As you may remember from our Judgemental episode we interviewed Dr. Julia Minson at the Wharton School about her research on “Do Gooder Derogation” – the phenomenon of people thinking worse of those who are behaving morally or prosocially (PDF of the Minson and Monin paper). Listen to my full extended interview with her (she laughs endearingly like Marge Simpson doesn’t she?): (23min) (download or play MP3 24MB) (other formats) Some of you might be questioning the whole premise saying to yourself “hey, do people really think that vegetarians are doing good?”. But that is what Julia found. Even though people tend to rate themselves as better than others, and (Dr Minson found) more moral than others, even meat-eaters rated vegetarians as more moral than average (i.e. other) meat-eaters.… more
Mazzy is our LOLcat. “Can I be in podcatz? Pleez?”. more
In our Cheese show we considered the suggestion from tPhysicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) President Neal Barnard that dairy cheese is addictive.
I looked into the references from Dr Barnard’s book that PCRM was kind enough to send. But the analysis I offered in the show made a case that the idea that cheese is addictive is at best overstated and at worst wrong. more
Last month we created a lab meat survey to take the temperature of both veg*ns and nonvegetarians about attitudes towards in vitro meat and to what extent animal harm played a role in resistance to eating it. To summarize, we asked people about their food choices (whether they were meat eaters, vegetarians, vegans etc.) and then we asked if they would eat lab meat, why or why not, and if they would eat lab meat if it caused no more animal death than eating plant food and why or why not. more
Just so nobody accuses me of bias I’m going to begin with an example of anthropomorphism that is pretty benign, and could help people identify sympathetically with insects.… more
One of the main ways that animal interests are misunderstood is through anthropomorphism. In order to explore this I’m going to publish an occasional blog with examples of anthropomorphism from the media and, usually, a comment from an animal behavior or other expert about the motivations of the nonhuman animals portrayed. But, what exactly is anthropomorphism?… more
A future with cheap lab meat could be drastically different – for humans and animals. How would it work? And is the development of this technology good for animals?
Ian talks to Nicholas Genovese, a PETA-funded scientist working on the stem cells that could make up what he calls cultured meat. Diana asks two vegans, transhuman philosopher David Pearce and activist Jordi Casamitjana, why they are for or against in vitro meat; and reveals the results of her survey. Will vegans and meat eaters ever be able to get beyond the “ick” factor of cultured meat? more
We are very excited to have been nominated for the VegfestUK Awards 2012 in the “Best Media Publications and Websites” category. As the stars say, it’s an honor just to be nominated but VOTE VOTE VOTE for us before May 25th. Unless you’ve been living in a cave like Al-Ma’arri you will no doubt know the media has been abuzz about in vitro meat (aka lab meat, shmeat) and the possibility of an incredibly expensive burger as soon as next fall. Our next episode deals with the issues involved but also hopes to shed some new light on the subject. Take the survey (which takes just a minute) and The survey has finished but stay tuned to find out the results.
Last Sunday and next Sunday, I’m appearing on “The Big Questions”, a BBC TV show where the audience discuss the big ethical issues of the day. In this case, whether we should all repent now it’s 2012 (of great interest to Jordan Wyatt), and if there is any evidence for God.… more
In our podcast about the vegan pledge we talked about reasons that people did or didn’t decide to remain vegan after the vegan pledge including the tricky issue of biased respondent samples. The followup questionnaire was given after a month of the vegan pledge and people who fell off the vegan wagon were unlikely to make it to that meeting. In this blog I’m going to talk about how reasons that people cite for going vegan might influence whether they are choose to continue after the pledge and the paradoxical effect of unsupportive friends and relatives.… more