I dunno too much about that one. The synopsis makes it look pretty good, though.Originally Posted by BehindBlueI's
I can tell you for sure, is that one of the ongoing and raging debates within animal research right now, is whether or not experiments on Octopus should be covered by Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) protocols. IACUC protocols are the kinds of things that say, "You cannot torture monkeys." or, "All animals used in this study must be euthanized in an ethical and minimally invasive way." or "You have to feed your rabbits every day." - Basically the things that says you won't treat your animals like garbage and torture them for fun.
Most universities/research institutes do not have formal IACUC procedures for non-vertebrate organisms, only vertebrate organisms. The case is being made now, and I think it is a good one, that Octopus and its relatives have sufficiently high intelligence to warrant IACUC protection. The argument has been in the past that organisms which "cannot feel pain" do not need to be covered. It's sort of obvious how one might apply that to plants and how one might apply that to vertebrates, particularly terrestrial ones. It's less clear how you apply these things to invertebrate organisms. In the case of the Octopus, sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Octopus has an advanced neurological system, memory, and sensory system, make it a great example of how our study and understanding of a system can change how we study and even feel about it.
Tangent - A good friend of mine who does neurobiology thinks one way around this problem is to in effect quantify the number of neurons an organism has. It's generally accepted more neurons = more brain = more intelligence = more sensory ability. It's not a bad idea and it would help clarify that say...octopus is protected, but zebra mussels are not.
It sounds like this book talks a lot about the evolution of the neuro-sensory system and likely makes that broad point of more neurons = more x, y, z.
Reply With Quote
