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Thread: Do fish feel pain?

  1. #1
    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Do fish feel pain?

    http://www.fishscam.com/faqPain.cfm
    Hmm... I find it plausible that some kinds of sea creatures do not feel pain. But this guy is claiming that no fish feel pain, which strikes me as bizarre. Granted, I have never heard of any fish being as intelligent as a mammal. I guess it makes sense because mammals are very social creatures, whereas I have never heard of fish bonding or anything. But that could just explain why they don't express their emotions rather than why they don't experience them - although, for a human, emotions and their expression seem inextricable. Anyone have counter evidence?

    Edit: Found this study:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/science/nature/2983045.stm
    I'm just not finding it as compelling. Actually, this one is quite frightening... injecting fish with venom to prove they feel pain? It's amazing how much compassion people have!

    http://www.abc.net.au/science/articl...mentsinscience
    This is much more compelling... So the argument that you need a neocortex to feel pain is false because dogs and cows don't have one? Hmm... and the fish have post-traumatic stress symptoms! But still... deliberately causing them to have these symptoms is revolting.

  2. #2
    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    There is a referenced article here:

    http://www.vegsoc.org/fish/facts2.html

    Slightly annoyingly you have to click "links and references" further down the page to get to the actual references.

    FWIW (wishful thinking apart) I don't really understand why people think fish don't feel pain as they seem to behave towards harmful stimuli in pretty much the same way as, say, mammals, which most people will freely accept feel pain. From an evolutionary point of view too it makes sense that they would be motivated by pain to avoid harmful stimuli.

    Whether their pain feels the same as our pain we'll never know, but then we don't know that yours feels the same as mine either.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Thanks for the link.

    Also, I think most people do not spend much time observing fish and how fish act, compared to how much time we spend observing house pets and slave animals, so it's not so surprising that people would be easily swayed to think fish don't feel pain. Also, just think of how many people assume that people of a different race are all a certain way merely because they heard it from their friend or because it's a stereotype or they saw one incident... so it's even less surprising. Besides, as the last article I quotes says, some of these reactions which are like ours are instinctive, while others are not... it would be convenient for the fish-eater to assume that it's all instinctive so they don't have to change a thing about themselves.

    Anyway, of course I feel it is better to give fish the benefit of the doubt instead of having to prove to ourselves by testing them.

  4. #4
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    it annoys me, too - my husband keeps malawian cichlids (tropical fish), and whilst i am not ultra enthusiastic about keeping fish this way, it does make you get to know a lot more about them.

    They know when it's feeding time and they swarm to one side for their food - one of them always bites me, too if i feed them rather than my husband .

    Recently they have had so many babies (which i hope means they are happy here ) that we had to set up a second aquarium to house the 'overflow' in. The ones we moved got really stressed for a couple of days (when they are stressed they swim up and down repeatedly in one corner). To me this indicates that they are very aware of their environment and have much longer memories than people once credited them with.

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    That's interesting, cobweb - I have seen other stuff questioning the old idea that fish have very short memories, e.g. http://www.asms.sa.edu.au/news/Docum...hoo%20News.pdf

    ETA personally I don't think the discussion about whether behaviour is instinctive is really relevant to pain anyway, although people think it is. The more we look into human behaviour the more of it seems to be explainable in terms of instinct, but we don't use that to argue that people don't feel pain. Pain could be one of the mechanisms by which instinct works.

  6. #6
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    i agree, Harpy, it's crap to say there's a link, humans are the biggest creatures of habit anyway and most humans feel pain

    a good aside is that my husband won't eat fish nowadays (he was a 'pescaterian' before)

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Is that because of having got to know some fish personally, do you think?

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    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Here's my acid test. Does the animal in question change its behavior in order to avoid a future "painful" stimuli? If it does then that's all I need to know regarding is inflicting that stimuli on the creature wrong, and it most certainly counts as "pain" in my book.

    Warning: The following paragraph discusses animal experimentation. Read at your own risk.

