• Question: i disected a fish once in science club, it was sort of fun but isnt it cruel to cut things up ? if it had been anything else i would have refused can you help with this cause we are doing a disection unit soon

    Asked by kirstysargeant to Emma, Jen, Joseph, Michael, Mona on 22 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Jen Gupta

      Jen Gupta answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      This is a difficult one to answer. When I was in school I refused to do any dissection because I didn’t like the idea of it. Now that I’m older I can see the need to sometimes dissect animals and fish and things because it’s the only way that we can really know and understand what’s inside them. I still don’t know if I would do it though.

      I guess the issues are things like if the animal/fish was killed so it could be dissected or whether it died naturally. If it was killed then this needs to be done in a way that means that it suffers as little as possible. I think dissection is one of those things that really sticks in your mind when you do it at school which is good because you’re more likely to learn and remember what you’ve learnt than if you just watched your teacher do it or watched a video. You can probably tell that I don’t really have a good answer to this! What do you think?

    • Photo: Emma Bennett

      Emma Bennett answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      The way I see it is that if people are happy to cut up animals/fish up for food then why not for educational purposes? If you are a vegetarian then this argument won’t work but in my experience the best way to learn is by actually getting to seeing how things work and what they look like. The fact that you found it sort of fun is great because it probably means that you were interested in what was going on. I always enjoyed dissections as it made what was in the textbooks far more understandable and as long as the fish didn’t suffer when it was killed then this does not seem cruel.

    • Photo: Michael Taggart

      Michael Taggart answered on 22 Jun 2011:

      Good for you to think carefully about this, it’s not something to take lightly.
      There are maybe a few things to think about.
      (1) If we have to develop drugs that can improve the health of patients with disabling diseases then there are few alternatives to using anmals at the moment I’m afraid. Sometimes we can use humans, or pieces of donated human organs, but there will never be enough subjects ot donated biopsies. If we all signed up to aggreeing to participate in clinical trials of drugs not previously tested on animals or to have a surgical operation to donate a piece of tissue for science then maybe we could do without animals or at least use less of them. But that won’t happen. Computer models help of course but the information you get out from a computer model is only as strong as the individual bits of information going in. Put rubbish in and you’ll get rubbish out. So, they help but are not the answer. Growing cells in a dish also helps but those cells very often behave in ways that are different from how they behave in a tissue or organ in the body. For example, this is especially true for the types of cells that I study – smooth muscle cells – who change their phenotype (see another question on phenotype) when placed in a lab culture dish. So, I’m afraid, if we wish new drugs then we have to consider animal experiments.
      (2) If we are to train scientists for the future, give examples of how science works (e.g. how does one prepare samples appropriately and record observations) and how to think as a scientist, then practical skills of dissection are necessary. They enable students to appreciate in reality what organs, tissues or cells look like and how they are connected, it teaches important surgical skills and appreciation of scale – tissues are macroscopic but the cells that make up tissues are microscopic – and it places in a ‘real’ context many teachings that are otherwise rather abstract. The ‘I wonder what it’s like…?’ type of question that curious students might have about an organ or tissue is likely to be answered and never forgotten if seen in real life as opposed to commented on in a book or video. Of course, these real dissection classes can be informed by dvd presentations.
      (3) Absolutely NO experiments on other organisms should be performed in your class unless they are prepared according to very strict guidelines. The legislation on animal experimentation in the UK is the toughest set of regulations anywhere. Every process is very carefully regulated by Home Office legislation called the Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act, 1986.
      You might be interested in a DVD that the The Physiological Society has produced, which schools can order or you can view online, that aims to explain why they believe that animal experiments in science are necessary:
      http://www.physoc.org/site/cms/contentviewarticle.asp?article=991

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