Animal Testing is a major ethical issue. Opponents of animal testing argue that it is inhumane and inaccurate to use animals for tests. They also suggest using alternatives for animals. Supporters of animal testing argue that medical research is dependent on animals, and alternatives are not as viable.
According to an article in The Parliament Magazine written by Emily McIvor, a policy director for Humane Society International’s (HSI) research and toxicology department, the US food and drug administration estimates that nine out of ten drugs that appeared to work in animals fail in humans. This is a high failure rate: 90% .
Kara Rogers, Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology, and Britannica’s life science editor, wrote a report on the dangers and inaccuracy of animal testing in Britannica’s “Advocacy for Animals”. She writes, “The conditions under which laboratory animals are kept can influence and alter experimental results”. This is not good in science. In science, you want everything to be a constant but one variable, in this case, the drug. Having more than one variable, the animal’s living conditions, makes the trial results less accurate.
Colin Blakemore, professor of neuroscience at Oxford and Warwick Universities, and former head of the Medical Research Council, wrote in an article in The Telegraph about animal testing. He writes that we have practically the same genes as rats and mice, so we are very closely related. He says that their bodies respond to illnesses and treatments much like ours. This is in stark contrast with McIvor’s article, which claimed that animal testing is highly inaccurate.
He also writes about our need for animal testing. “A nimal research has contributed to 70 per cent of Nobel prizes for physiology or medicine. Without it, we would – medically speaking – be stuck in the Dark Ages.” This shows our dependence on animal testing to give us new medicines. According to this article, medicines such as antibiotics, insulin, and HIV treatment, were all developed with testing on animals.
Another proponent of animal testing is Steven Rose, the author of award winning book, “The Making of Memory”. His book is about human brain function and memory, where he used chicks for tests. In an excerpt, he defends his use of animals in test. He writes about how animal rights activist say that animals are very much like humans, and should have rights, but also say that animals are too different from humans for animal testing to reliably predict what a drug will do in humans. This statement contradicts itself. Where is the line between similarities and differences?
What if we could stop this debate by using something other than living things altogether? We now have access to many alternatives to animal testing.
According to Rogers and McIvor, we can use synthesized human cells and organs, computational models and algorithms, and vitro, which are cell cultures in a test tube, testing. According to their articles, these alternatives are more accurate than animals. Why don’t we use these instead of animals if they are better?
To answer this question, Colin Blakemore says, “Magnetic Resonance Imaging [MRI] , computer models and work on isolated tissues and cell cultures can be useful; but they cannot provide the answers that animal research can.” Things like Rose’s research on the brain cannot be emulated on any of the alternatives proposed above; he needs to use a brain, and a brain needs a living thing to work.
According to Blakemore, when alternatives are viable, they are always used instead of animals because it is required by law. But medical scientists still have to use animals depending on their field. If we can’t (yet) stop animal testing, should we abstain from using some animals? As Steven Rose writes, “How far are those rights to be extended…to ‘animals’? Cats and dogs, mice and monkeys, slugs and lice, wasps and mosquitoes are all animals… Does an ant have as many rights as a gorilla?”
Duties and Responsibilities
Aerospace Engineers: coordinate the designing, manufacturing, and testing of aircraft and space vehicles, assess project proposals for their feasibility and safety, evaluate designs for their ability to meet industry standards, customer requirements, government laws, and (what my interviewee mainly did) inspect damaged products to identify problems and possible solutions. Aerospace Engineers work on Space flight (Spacecraft, Rockets, Satellites), Sub-space flight (Airplanes, Helicopters, Missiles), and Aerodynamics (Design of External Vehicle Surfaces).
Working Environment
Since Aerospace engineers are employed primarily in analysis and design, manufacturing, and research and development, they are usually not out in the field, unless to test in the field. Aerospace Engineers usually work in offices most of th time, therefore, running simulations on computers or designing things on computers. They can also work with wind tunnels, but again, most of that work is through computers. Since Aerospace Engineering is a high-tech field, Aerospace Companies usually operate in urban or suburban areas, not rural ones.
Options for Specialization
This career has many options for specialization. Two different degree paths that can be taken are Astronautical Engineering, which focuses solely on space flight and Aeronautical Engineering, which focuses solely on sub-space flight. Within these fields however, Aerospace Engineers can choose to work on Aerodynamics, which is the design of external surfaces, Materials Selection, which is choosing appropriate materials, Propulsion Systems Design and Innovation (with propulsion systems such as Rockets, Turbines, Ion Engines etc.), and Guidance Systems, which my interviewee worked mainly on.
Demand
The projected job growth for Aerospace Engineering is a decrease by 2% from 2014 to 2024, which means the job market will go from 72,500 to 70900 in the United States in the next 10 years. This means that it is going to be harder to get a job in the Aerospace Sector in the next decade. As this is a job that requires a lot of very specific and specialized technology, as the number of errors that can be made while making aerospace components is very low (a small problems radically increases at very high speeds), and the specialized technology and required materials are not available in a rural setting, and thus must take place in developed, urban areas.
Salary
The median starting salary is $70,000 per year, according to Payscale. The mid-career median salary is $108,000 per year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Education
UC Davis is a local public school that offers a degree in the field of Aerospace, but schools around the country from MIT to Georgia Tech include degrees in Aerospace Science. In comparing MIT and UC Davis, one is substantially cheaper than the other, while MIT has a higher ROI on their degrees. However, both are great schools with strong Aerospace programs. However, UC Davis is in California and is blessed with Californian weather, while students at MIT have to deal with horrible East Coast weather. Furthermore, workloads at MIT in this field greatly exceed workloads at UC Davis, as MIT has a much more rigorous course load, with a much higher weekly course load–around 50 hours. A Bachelor’s degree is required, but going for higher level degrees is recommended.
My first essay (9th grade) is an informative piece discussing the ethics of animal testing. The second essay (12th grade) is a job description about Aerospace Engineering.
Both essays do well in being appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. The first is supposed to be a news article, and is thus unbiased and written at a relatively low reading level. The second essay provides an unbiased breakdown of a career in Aerospace Engineering so the audience can quickly familiarize themselves with the career, and decide on their own whether this field of study interests them.
However, while the second essay does a good job of simply providing the facts, my ninth grade essay seemed to ask more questions than it answers, with three paragraphs-including the last one-concluding with a question. This muddles the content of the essay somewhat, and makes the essay less clear.
So although my essays show mastery in correctly addressing the purpose and audience, I have grown in my ability to, for informative pieces, keep it strictly informative.