    Scientists took fruit flies, which have brains smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, and put them in a box with a green light and a red light. They then taught the fruit flies that when the green light would come on nothing would happen, but when the red light would come on an imminent, non-lethal but annoying, electrical shock would zap any that were resting on the bottom of the box only. They were safe if they were in flight or on the walls or top ceiling of the terrarium box, however. Soon the fruit flies learned that the red light meant the nasty zap was about to happen and they would all leave the floor immediately. This proves that whether or not the zap can be considered "pain" to their feeble intellect is immaterial, we know for a fact that they will actively try to avoid it, and that's all I need to know.

    [Other tests using scents instead of colored lights had the same results.]

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    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote harpy View Post
    Is that because of having got to know some fish personally, do you think?

    certainly is .

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Mahk View Post
    Here's my acid test. Does the animal in question change its behavior in order to avoid a future "painful" stimuli? If it does then that's all I need to know regarding is inflicting that stimuli on the creature wrong, and it most certainly counts as "pain" in my book.

    Warning: The following paragraph discusses animal experimentation. Read at your own risk.

    Scientists took fruit flies, which have brains smaller than the period at the end of this sentence, and put them in a box with a green light and a red light. They then taught the fruit flies that when the green light would come on nothing would happen, but when the red light would come on an imminent, non-lethal but annoying, electrical shock would zap any that were resting on the bottom of the box only. They were safe if they were in flight or on the walls or top ceiling of the terrarium box, however. Soon the fruit flies learned that the red light meant the nasty zap was about to happen and they would all leave the floor immediately. This proves that whether or not the zap can be considered "pain" to their feeble intellect is immaterial, we know for a fact that they will actively try to avoid it, and that's all I need to know.

    [Other tests using scents instead of colored lights had the same results.]
    I don't agree. To me, it proves their sentience, perhaps, but not their emotionality. I do think the instinctual or not discussion is important because how else do you differentiate between a plant and an animal? Here's a page on behavior:
    http://www.scienceclarified.com/As-Bi/Behavior.html
    There's instinctual and learned behavior. But it says the distinction is unclear. That's the problem. Unfortunately, the page claims that some animals do not learn but doesn't clarify the distinction.

    I wish to respect all life, be it sentient or not, giving the benefit of the doubt where things are particularly ambiguous... but I don't wish to subscribe to a science determined on the basis of an agenda. I'm not saying anyone here is doing that, but that's what I'd be doing if I agreed without believing it. I shouldn't have to *prove* the emotionality of a creature to respect that creature's life. Technically, science proves nothing... it's only what we decide to do with that science that matters.

  11. #11
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Sarabi View Post
    I don't agree. To me, it proves their sentience, perhaps, but not their emotionality.
    It proves they find electric shocks uncomfortable/annoying and will go out of their way to avoid them. They can feel them and find them to be a bad feeling they actively avoid.

    I do think the instinctual or not discussion is important because how else do you differentiate between a plant and an animal?
    Thought. Plants don't think; fruit flies do.

    Technically, science proves nothing... it's only what we decide to do with that science that matters.
    Not sure what you meant by that but to me, science proves everything.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Mahk View Post
    It proves they find electric shocks uncomfortable/annoying and will go out of their way to avoid them. They can feel them and find them to be a bad feeling they actively avoid.

    Thought. Plants don't think; fruit flies do.

    Not sure what you meant by that but to me, science proves everything.
    You're not making much sense to me now. How do you define "thought"?

    It's a scientific fact that science proves nothing. Anyway, you say "to ME, science proves..." That's exactly the point. It only proves it to YOU. It's relative to YOU. It's subjective. Not absolute. Proof is absolute. It requires faith. But science is objective, by definition, not subjective.

  13. #13
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Wikipedia: "Thought and thinking are mental forms and processes, respectively ("thought" is both.) Thinking allows beings to model the world and to deal with it effectively according to their objectives, plans, ends and desires. Words referring to similar concepts and processes include cognition, sentience, consciousness, idea, and imagination."

    Thoughts of a typical fruit fly (verbalized into English):

    -I'm hungry.
    -I'm full.
    -I want sex now.
    -I'm going to fly back to that location I was lucky to find food at a previous time, behind the tree but before the pond on the left near the cows.
    -Is that a boy or a girl fruit fly? I'll go investigate using my senses.
    -Oh boy, I think I see a nice piece of fruit! Oh wait, now that I'm up close I realize it isn't fruit after all, I was mistaken, so I won't eat it.
    -Oh no, the red light just came on! I better jump off the bottom of the cage or I will feel that painful, um, I mean "not pleasant" electric shock that I've learned always comes right after the red light!
    -I know this because I have a memory and I can learn.


