Animal Experiments and Rights

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of animals in humankind’s search for knowledge. Since the Greek physician Galen used pigs for anatomical studies in the 2nd century, animals have been used by scientists to further human knowledge. Yet few, if any subjects in this country, raise such violent feelings and passions as animals and their place in our society. With the growing politicisation of animal rights, it is a subject which is increasing in intensity. Do animals have rights and do our needs permit us to use them still to enhance our own lives in the twentieth century? Is it still necessary to experiment on animals for the good of humankind? Or is that morally unacceptable and barbaric - particularly in the light of new research into animal consciousness?

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Guests

• Colin Blakemore 2 episodes
  Professor of Physiology, Oxford University, President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, Fellow of the Royal Society
• Dr Lynda Birke No other episodes
  Biologist, teacher at Lancaster and Warwick Universities, and previously worked for 7 years in animal behaviour at the Open University

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Programme ID: p00545f8

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00545f8

Auto-category: 179.3 (Ethics and animal rights)

Hello (First sentence from this episode)

Hello, today we look at one of the most impassioned debates of the late 20th century in this country, animal rights and the use of animals in furthering scientific understanding.