside and down for trying to declare the lack of a paper proving a negative as support when every paper there is shows no evidence of *emotive* capacity. Demonstrate the proof of their emotive capacity (I never said anything about learning) and I'll assume you're the one not pulling things out of your butt.

EDIT: OK, now that I have a minute or two to write instead of the quick response, I'll clarify the above a bit more...

I *think* we may be arguing semantics, perhaps even unintentionally. If by 'feel pain' you mean their nervous system is aware of a strongly negative stimulus, I am with you. I don't think that matters, though, because of what I meant by 'feel pain', which is "suffers some form of psychological/emotional/conscious *distress* as a result of the perception of a negative stimulus".

If you are arguing that my definition of feeling pain is a possibility for a tarantula, then you should be the one pulling out papers because that would be quite the feat. You, as someone who purports to be a scientific kind of guy, should know that you don't get to upset the establishment by demanding they prove your wacky idea is impossible, you have to show your wacky idea isn't so wacky. Genuine intelligence in the form of limited consciousness or emotive capacity, a prerequisite for *feeling* pain, not just *sensing* pain, has never to my knowledge even been suggested in a paper regarding any inverebrate with the sole exception of the cephalopods. They have been shown to demonstrate fairly sophisticated problem solving and social communication which is indicative that they are probably ahead of many vertebrates. However, that's an outlier in a phylum otherwise considered to be defined by non-intelligent, stereotyped, hardwired behaviors. Now, I suppose you can make the argument that just because there is no objective sign of intelligence and/or emotional capacity we don't absolutely know it isn't there, but that's hardly scientific or rational.

 

[Professor T]

Not in the slightest, but you are arguing like a creationist using a lot of good science sounding arguments, and I think you're still bickering about semantics regarding what pain is.

Code Monkey,

Creationists use bad "science". You are avoiding my challenge. You said "it feels nothing" referring to pain (since they can feel vibrations, heat, chemicals). I say prove the statement. Since you can't, I think I have just kicked the King of Nad Kicking in the NADS!

I'm not asking you to prove the negative. I admit nobody knows if a T can feel pain. YOU are the one that stated they can't like its fact. Time to put up or shut up...name one peer reviewed study that supports your statement, or go out and buy a cup to protect your nads.

The truth is you made a statement you BELIEVE to be true without any real science to back it up. You passed it off as truth, when its myth.

I am now the new king of nad kicking. Every dog has his day. Don't worry, I'll give you a title shot rematch the next time I'm wrong and you're right.

Peace and love,
Professor T
The New King of Nad Kicking

 

[maxwellxxv]

I am thinking you are waxing very close to troll territory. Basically, you just admitted to doing a drive-by for the sake of stirring up controversey as opposed to genuinely expressing outrage at the show.
__________________
I find this statemnet to be very upsetting. That was not my intention. I am now sorry for even posting this thread. For it has stirred up passions in every one, including this insult. by a moderator! My intent was that I thought what the show did was wrong. I love the hobby and was jerked at what took place. I do not post just to stir up $#@&... I would never do that! If some one thought I posted to stir up stuff they are dead wrong. I really dig this hobby and really dig this site.

 

[RaZeDaHeLL666]

Isnt What There Morons Are Doing Cruetly To Animals?? Whether They Feel It Or Not, I Feel It!! tHEY ARE DEPRIVING THESE ANIMALS OF THIER CHANCE AT LIFE!!!

 

[Code Monkey]

Creationists use bad "science". You are avoiding my challenge. You said "it feels nothing" referring to pain (since they can feel vibrations, heat, chemicals). I say prove the statement. Since you can't, I think I have just kicked the King of Nad Kicking in the NADS!

No, you've now just proven an utter lack of comprehending the written language. Not only did I never make the statement in the context you say I did, I even followed up your challenge with a major attempt at clarifying what we were talking about in the first place.

And by the way, you are using bad science. Throwing around a bunch of terminology doesn't a case make, particularly since I no longer have any clue what your case was other than being deliberately obstinate and confusing the situation. You are either still trying to say that Ts can *sense* pain and using the colloquial and loaded 'feel' to denote that, in which case as I said there is no argument, merely mistaken semantics. Or, you are trying to argue that an animal with only a few hundred thousand neurons is the emotional equivalent to a mammal with anywhere from a few billion neurons in something like a mouse to a few trillion neurons in something like us. If your argument is the first point, then there is no argument since I never disagreed with you in the first place, if your argument is the second, the burden of proof is all on you and no amount of childish antics changes that.

I'm not asking you to prove the negative. I admit nobody knows if a T can feel pain. YOU are the one that stated they can't like its fact. Time to put up or shut up...name one peer reviewed study that supports your statement, or go out and buy a cup to protect your nads.

I stand by that fact, it is fact, it will remain fact until you can prove they are conscious and emotional, something you know well they are not, and furthermore, apparently may never have been your claim in the first place. You're running this argument in circles like a special ed kid in a round room trying to find the corner.

I am now the new king of nad kicking. Every dog has his day. Don't worry, I'll give you a title shot rematch the next time I'm wrong and you're right

You're no more a nadkicker than I am a warm fuzzy bunny.

Challenging me on a mistaken interpretation on *your* part and then ignoring me pointing out *your* mistake and then claiming victory must be among the more pathetic attempts I've seen at someone claiming they won. I'd say what I really think of this quoted post, but 'pathetic' seems to do for now.

Peace and love

Given my mood for the day, not the best sentiment to send my way, I'm pretty much about burning hatred and scorn right now.

 

[Salmissra]

New to T's here, don't know all there is to know but I know one thing, if I take a hat pin and poke my 8" P.cancerides with it one of two things will happen: he'll run away or he will bite me.

Is this conclusive evidence that he "feels" pain? I'll let someone else try that one!

 

[Code Monkey]

I find this statemnet to be very upsetting. That was not my intention. I am now sorry for even posting this thread. For it has stirred up passions in every one, including this insult. by a moderator! My intent was that I thought what the show did was wrong. I love the hobby and was jerked at what took place. I do not post just to stir up $#@&... I would never do that! If some one thought I posted to stir up stuff they are dead wrong. I really dig this hobby and really dig this site.

There's no harm if that was your intent, I merely stated an observation and was careful to merely call it a possibility.

 

[danread]

New to T's here, don't know all there is to know but I know one thing, if I take a hat pin and poke my 8" P.cancerides with it one of two things will happen: he'll run away or he will bite me.

Is this conclusive evidence that he "feels" pain? I'll let someone else try that one!

Hi Salmissra,

Nobody is deniying the fact that tarantulas or indeed most animals. right down to protozoa, can respond to a stimulus that we might consider painful. The question is whether they can actually feel pain in the sense that it can cause distress emotionally. I'm 100% with Code on that one. There is no evidence that invertebrates are distressed by pain in any way, they can survive and feed with legs missing and don't have the complex neurological sytems required to interpret "pain" as anything other than a presence or absence of that stimulus.

ProfessorT,

your argument of "here is my theory, prove me wrong" is compeltely the wrong way to go about it. There is no evidence for tarantulas feeling pain, and for them to do so would go against the conventional belief of 99% of behavioural and neurological scientists, so that should stand as the hypothesis. If you want to prove it wrong, it is up to you to find the evidence to disprove it, not the other way round. I'm not saying that there is no possibility of you being right, but i find it highly unlikely.

Cheers,