07 Oct 2005
Course puts the science into evaluating animal welfare

You know, there's nothing wrong with having academics look at issues of animal (or human) welfare and happiness - but there's something seriously flawed with the thought processes that claim to measure "happiness" scientifically, in either animals or humans. It's tough to measure what you can't define.

I see these kinds of efforts as the ultimate grasp at philosophy by an utterly materialist culture: we believe that everything can be measured, and that every state of being has a quality that can be observed by an outsider. We often forget that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is as applicable to emotional states as it is to quantum physics.

Though a tiger in the Berlin Zoo and a dairy cow in Wisconsin don't have much in common, each animal has specific welfare needs that must be addressed. But assessing those needs is by no means a simple task. Michigan State University is now one of only a handful of institutions offering training in the scientific assessment of animal welfare, bringing qualitative measurements to an area long left to the subjective, and even the emotional.

(link) [EurekAlert!]

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