We usually use macaques for this (I haven't read the paper). Is there a review paper comparing both creatures? If they are really better, I should look into procuring some. Macaques are quite expensive in north America.
Or read the open access, no ad, and what appears to be upstream source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01789-0 that covers the Macaque question along with the completely omitted loss of function topic, video, pictures, and other details.
I think there is some generally universal moral that goes something like this: the larger and more intelligent an animal is, the more wrong we feel it is to hurt that animal. Given a choice between a lab rat or a chimpanzee, would you choose the rat over the chimp in the trolley problem? For people to feel OK with medical experiments, they want the risk to be in line with the intrinsic value they place on that life. Maybe lemurs are closer to the high risk category for most people, and they're better at predicting what will happen in the larger primate studies.
I don’t agree with condemning the research because it involves animals, but you don’t even need to assume they’ll be involved in experiments. That’s what this article is about right?
> I don’t agree with condemning the research because it involves animals
If so, then you logically also must agree with this (which equates): "I don’t agree with condemning the research because it involves myself," else please compelling explain the difference between yourself and any other animal you like, but also describe how one can ignore or shed the moral horror that is animal research, that only first includes violent interference with the natural right of all alive... to live unmolested, has endless torture in the middle, and ends in unnatural and premature death. Just how does one adopt sweeping callous attitudes, devoid of empathy, towards another living creature?
> but you don’t even need to assume they’ll be involved in experiments. That’s what this article is about right?
...and then be so blindly, comically optimistic? Or sarcasm, duh.
FWIW, if only you were being used for animal research, I would still be against it, though only on moral grounds.
> Like all lemurs, mouse lemurs live only in Madagascar, and some species are critically endangered. But the common mouse lemurs are so abundant that they can be studied easily in the wild
> Mouse lemurs are among the most abundant primates on Earth
What I found of note is the article's reinforcing contradictions, like there's an underlying notion of abundant uniqueness. Truffula trees.
> If so, then you logically also must agree with this (which equates): "I don’t agree with condemning the research because it involves myself"
It certainly does not equate. I think the point you're getting at is that it is wrong to experiment on animals. I personally don't agree, as I think there's a large gradient within experiments, ranging from "making the animals really suffer", to harmlessly "measuring the size of the animal each day". I'm not being especially brave when I say that I don't advocate for making animals suffer needlessly. Nobody wants that. But the reason for the concept of "model organisms" is that it would often be unethical to perform those same experiments on humans, so we need a proxy.
The choices seem to be (and honestly, please correct me if I'm missing an option here. I can be pretty dull on occasion.):
1. Don't perform the experiments
2. Use a human
3. Use a proxy
I personally would not choose 1 or 2 (depending on the experiment of course). The best proxy right now seems to be other living organisms. I'd rather that wasn't the case, but well... it is.
And for what it's worth, I wouldn't advocate for people experimenting on you either. I adore animals (especially mammals!), but I just empathize with humans much more.
There's quite a lot of non-cute ones in the mix. I don't think many people find fruit flies or zebra fish very cute, but perhaps "cuteness" isn't a concept that makes sense outside mammals.