    Well, actually I don't think they can process that last one however it is factually accurate. They learn and they have memory. Plants have none of these things, they can't and don't think.

    Plants do have sex [pollination] and are alive, but they don't realize it because they don't realize anything, and they don't desire it because desire is an emotion and plants don't have emotions.

    It's a scientific fact that science proves nothing.
    Was that scientific fact proven scientifically?

  14. #14

    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Fish are ugly, you can't cuddle them and they breathe water, therefore they must die, or at least be plucked from their home struggling on a hook, be weighed next to some drunk bloke, then put back with a split lip.
    No pain, no rights?
    ..but what would they do with all the cows?..

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Sarabi, can you explain why you think "emotionality" is important in this context, please? To me pain seems to be more about sensation than emotion - it often comes with some emotion but even if it doesn't it is still disagreeable.

    Regarding plants versus animals, it makes evolutionary sense that animals would experience aversive sensations as it helps them to avoid harm and hence to survive and reproduce. Plants can't avoid harm in this way because they can't locomote so (in the absence of anything like a nervous system in plants) I don't see any reason to think that they feel anything like pain.

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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Forgetting about the whole fish feeling pain thing (which of course they do) I had to comment on the "Granted, I have never heard of any fish being as intelligent as a mammal". There's some experiments that have been done involving fish that proves that wrong. The Astatotilapia burtoni, which is a cichlid I think, was used in an experiment by Grosenick et al. (2007) to test transitive inference.

    Now transitive inference is the type of problem like "john is taller than paul. Paul is taller than Fred, who is tallest". You are working out the order of things.

    Now one fish was basically put into a tank where they could see a number of other tanks of fish where the experimenters had staged fights- i.e./ they put 2 fish together knowing that one was more dominant and that one would be submissive. So you had fish that were basically in a dominance rank A>B>C>D>E. So A was more dominant than B, B more dominant than C and so on and so forth.

    The bystander fish had seen both B and D win and lose fights. So you would say that if they had no understanding of transitive inference they wouldn't be able to determine the ranks of these fish and would show no preference of one over the other. However, in every case the bystander fish chose to spend more time hanging around with fish D, who was more submissive, less dominant and therefore less aggressive. The fish used transitive inference in a social situation. They could always figure out who was more/less dominant than themselves.

    Anyway, people might not be as impressed by that but it just goes to show that fish are intelligent animals They can watch what is going on around them (in a social context) and figure out how they fit into that hierarchy.


    ETA: I in no way support experimenting on animals. But just thought I'd mention it as it does challenge people's perceptions.

  17. #17
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    harpy that was a very clear post which i agree with 100% (yet again!)

    hullabaloo, we have noticed that the fish who live with us have a very clear hierarchy and they know (or very soon find out!) who's 'boss'.

    for my part emotions have little to do with pain, they are 2 seperate things entirely, i would hate to cause pain and will be totally screwed if it's ever proven that plants have the capacity to feel pain.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    How is desire an emotion? To my understanding, "desire" being the central concept in my religion, it is an attraction, not an emotion. Of course, all emotions are based on desire: anger is the emotional desire to defeat something, fear is the emotional desire to escape, etc. So desire is the source of emotion.

    harpy - that's a good point. Maybe pain isn't an emotion. I'm not sure what the difference is. It seems like pain is actually the source of emotion, being a kind of aversion, which is the same as desire. We can have painful emotions. But like one of those articles said, your nerves can sense things, while your brain is just the place of interpretation of these sensations. So the question is essentially the same... does it cause suffering?

    Regarding plants, as one of the links I posted shows, there's plenty of evidence that plants have desires and aversions. They can "sense" things. But to me, the thing with plants is that they have no brain to interpret these sensations in an abstract way. They just act. That's why plants are brilliant creatures.... they don't think. They just do what they have to do. That's something religion is constantly trying to teach us. Not that we shouldn't think, but that there's a realm beyond thought that we should know. I agree about your evolutionary reasoning... I think that emotions were created to make up for the ambiguity that comes with abstract thought.

