Hank Greely

No.

In the American criminal system, for a conviction, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt, not beyond any conceivable doubt.

I think we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that brains are essential to pain and suffering, but that's not beyond all doubt.

So we have a technical term for it in bioethics.

We call it the yuck factor.

Somebody hears something and they go, oh, yuck.

So what John has found is that often what ordinary people are worried about isn't so much what the bioethicists and the scientists are worried about, and not necessarily so much about pain or consciousness as it is a connection to what that animal is supposed to be like.

Whatever we think that means.

Now, I've grew up with dogs and had lots of friends with dogs, big dogs, little dogs, in-between dogs.

All of those were wolves.

We turned wolves into chihuahuas.

I always find it crazy.

We have a track record of manipulating living things to make them more convenient for us.

That's what we do.

This is a more extreme case of it, but we've also made some breeds of dogs that have health problems because of the way we bred them.

We are master manipulators, and that's not necessarily a good thing.

This is another step toward it.

And I would also remember, it's not just about medical research.

It could also be about meat.

So my work goes into figuring out what the right questions are or what the questions are, not necessarily answering them and not necessarily believing that my reactions are the reactions that we as a group should have.