Really, I do, that anyone could deny the liklihood that fish or other animals can feel and understand pain. Nerve endings are not the exclusive domain of bipedal, self-aware vertebrates, and responses to pain are more instinctual than they are well-thought-out; upon applying a hammer to my hand, I don't pause for self-reflection before cringing and screaming "Auuuugh", or something less polite.

Animals and humans share a common evolutionary history. Admittedly, we're not as close to fish as we are, say, warthogs, but the basics of the nervous system are pretty similar across the board. Pain is one of the stimuli we all respond to (because things that hurt could KILL US), and not having it can be detrimental to survival (see the expected survival of an individual with Riley-Day syndrome). Only a fool or someone who hasn't spent any time around animals would deny that animals feel pain -- what else should we call a stimulus that engenders a negative physical response? Just because we, as humans, get to name a feeling doesn't mean we get to deny it to all others. How about the next time you limit your movement or change your behavior due to an injury, we call it "gooble"? It's not pain, it's just a stimulus changing your behavior. I'm telling you, it's gooble. Seriously. It's okay, though -- it's not pain.

Sure, you may hook the same fish twice -- that means that your simulation of food is pretty good, and that an aversion to it is likely not forthcoming; it would do well, over the course of an average fish's life to examine how many times has it been hooked in comparison to how many real insects it has eaten. Considering that a lot of the hooked don't get a chance to "learn" from the mistake, being quick on the uptake may not have a lot of selective pressure in the trout world. Even so, the aversion to a negative stimulus in an individual takes time, especially when the stimulus is intermittent -- anyone who's dealt with a Skinner box in a psych lab can tell you that.

I'm not any kind of activist, vegetarian, or the like; hell, I openly despise PETA. I just think your apologetics are weak, and you'd be a stronger sportsman (and person) if you'd either admit that you deal out pain and can live with that, or that you give it up because you admit it makes you feel bad. This article wouldn't have even been written if you didn't already know that fish feel pain. I'm not saying to not stun the cow and eat it; I'm saying to it's silly to deny that whacking it in the head with something will probably hurt. Now sack up and get on with it.

Temple Grandin hypothesized that animals feel pain, but don't suffer. Suffering, to her mind, required self reflection, a concrete concept of time, solid memory, and the ability to make comparisons that animals (at least the domestic animals she was concerned with) lack. I think this is apt. Animals clearly feel painful stimulus and react to it, typically by flight or fight, but they don't seemingly don't despair over their condition.

Man is an omnivore -- check the teeth. I hunt and I fish and I eat what I kill. A rabbit doesn't worry if the carrot it eats feels pain, nor does a lion worry about the wildebeast, except possibly about its taste.

I agree that hte apologetics in the article are weak, and I think it's far better to make no apology at all. In a nation where almost no one expresses concern over a bucket of fried chicken, a fillet of bass or trout shouldn't be a moral issue.

There's a whole bunch of reasons to make a distinction between the way mammals process pain and the way a trout does.

Even a mouse has the capacity to retain a psychological reaction to trauma for months after the event. I'm not aware of any fish that behaves the same way, but I'm not an expert.

Still, I think the PETA-ites only have it half right. Our popular pets (and other sophisticated mammals) probably have a bigger interior life than we like to acknowledge, but a salmon probably has much much less of one.

I'm uncomfortably on both sides of this issue -- as a lifelong pro-gun Republican, I've never been a PETA person, and I still am not.

Then two years ago we went to a wedding at an aquarium. My sons and a handful of other children were occupied with a shallow petting tank holding manta rays. Not only did the manta rays surface to be petted and caressed, but one of them, after being stroked, would dive, surreptitiously swim the legnth of the tank, and surface where the children were gathered with a big splash. They laughed and shrieked and stroked the ray, who would begin the game again.

I had believed that fish were primitve creatures with two second attention spans with a limited capacity to sense pain. But after seeing a manta ray playing with a group of children similar to the way a dog would, I had to acknowledge that they were more intelligent and social than I thought. And surely, the thought occurred to me, a creature that can play can also feel pain and suffer.

I converted to being a vegetarian after that... for a while. I lapsed because it was a pain in the butt to prepare two different meals (my family was having none of my vegetarian lifestyle) and I developed a fruit allergy that resulted in severe hives. So I went back to eating meat for venial and selfish reasons. And I'm still a pro-gun Republican. But I keep finding that there's a lot more doubt and guilt and ambiguity in the world than I previously thought.

I had believed that fish were primitve creatures with two second attention spans with a limited capacity to sense pain.

I think that's the case with a lot of people. What ultimately broke me of it was an episode of Mythbusters where they trained goldfish. If you can teach a fish to run a maze, it has enough of a memory to recall pain, if nothing else as a learning stimulus. I agree that there is evidence that animals, especially those as unlike us as fish, process things differently. That said, I don't think that there is enough difference to say they don't feel pain in a significant manner.

