For a very long time, the scientific and animal
welfare communities have faced each other across a seemingly
unbridgeable divide. Each side tends to view the other
in simplistic and distorted terms. Animal welfare advocates
see scientists as, at worst, sadists who enjoy torturing
animals, and at best, as self-interested careerists intent
on building careers out of publishing more papers and getting
more grants, irrespective of the cost to animals. Scientists
committed to research see the animal movement as consisting
of, at best, ignorant, simple-minded people awash in emotion
and sensationalism, and at worst, violent and dangerous
fanatics who claim to care for animals but are indifferent
to human suffering.