As a general rule, I don’t like rats. With a few exceptions, most people I know are of the same opinion. I appreciate what they’ve done for science, and they can be cute sometimes, but like most of humanity, I don’t think I will ever get past my negative conception of them. The readings this week (particularly Burt) made me question the roots of my disdain for these creatures, something I’ve never thought about before. For me, I’m sure its mostly a product of societal views projected via literature, film, and language, but how did society come to have those views in the first place? I liked that Burt went into the many reasons mankind started demonizing Rattus sp., but I think he missed something. Sure, they carry disease and live in the shadows and are usually surrounded by sewage and death and destruction, but I think there’s a more basic root of our dislike for rats, and those factors just intensified it. I think it comes down to biology (I am a biologist, so big surprise there). We are genetically programmed to be more attracted to species that are more similar to us- and rats may not be that different, but they’re different enough. They have a long pointed snout; we have a flat face. They have small eyes; we prefer large ones. They have a long tail, sharp teeth, are nocturnal, the list goes on. There is a similar distaste among people for animals with similar habits and feature- the mongoose, for example, or the ferret. However, although hamsters and gerbils (even mice) are pretty closely related to rats, the instinctual aversion isn’t there. What’s different about these animals? Their features are a bit more similar to ours, so they’re cute. So we excuse other behaviors which may not otherwise endear them to us, and focus on their evil twin, the rat.
Burt seems to think that we should give rats a chance. In Radar’s writings, Little also believes they should be viewed more positively for the good they are doing mankind (by the way, it seems crazy to me that at one point in time scholars of medicine and genetics refused to acknowledge the interrelatedness of their work, considering how integrated it is today…that’s really another story though). But is the demonization of rats in general necessarily a bad thing? For one thing, it has had health benefits. We tend to avoid rats or drive them away, and so reduce our exposure (and the exposure of our pets and food animals) to the disease-carrying arthropods they ferry around. Our distaste for them has encouraged us to put more effort into their extermination (there was a whole profession and breed of dog created specifically for that purpose), which may have helped make sure the population is controlled and not about to explode. Forget about robots and zombies, we’re more likely to be overrun by rodents if we don’t keep their numbers down. But I think the most important consequence of our society’s demonization of rats is that we don’t really care about their rights- at least, not nearly as much as we care about other animals which are considerably cuter or more human-like- so we can use them in countless aspects of medical and psychological research without dealing with an ethical dilemma. Rats and mice aren’t nearly as protected as other lab animals, and as Radar and Shapiro point out, their use in experimental procedures has been behind huge breakthroughs which have led to an infinitely better understanding of the human body, mind, and disease. Where would we be today without the use of lab rats? I believe that turning the rat into a friendlier face would diminish their historical efficacy as a useful and convenient research tool- as Shapiro says,
“Arluke indicated that the lab animal becomes ‘pet’ when the ‘process that transforms the animal into object is not fully effective'” (Shapiro, p. 457)
I’m not trying to advocate prejudice, but there are a lot of good reasons why we might want to keep rats in a more negative light, even if it may not seem fair to their cute little faces. When speaking of the similarities of man and rat, Burt quotes:
“…Neither of them is of the slightest earthly use to any other species of living things.” (Burt, p. 13)
We’ve changed that for rats- they’re incredibly important to us. Would that still be true if we had viewed them as animals with equal rights to dogs and cats? I’m not sure it would, and personally I’m ok with less rights for rats if it could mean curing cancer.
João Leonardo
April 26, 2017 @ 9:15 pm
agradeço por compartilhar tanta informação com as pessoas de forma tão
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kcdrews
April 28, 2014 @ 11:08 pm
I think that you don’t necessarily need to cast rats in a negative light in order to use them as research animals. Rats don’t have to be demonized, they just have to be used. For that I agree we have to sacrifice any potential rights they may have. When it comes to the difference with dogs, I think that if we discovered tomorrow that dogs have the exact same immune system down to each individual carbon atom as a human being, we wouldn’t hesitate at all before going full scale on using them as lab animals. I think eventually we’d have a new breed of dog – the term lab dog might not instantly point to labrador retrievers!
tanneraustin
April 28, 2014 @ 8:52 pm
I’m inclined to think our aversion to rats has less to do with apparent differences and more to do with apparent similarities, and I think that’s the point Burt makes. You are right in saying that we attracted to similar others, but further than that we are attracted to similar others who have qualities we like about ourselves. Rats have similar qualities we DON’T like about ourselves, and so we are averse to them.
loomispw
April 28, 2014 @ 10:35 pm
I like this argument, and I made it in a different way in a different comment, however, mice share a lot of the same qualities of rats we dislike, and we don’t hate them the same way we hate rats. I think how we view animals does make a huge difference and mice are loved for their cuteness.
A. Nelson
April 28, 2014 @ 8:09 pm
We do use lots of dogs in biomedical research. One of the cases I find especially interesting focuses on breeding of a colony of hemophiliac Irish Setters: Pemberton, Stephen. “Canine technologies, model patients: the historical production of hemophiliac dogs in American biomedicine.” Industrializing Organisms (2004): 191-213.
Kara Van Scoyoc
April 27, 2014 @ 10:58 pm
I agree that to me the more important thing is finding the cure for cancer is more important than the per se humane treatment of rats but if one of the more domesticated species i.e. dogs/cats is one day discovered to be useful in the cure will we abandon our loyalty to them?
corim14
April 28, 2014 @ 9:29 am
Kara, that’s a really great point, and I hadn’t thought about it. It delves into examining our real priorities when caring for animals that we use as model organisms in research – do we care for them just because we need to keep them healthy, or because we actually care? However since rats and dogs are primarily used as model organisms in biomedical research (like cancer research), I don’t think it’s likely that one of them will prove to be more useful than the other- they’re both different enough and similar enough to human beings that their validity as model organisms pretty much balances out. Rats are easier to use, however, because of their reproduction rate and ease of care. Dogs cost a lot more and require a lot more hoops to jump through when using them in research studies, so I think we’ll continue using rats the most.
kcdrews
April 28, 2014 @ 11:08 pm
I think that you don’t necessarily need to cast rats in a negative light in order to use them as research animals. Rats don’t have to be demonized, they just have to be used. For that I agree we have to sacrifice any potential rights they may have. When it comes to the difference with dogs, I think that if we discovered tomorrow that dogs have the exact same immune system down to each individual carbon atom as a human being, we wouldn’t hesitate at all before going full scale on using them as lab animals. I think eventually we’d have a new breed of dog – the term lab dog might not instantly point to labrador retrievers!