

Lobsters and Crabs Feel Pain, Study Shows - silkodyssey
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/03/27/crab-lobster-pain.html

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devinj
Wait. You mean people thought they _didn't_?

I'm not at all experienced in the realm of animal activism as it relates to
lobsters and crabs, but did people _really_ think that animals didn't feel
something akin to pain if you ripped their limbs off? Pain is a vital
mechanism/motivation for survival and thus evolutionarily advantageous. Maybe
some complex animals don't have it, but they'd have to be pretty weird
(although I admit, lobsters and crabs would be in the right category-- it's
not going to be a vertebrate that feels no pain-- they aren't particularly
unique in terms of how they grow and die).

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goodside
You don't need pain if you can't learn from it. If your environment is stable
enough that you can operate entirely by innate reflex, there's no reason to
waste genetic selection pressure on crafting sensations for the benefit of
some passive, ineffectual observer inside the lobster. Or the observer itself,
for that matter. Its almost certainly true that lobsters feel pain (response
to analgesics is damn convincing), but it isn't obviously true without
evidence like this study.

~~~
pyre
> _It may well be true that lobsters feel pain, but it isn't obviously true
> without evidence like this._

Then at best the evidence is inconclusive. This is usually an issue that is
trotted out as 'fact' a lot when it comes to debates about boiling
lobsters/crabs alive for food. So really the 'general knowledge' of this
should be:

    
    
      We don't know whether or not lobsters and crabs feel pain.
    

and not:

    
    
      We know for sure that crabs and lobsters don't feel pain,
      because if they did, then I would feel bad about going
      to Red Lobster for dinner.

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mark_l_watson
It has always bugged me that some people boil live crabs and lobsters: I have
seen them struggling to get out of the water. Quickly cutting out their brain
stems and then tossing them in the water seems better.

That said, anyone who has seen live pigs piled 20+ feet deep in a pre-killing
pen may think about being a vegetarian. The look of total fear in their eyes
is difficult to forget. My wife and I had the misfortune of seeing that one
time and we could not bring ourselves to eat any meat for a long time.

~~~
mingdingo
I think it's more than some people, unfortunately. It's probably the de facto
way.

“One can measure the greatness and the moral progress of a nation by looking
at how it treats its animals” - Mahatma Gandhi

Most nations do poorly on this test, although there is slow progress. The
funny thing is, at least 7 out of 10 people would not be happy with factory
farming practices, but they still dominate agriculture in this country. It
deeply troubles me that you can keep pigs in pens where they cannot even turn
around, even though they're about as intelligent as dogs. Other animals can be
equally as unlucky.

~~~
ars
It's a bit off topic, but that is not actually a good way to measure a nation.

Holocaust survivors describe how dogs were treated well, and there were laws
protecting them and other animals.

A much better way to measure that, is seeing how the nation treats it's
prisoners.

~~~
polp
I think you are missing the point. Nazi Germany was by no means a vegetarian
country. I think a better question to ask would be - could the Holocaust have
happened in the mostly-vegetarian India? Millions of people were murdered
under the pretense that these people are pigs or rats. But what if your
culture (e.g. Hinduism or whatever) also condemns the killing of pigs and
rats? The entire argument that justifies murdering these people breaks down.

~~~
philwelch
India long had a caste system. Do you argue that the long-standing violence
and discrimination against "untouchables" could not have led to a genocide the
way long-standing anti-Semitism in Europe did?

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Jun8
In addition to Wallace's _Consider the Lobster_ I'd very much recommend
Baggini's _The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten_ (review here:
[http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/04/review-pig-that-
wants...](http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/04/review-pig-that-wants-to-be-
eaten.html)) for a deeper dive into this problem. The title essay's premise is
this:

As a thought experiment assume that a lobster is genetically modified to think
that it's sole purpose is to be eaten. Is it still morally wrong to eat that
animal? For less far fetched examples (and moving somewhat tangentially),
consider the people in _The Matrix_ , who are happy in their deception or
Frenchwomen who insist that wearing burkas liberate them. They are happy that
way. Should we still impose our attitudes on them? What would you do if you
met a worshiper of the Crocodile God, who craves the honor of being thrown
alive into the pit (that last example is from Bach's _Illusions_ ).

~~~
orborde
There was an animal exactly like this being served at the Restaurant at the
End of the Universe in the _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ series.

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michaelpavelich
A great read from David Foster Wallace, "Consider the Lobster" from Gourmet
magazine

[http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_l...](http://www.gourmet.com/magazine/2000s/2004/08/consider_the_lobster?printable=true&currentPage=9)

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kevinh
People ripped the legs off of live crabs? That's sick whether or not they can
feel pain.

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Aetius
Is it really? I am asking this as a genuine question. I am quite sure our
ancestors did this. In fact, in many cultures, food is eaten alive and
wriggling. How is this any different? Is it really "sick" to kill something
slower (ripping the legs off), rather than faster (cutting its oxygen supply,
eviscerating it, etc)?

~~~
kevinh
I'm not aware of any reason to have the animal alive while you're breaking off
its limbs. It just seems like the behavior of a sociopath to me.

~~~
ars
It's law number 6 of the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noahide_laws>

> I am quite sure our ancestors did this.

Presumably some did and that's why the Noahide laws address this issue. And
clearly some ancestors agreed it was a bad thing - and not just a little bad,
but bad enough that it was listed in the core set of laws.

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jarin
"And finally, the researchers wrote, crustaceans possess 'high cognitive
ability and sentience.'"

Wow, did they just jump to that conclusion based on pain aversion behavior or
is there some kind of evidence to support this? It's quite a stretch.

~~~
jules
I think your and their definition of "high cognitive ability and sentience"
may not be the same.

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cmars232
Is there a quick, painless alternative though? Can't really decapitate or
bleed out a heavily armored invertebrate. Maybe drown them in wine or spirits?

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albertcardona
I work with invertebrate sensory neurons (neuroscientist here). For a starter,
check out the pick pocket neurons in Dan Tracey's paper ("nociceptive" means
pain receptors): [http://www.cell.com/current-
biology/abstract/S0960-9822(07)0...](http://www.cell.com/current-
biology/abstract/S0960-9822\(07\)02268-3)

