Don't Back Down

On my daily stroll through the electronic world, I found my way to an interesting article about making use of Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs) at Amazon, which would potentially allow you to read an entire book online. Interesting concept, to be sure, though certainly something to add to the "not quite legal" category. Not to mention that you'd have to be able to determine an SIP for each page - not an easy task, with a book you've never read.

In any case, it is a neat idea. But I found more interest in the link there to populicio.us, a service that lists the most recent and most popular links on del.icio.us. I've talked before about how I don't really care for del.icio.us. This one little page (which has an RSS feed) just changed that.

Now I get a list of the new sites in the last 24 hours, delievered straight to Bloglines. They also provide a similar list for the last 48 hours, a list for the most popular of all sites (not just new) in the last 24 hours and a list of the all-time most popular. But the "new site" feed is the one that I like the most.

It's like a microcosm of the daily news, and provides a few more links than Daypop's Top 40 (with surprisingly little overlap, so I use both). Sweet.

Strangely enough, we seem to often lump the three together - namely that what is legal is moral and correct and what is correct is legal and moral. But that may not always be the case.

For instance, take a look at this story about a teacher dissecting a live dog. Is it legal? I would assume so, since the teacher hasn't been arrested - and since it was done "clinically", it probably doesn't have the malice that I think is necessary for animal cruelty. The animal was also apparently sedated.

So is it moral? We are told in Genesis that we are to rule over the earth and all creatures in it. That seems clear enough. If we rule over something, we can pretty much do what we want.

Which brings us to correctness. Is such an action correct? That's another question entirely. First, let's say that the dog is a family pet picked up on the way to school. I think most would agree that this isn't correct. Next, let's look at the process in terms of scientific research. I think most would still agree, though obviously there are those who don't like animal testing.

Finally, let's look at this particular example. A dog, apparently slated for eutahanization anyway, is sedated and dissected while still alive. That alone might still slip under my radar. But when you consider that the reason for the dissection is to show a class of high school students a working digestive system? That steps over the line.

I love animals - and specifically I love dogs. And I can see some examples where an argument might be made for such an incident, but to do it in front of a class of high school students? I'm not old enough that I've forgotten high school, and any teaching benefit will be vastly overridden by the sheer "yuck factor" of cutting up a live dog and the possibility of class clown opportunities - making jokes, lifting a stomach, whatever.

Though the principal says that "students are learning", I'd be interested to see some hard facts that support the argument that students learn from this lesson in particular. I suspect that most could do equally as well - and perhaps some even better - by looking at a non-living digestive system.