Taxonomy and ethics

[Andrew Mitchell]

On Tue, 24 Sep 1996, Dennis Paulson wrote:
> It is so
> obvious that there are basic differences of opinion that it would behoove
> people who are active in either environmental causes or--more important to
> the readers of this list--museum studies to cultivate constructive dialogue
> with the people who are fervently for animal rights but haven't been
> educated well enough about the environment or science.

On the other hand, very few biologists and other scientists have been
"educated well enough", as you put it, about ethical and philosophical
issues.  Indeed, scientists are usually so wrapped up in thinking about
what they CAN do that they don't bother to ask whether they SHOULD do it.
A good example is the story I read recently about a researcher planning to
artificially inseminate captive elephants with frozen wooly mammoth sperm
in an attempt to "bring the mammoth back from extinction" (sic) (and sick,
IMHO).

> I mention the importance of this to museum studies because in one local
> example, an animal-rights group (PETA) mounted a substantial publicity
> campaign to stop a bird- and mammal-collecting expedition (to Siberia, of
> all things, where a lot of birds and mammals end up in stews).

The above line of reasoning is a case in point:  The usual fate of birds
and mammals in Siberia is quite irrelevant - the question is not "Will I
be doing anything worse than anyone else", it is "Will I be doing anything
immoral or unjustifiable?"  (As an aside, apartheid apologists in 1980's
South Africa used to say: "But Blacks in South Africa have work and food,
unlike the rest of Africa, so it's no big deal that they cannot vote!")

I certainly don't think the question of the ethics of collecting should be
glibly dismissed by patting ourselves on the back and saying "we're okay".
It's a complex question with a complex, situation-specific answer.  Us
biologists need to familiarize ourselves with philosophical issues as much
as PETA-fanatics need education on some biological issues.

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Andrew Mitchell
Department of Entomology           E-MAIL: moths at phelix.umd.edu
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742-5575
U.S.A.
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