    Mahk, I like that definition of thought. If thought is inherently abstract, then plants don't think. They do have reactions based on interpretations, but these interpretations do not involve any modeling, anything separate from the reactions themselves. If all they do is react, then we can conclude that they don't suffer. How many times has a meat-eater asked you rhetorically "what is suffering?" as if to dismiss it as a mere abstraction? Of course suffering is an abstraction, but now we could tell them that all thought is an abstraction anyway!

  19. #19
    Prawnil
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Evolution of Nociceptors in Vertebrates. L Sneddon. 2004
    ...When rainbow trout were given subcutaneous injections of acetic acid and bee venom (algesics), they showed an enhanced respiration rate for approximately 3 h as well as performance of anomalous behaviours and during this period they did not feed [45].
    ... The noxiously stimulated fish only resumed feeding once the behavioural and physiological affects of the bee venom and acetic acid had subsided (180 min). Further testing showed that noxiously stimulated trout did not show an appropriate fear response to a fear-causing stimulus and it was suggested that the noxious experience dominated attention and the fish could not divert attention to the fear stimulus [46]. This could be interpreted as the noxious experience being the imperative in this test paradigm and many clinical studies have shown that humans do not perform as well on other tasks when in pain [21].
    ... Therefore, the studies in the rainbow trout demonstrate that the negative effects of a noxious experience are complicated in nature suggesting higher processing is involved and thus there is the potential for pain perception in this teleost fish.
    (I apologise for the animal use, and for the statements-of-the-obvious in the quote.)
    There are pain receptors in the fish body. The fish brain has all the major sub-divisions of any mammal's, albeit miniature & differently proportioned. Fish show aversion recognisable to the human empathy. Enough for me!

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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    not when Bear Grylls is done with them

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    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Sarabi View Post
    Mahk, I like that definition of thought. If thought is inherently abstract, then plants don't think.
    Plants don't "think" in any sense of the word what-so-ever, abstractly or otherwise, just like rocks and mud don't think. They have no brains (minds) to do so.


    They do have reactions based on interpretations
    No, they don't. When one drops a heaping tablespoon of baking soda (aka sodium bicarbonate or bicarbonate of soda, depending on one's area) into a half glass of vinegar, one also gets a "reaction" but this doesn't prove interpretation or thought. It is entirely a chemical/mechanical process. Try it. "Look! The vinegar must be angry!"

    How many times has a meat-eater asked you rhetorically "what is suffering?"
    I usually stab them with my fork and say, "That."

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Mahk View Post
    No, they don't. When one drops a heaping tablespoon of baking soda (aka sodium bicarbonate or bicarbonate of soda, depending on one's area) into a half glass of vinegar, one also gets a "reaction" but this doesn't prove interpretation or thought. It is entirely a chemical/mechanical process. Try it. "Look! The vinegar must be angry!"

    I usually stab them with my fork and say, "That."
    LOL.

    I think I misused the word "interpretation," which should probably fall exclusively under the "thought" category. Since plants can't think, they can't interpret. But they do react based on information from their environment. They communicate with each other, albeit on a purely mindless level. That's what I meant.

  23. #23
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    I suppose when a gust of wind or ignorant bee passes pollen from one to another some information (their DNA) has been "exchanged", but I'd hardly call that "communicating". Is there something else I'm missing?

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    It's not just exchanging DNA. They exchange information about their surroundings.

  25. #25
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    ? They do? Not that I'm aware of. Would you please be more specific?

  26. #26
    Zero
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    I find it unlikely that there are many sentient beings that don't feel pain, it seems to be a standard "avoidance" indicator that is displayed in the behaviour of sentient life on Earth.

    Do fish feel pain? It doesn't matter. Even if they don't doesn't mean they deserve less rights than any other sentient being.

    I would say that they very likely do though, they have a nervous system don't they?

    It is difficult to argue the "intelligence" of levels between other species, many other species are able to do certain things and have other senses or hightened sences that we do not fully understand if at all. Many species have intrinsic abilities that they utilise to learn about the world around them.

