The historian Ramachandra Guha tells why J. B. S. Haldane believed that animals have rights:
Haldane had long been conscious of the unnecessary suffering imposed in the course of modern scientific research. Like his father, he had never done an experiment on an animal that he could not do on himself. In a lecture of 1928, "Science and Ethics", he argued that a belief in the theory of evolution implied a belief in the rights of animals. As biologists, he said then, "our clear duty to animals is to spare them obvious physical suffering. As we learn about their psychology we shall know better. It is quite possibly as cruel to keep a pet rat in a light and airy cage as to lock a dog in the cellar all day." (Quoted from The Times Literary Supplement, June 16, 2006)
For a brief biography of J. B. S. Haldane, click here.
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