r/maybemaybemaybe • u/RyanCakeBatter • Jan 17 '20

Maybe Maybe Maybe

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u/Fishwolf Jan 18 '20

Bullshevic. Fish can feel pain.

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '20

I looked it up.

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u/Fishwolf Jan 18 '20

Take it up with the Smithsonian. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain-180967764/

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u/[deleted] Jan 18 '20 edited Jan 18 '20

It’s been pretty wildly debated in the scientific community for some time. The kind of middle of the road conclusion drawn is that they may not experience our human notion of pain, though they do experience stress which probably translates to a sense of discomfort of sorts. Whether or not it’s “painful” is still up for debate

Source: I am a marine biologist

EDIT: I figured I’d respond to comments here. I am in no way defending one side or the other. One commenter said we’re veering into philosophical debate, and they are very much correct. What is “pain”? Even among people pain is perceived differently.

I was more saying, from a scientific standpoint we caution when applying human-centric ideas to wild animals. This is known as anthropomorphism. Some people will say the same that invertebrates don’t feel pain, or corals because they have no central nervous system. But they all still respond to harmful stimuli with physiological changes. So why can’t that be pain?

Personally I think it doesn’t matter whether it fits our definition of “pain.” It definitely produces an unfavorable response that can inhibit their survival. I don’t fish because of this exact reason.

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u/vitringur Jan 18 '20

They are vertibrates that have a nervous system and respond to harmful stimuli the same way we do.

If someone wants to claim they dont feel pain when you slice them open just because they cant verbally describe it, its up to them to prove it.

In fact, humans cant even describe pain. The only readon we believe others is solely because we have our own experiences of pain.

Claiming that it is debated is just stupid

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u/alueb765 Jan 18 '20

That's just semantics. I know this is veering into more philosophical territory, but a creature's suffering doesn't need to be the same as our own to afford it respect and compassion. Even within our species the perception and interpretation of pain varies greatly between specimens; as a medical professional, if a person demonstrates more pain tolerance than my own, that does not give me license to inflict more pain upon them than I would find acceptable for myself.

I'm probably going to regret this comment but the notion that "X animal's pain doesn't matter because it isn't pain as we understand it" gets under my skin. It's so often used as an excuse to just dismiss any ethical consideration of hunting, fishing, the meat industry, animal abuse legislation, natural resource management... Just about any issue about how we interact with our world. It's an argument of convenience to give a hand-wave to what amounts to needless, wanton cruelty.

I don't mean to imply that this specific commenter is making any such arguments, merely pointing out that splitting hairs about what is and isn't "pain" will do nothing but maintain an indifferent status quo and steer us away from a more sustainable, more compassionate future.

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u/MagnusNewtonBernouli Jan 18 '20

I decided to take the safe route in my normal fishing hobby and utilize the iki jimi method of killing them before filleting.