Factory farming is not sustainable – eventually we will not be able to engineer our way around the truth.

That doesn’t fix anything. It makes it worse, and numbing an animal’s sense of pain is just a means of numbing our sense of guilt.

It’s a topical band-aid solution that does not address the root of the problem, is what it is.

Ironic how the intent of this solution is to make us feel better.

I’d say that ‘genetically engineering animals not to feel pain’ is a lousy attempt to cover up for what it seems to really be – cruelty to animals. I could be wrong but that’s my opinion on the matter.

Actually, the article says much worse than that:

”Prof. Zhou-Feng Chen and his colleagues here at Washington University have engineered mice so that they lack the gene for a peptide associated with the anterior cingulate gyrus…these mice are normally sensitive to heat and mechanical pain, but they do not avoid situations where they experience such pain.”

They are not being genetically engineered to not feel pain. They are being genetically engineered to not fight back to the pain they feel.

I think “reprehensible” is too mild of a word.

Now all we need is some soma so everyone is happy; we can distribute drugs to the poor so they no longer care about their poverty. We wouldn’t actually want to address the underlying problem, would we?

@VohuManah I can easily see the government doing something like that.

It took an autistic person to realize that when stunning is done correctly, the animal feels no pain and it becomes instantly unconscious. That person is Dr. Temple Grandin

In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed for meat plants. Curved chute and race systems she has designed for cattle are used worldwide and her writings on the flight zone and other principles of grazing animal behavior have helped many people to reduce stress on thier animals during handling.

She has also developed an objective scoring system for assessing handling of cattle and pigs at meat plants. This scoring system is being used by many large corporations to improve animal welfare. Other areas of research are: cattle temperament, environmental enrichment for pigs, reducing dark cutters and bruises, bull fertility, training procedures, and effective stunning methods for cattle and pigs at meat plants.

personally, i’m in favor of pork chop plants. i would like to grow one in my window.
i would also like a steak vine growing up the side of my house.

why wouldn’t i want this?

@ninjacolin Perhaps because you eating habits are one of the leading causes in the worlds climate changes, that are causing all sorts of problems. Your beloved steaks will not be there forever the way we use unsustainable methods in food production.

No.

that’s why genetically engineering pork chops so that i can water them in my window would resolve that issue.

Maybe someday, we can have our cake and eat it too, whatever that means…We no longer enslave animals for food purposes

You know what would be awesome? Genetically engineering HUMANS to feel less pain. Now I can see a usefulness to that.

Making them not to feel pain is highly unethical. They might hurt themselves without realizing it. Pain is a beneficial phenomenon. Try eating something after a visit to your dentist. Hours later you might realize that some part of your tongue is gone. Enjoyed your meal?

That is a really stupid idea! People who are born with dulled or no sense of pain die young because they really hurt themselves and keep on going because they can’t feel anything. I can’t imagine that factory farm animals would fair much better.

Pain is your body’s way of saying “STOP!”