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    my army bradders's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    fish aren't exactly gonna go "cheers matey" when someone drags a fish out of the river and rips out it's pallet with a hook.
    Fish more than likely feel pain, even if they don't it still doesn't make it right.
    If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    I seriously doubt I am ever going to win an argument with a meat-eater by arguing that fish deserve rights because they're sentient if the meat-eater believes they don't feel pain.

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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    here's one for that:
    so if I dope you up (to the omni) with ketamine and anaesthetics and you won't feel pain, then I can drag you into a vacuum with a hook, rip it out dragging the roof of your mouth with it and skin you alive all because you can't feel it
    If I sink to the bottom I can run to the shore.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    That's a bit graphic. Believe me, I tried saying things like that to them in the beginning, but half of them were offended or pissed off and one guy kept telling me I was a nutcase who no one could take seriously. They all claimed to be morally superior to Hitler, but were defensive when they got the impression that I was saying they were morally inferior for eating meat... which I didn't really mean to say and now am careful not to do. Personally, it was someone who pissed me off who really got me thinking about the morality of meat-eating, but I don't think most people are like me. Usually, when people get pissed off, that's the end of the story. And I don't like pissing people off either way, if I can help it.

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    If you get into this discussion again, you could try using the Socratic method - ask them questions about their belief that fish don't feel pain until they come up against the weaknesses in their position. (Mind you some people won't understand what you're doing and will probably think you're asking them for fish recipes )

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote harpy View Post
    If you get into this discussion again, you could try using the Socratic method - ask them questions about their belief that fish don't feel pain until they come up against the weaknesses in their position. (Mind you some people won't understand what you're doing and will probably think you're asking them for fish recipes )
    lol. That's an interesting idea. But I studied Plato last semester and found that Socrates also pissed a lot of people off by forcing them into their corners of denial. It might work if I were smart and delicate about it (more so than Socrates), but I don't know. I will consider it, though. Is that something you do regularly?

    I have gotten into discussions in a Buddhist chat room about it, trying to force the questions, but so far the result has been people trying to make a pact with me to never talk about the subject again. I don't like people doing that to me either, so I try not to do it myself (not always successfully).

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    baffled harpy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Sometimes. In a social situation I would try not to go so far that someone feels forced into a corner though. I'd just take it far enough that they are left with something to think about.

    Or you can turn the question round and say "I don't really understand why you would think that fish don't feel pain when x,y, and z". It kind of puts the ball back into their court.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote harpy View Post
    Sometimes. In a social situation I would try not to go so far that someone feels forced into a corner though. I'd just take it far enough that they are left with something to think about.

    Or you can turn the question round and say "I don't really understand why you would think that fish don't feel pain when x,y, and z". It kind of puts the ball back into their court.
    Sounds good to me. I have a lot of conversations like that. It's better that the conversation ends with them having something to think about than when they try to force *me* into a corner or something.

  35. #35
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    i sometimes do the thing where i say "well yes fair enough you think xyz, i used to think the same until i found out ...................(that fish feel pain because *** or whatever the topic is) which made me change my mind.

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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    I believe that the latest evidence shows that fish do feel pain. I forget where but I saw a documentery that said so.

    Anyway if there is any doubt, to me it would make sense not to hurt them unless you can prove beyond doubt that they do not.

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    V for Veganica Sarabi's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote cobweb View Post
    i sometimes do the thing where i say "well yes fair enough you think xyz, i used to think the same until i found out ...................(that fish feel pain because *** or whatever the topic is) which made me change my mind.
    Yeah, that's nice, but I'm not just trying to argue that fish feel pain. It's a question for me. I would argue instead that we should give them the benefit of the doubt, but that there is also evidence that fish feel pain - in fact, just by observing them with an open mind. I actually think it's generally best not to even get into a discussion of whether or not fish feel pain, but present my first argument... however, I do tend to get into this kind of discussion.
    "To become vegetarian is to step into the stream which leads to nirvana." - Buddha

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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Sarabi View Post
    Sounds good to me. I have a lot of conversations like that. It's better that the conversation ends with them having something to think about than when they try to force *me* into a corner or something.
    Yes, and the burden of proof is really with them IMO. Seems to me people have made up a lot of reasons why fish wouldn't feel pain to justify eating them, but the similarities between fish and mammals are so close in this regard that having a separate explanation of fish behaviour goes against Occam's razor.

