Friday 23 August 2013

If Rats Could Talk...

Scientists are liable to claim that all animal experiments they conduct are vital for medical research.

How then do they explain the recent news stories about their efforts to disprove life after death by killing rats?

And why would they choose experimental 'models' which they cannot even agree possess a 'consciousness' to vivisect for parapsychological experiments?

How can any creature which is seemingly without a consciousness be any help to medical science whatsoever in this field?

Furthermore why does medical science seek to disprove theories of the afterlife in the first place? To depress humans who like to hope there is something better than this cynical self-seeking world afterwards, to reward them for their long-suffering in putting up with this cynical self-seeking world for a lifetime?

In the event, all these experiments actually proved was that brain activity increases immediately prior to death, which they believe may give rise to 'hallucinations' of the genre reported by humans who have had near-death experiences of travelling at speed through long white tunnels, feelings of overwhelming love and their deceased loved ones waiting to greet them (the most typical type of NDE which has previously been shown to be common to all cultures irrespective of faith or belief systems, age or gender, medication or no medication). Though why they couldn't wire up a willing dying human volunteer to find this out and even ask some useful questions of, I do not understand. There are also many thousands of pre-existing accounts of not just near-death experiences but human beings who were resuscitated or say they 'chose' to come back after up to twenty minutes clinically dead.

I look forward to the rat seance where we get to hear the sequel of this research.

Some metaphysical medical experiments impress me. Such as the one where a Christian group prayed nightly for everyone in one hospital wing but not another hospital wing for a month. So great were the recovery results in the first wing, that they were forced to revise their conscience and start praying for all patients, thus ending the experiment.

Another interesting test was a hospital where terminally-ill patients agreed to be weighed shortly before death and immediately afterwards to establish how much a soul might weigh. 21 grams apparently.

But then they didn't weigh a scientist...

3 comments:

Steve said...

The mind boggles. Life exterminated to prove the unprovable. I guess science and religion have a lot in common.

Marginalia said...

I'm sceptical about much of the "scientific research" we hear about in the media. I suspect much of this material is the result of students and their tutors desperately trying to find some new, obscure field of research to secure that doctorate.

How wonder how much exhaled air from the lungs weighs?

The Poet Laura-eate said...

Steve, there is no doubt that to most scientists, science is a religion substitute though this doesn't stop them having theories and then trying to skew the research towards outcomes that fit their theories.

Good point about lung exhalation Marginalia. Apparently the body often evacuates as a reflex to death which might also come into the equation. I am sure you are also right that tutors and students are always in search of a project to put them on the map too. Just wish this didn't involve innocent animals.