A person with enough Ambien in him or her can, while sleeping soundly, get into a car, go for a drive across Manhattan, and wake up in Jersey. All kinds of learning, perception, and even understanding of symbols clearly play a part in this behavior, but it is not at all clear that conscious feeling is involved at all, much less the kind of conscious thinking needed for "suffering." Daniel Dennett argues that languageless non-human animals are like sleepwalkers. They display all kinds of tropisms, sensitivities, and even learning, but they may not have our kind of consciousness and therefore our kind of suffering.

Of course, it's the utilitarians like Jeremy Bentham who insist on suffering as the measure of whether it's right or wrong to do various things to animals. But there are all kinds of bad things you can do that have nothing to do with who feels or suffers pain. As Cora Diamond points out, it isn't OK to have a human-flesh barbecue if you find a dead or irretrievably comatose person who had no family or friends.

Maybe animals, like people, deserve respectful treatment whether they can feel the results or not.

My thinking is "Why bother with the quasi-scientific philosophizing?" Maybe fish can feel pain, maybe they can't. You are still empowered to do your best to avoid causing those ambiguous situations. It's actually really easy to do: stop fishing.

You aren't fishing for survival or food. Your personality isn't going to disappear. You can find a hobby that is just as rewarding. You can avoid all the risk of inflicting pain and still have just as much happiness and pleasure doing something else.

"Animals clearly feel painful stimulus and react to it, typically by flight or fight, but they don't seemingly despair over their condition."

Have you ever had an old decrepit dog with a painful arthritic condition? They express pain when they move and will try to figure out an easier way to move, get up, eat due to their condition.

I have seen dogs and cats avoid someone who is rough or mean to them, but not others who treat them kindly.

Whether they live from moment to moment and are only self aware in the present I think does not really matter, but simply a construct to allow humans to act in a less than 'humane' manner to 'lesser' animals.

To put 'lesser' in air quotes really does a disservice to the animals that are quite close to us in terms of their cognitive abilities and emotional lives.

Some animals really are lesser. Because we've been too cavalier one way (in taking the Biblical view that animals are here for us to use) doesn't mean we ought to be too cavalier the other way.

Blanket definitions and generalized 'respect for life' actually diminish the possibility that we'll one day treat our closer cousins with the respect they deserve.

Sickday:

To put 'lesser' in air quotes really does a disservice to the animals that are quite close to us in terms of their cognitive abilities and emotional lives.

No, actualy it doesn't. All other animals are objectivey lesser forms of life to humans, precisely because they are nowhere near us in terms of cognitive abilities in particular, but aso in emotional terms. A serious debate can't be had if people continue to anthropomorphise animals.

<.... "Temple Grandin hypothesized that animals feel pain, but don't suffer. Suffering, to her mind, required self reflection, a concrete concept of time, solid memory, and the ability to make comparisons that animals (at least the domestic animals she was concerned with) lack. I think this is apt. Animals clearly feel pain stimulus and react to it, typically by flight or fight, but they don't seemingly don't despair over their condition...." >

No wonder Grandin gets paid by the meat industry! Nonhuman animals often don't show pain because it would make them appear vulnerable, and targets for predators. Unfortunately for domesticated animals, they usually can't fight or flee, and they suffer in silence.

When humans suffer, it's not because they can remember or compare other pain. Why should other animals be required to do so?

Grandin's theories are being challenged by science and animal advocates:

"Temple Grandin: Using Autism
to Make Money Killing Animals"

by Jeffrey Masson & Jeff Nelson

<link>

"Do Animals Think Like Autistic Savants?"

<link>

< ...."All other animals are objectivey lesser forms of life to humans, precisely because they are nowhere near us in terms of cognitive abilities in particular, but also in emotional terms. A serious debate can't be had if people continue to anthropomorphise animals....">

I don't agree that's objective, because it's based on subjective value. You value cognitive abilities as the measure of lesser or greater forms of life, but this type of value is an opinion.

Some humans lack the cognitive abilities other animals have. I don't think that makes them lesser humans, or that nonhuman are lesser forms of life.

When people accuse others of anthropomorphism, it's often based on a belief that a faculty or emotion is exclusively human, but humans are not the only animals who have personal interests and secondary emotions.

Nor are humans the only animals that eat meat, or even the only primates to do so (<link>) but man is the only species to criticize itself for doing so.

Personally, I have no moral qualms about having my morning slice of bacon, and I'll continue to be that way until a specific pig asks me not to.

Yep, but we are the only animals who eat meat with a choice of other food -- which includes free-living omnivores since they don't have the choices we do.