  39. #39
    Zero
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    You cannot possibly hope to win every argument, in my experience you won't the majority of the time (at least not initially).

    Before I was vegan or even vegetarian I must have had numerous discussions with various veggies and vegans and in the end it wasn't one argument that swayed my opinion, it was all different arguments presented to me at different times in my life.

    They planted seeds that grew as I considered the issues more and started to do more of my own research, today I silently thank every vegetarian or vegan that I randomly encountered along the way and conversed with.

    Sometimes even if you don't "win" the argument now, presenting your point of view and the reasons why can lead to someone changing their views later, unfortunately you probably don't get to see it.


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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    as a potentially interesting aside, from an environmental and conservation perspective, fly fisherman are great news for fish supporting eco systems and often rally to have dams torn down, the control or reduction of the flow of human effluence into rivers while campaigning for various other issues. Yvonne Chouinard being but a single more prominent individual

  41. #41
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Justin View Post
    as a potentially interesting aside, from an environmental and conservation perspective, fly fisherman are great news for fish supporting eco systems and often rally to have dams torn down, the control or reduction of the flow of human effluence into rivers while campaigning for various other issues. Yvonne Chouinard being but a single more prominent individual

    yes, that's almost as ironic as the RSPCA 'freedom Foods' label.

  42. #42
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    actually i suppose you could say that meat-eaters are great news for cows, pigs, sheep and hens, too.

  43. #43
    Justin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    I may be refering to something a little different

  44. #44
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    i disagree, i go for death and extinction over unwarranted and sustained violence and trauma, although i would obviously prefer neither.

    i used to hear the same arguments from fox hunters and pheasant shooters (before i moved up here, away from most of that kind of crap) but they don't wash with me - people can be environmentally aware without expecting some kind of selfish and cruel payback.

  45. #45
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    i think most vegans are environmentally aware these days, and that definitely includes looking after waterways - moreover i think a lot of people who aren't vegans are environmentally aware these days.

    the reason i raised the meat eating thing is because if it were up to us vegans, all 'farm' animals might eventually become extinct, and people who are cruel to fish use the same kind of nonsensical argument just to futher their own selfish pursuits.

  46. #46
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    ^I doubt they'd ever go extinct, even if the total liberation/abolitionists among us had their way. Keep in mind there are naturally occurring colonies of most of the "domesticated" animals living free and in the wild right now as we speak. There are wild horses, oxen, cattle, pigs (boar), dogs, turkey, sheep, etc.

    We stole all these animals from nature, they didn't just come out of thin air, and thankfully we didn't steal all of them.

  47. #47
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Mahk View Post
    ^I doubt they'd ever go extinct, even if the total liberation/abolitionists among us had their way. Keep in mind there are naturally occurring colonies of most of the "domesticated" animals living free and in the wild right now as we speak. There are wild horses, oxen, cattle, pigs (boar), dogs, turkey, sheep, etc.

    We stole all these animals from nature, they didn't just come out of thin air, and thankfully we didn't steal all of them.

    i'm aware of that, that is why i said 'farm animals' - animals that we know today, there would be no 'need' for them. However, there is of course a need for clean unpolluted water, so the argument that fishing is good for fish is bollox really .

  48. #48
    Abe Froman Risker's Avatar
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Do fish feel pain?
    No they don't.

    They don't have any feelings.

    Kurt Cobain told me.
    "I don't want to live on this planet any more" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth

  49. #49
    Mahk
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote cobweb View Post
    i'm aware of that, that is why i said 'farm animals' - animals that we know today, there would be no 'need' for them. However, there is of course a need for clean unpolluted water, so the argument that fishing is good for fish is bollox really .
    Oh I thought by "extinct" you meant "extinction of the species", ie no more of that animal on the planet. Sorry.

  50. #50
    cobweb
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    Default Re: Do fish feel pain?

    Quote Mahk View Post
    Oh I thought by "extinct" you meant "extinction of the species", ie no more of that animal on the planet. Sorry.

    well i did in a way because i wouldn't really equate these sorrowful animals which have been bred solely for their meat/eggs/wool etc with wild animals that would actually be equpped for survival 'in the wild'.

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