The long term threat to science

Props to Nick Anthis and PZ for addressing the animal rights vs animal welfare issue in science.

In particular this statement from PZ, “Once we’ve defeated the creationists (hah!), we’re going to have to manage the next problem: well-meaning but ill-informed animal rights activists.”

That sounds about right. If things in the United States follow the trends in Europe and Britain, the long-term and far more dangerous threat to biological science will be animal rights extremism. There is good discussion in both of these articles so check them out.