There are different opinions and an ongoing discussion about the experimentation on animals. Some people think it should be banned because it is harmful for animals, while others underline its importance for scientific research.
In this essay, I will state my point of view on the topic, and I will try to investigate the existing alternatives which could possibly substitute this practice.
I think experimentation on animals can be justified because the positive sides of it far outweigh the negative ones. Firstly, it is well known that a significant part of scientific experimentation is conducted for medical purposes. Every year, research moves human knowledge forward, uplifting the quality of life and life expectancy. By comparing our health with the conditions of our ancestors from just one hundred years ago, the gap is incredible. Going further into the past, we can realize how far we have moved and how many amazing discoveries we have made in the medical field. All this would have been impossible without experimentation. It is also a fact that without experiments on living beings, drugs would be incredibly dangerous and not suitable for the market.
At the moment, trials on humans are most of the time too dangerous, and they could not, of course, represent a valid alternative. However, the growing field of artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as AI, could represent a game-changing milestone in medicine and scientific research in general. Recent articles show how AI can be trained with basically every available material, and in this way, it could be able to predict the reaction of different organisms to a various range of substances, creating a digital playground in which scientists could simulate the most diverse kind of effects.
In conclusion, despite the fact that nowadays experimentation on animals seems to be the only option to meet society’s scientific and medical needs, there is hope that studies could move in the future, thanks to AI, from laboratories to digital environments, securing products’ safety and animals’ health
