Philosophical Vegan Forum

ThunderKiss65 wrote:My reasoning for not eating bivalves is the fact that eating undercooked or raw shellfish increases the risk of spreading the viral infection, hep a. Young children, elders and immune compromised individuals are at a higher risk of contracting hep a. An updated Hep a vaccination is a must for any one consuming shellfish. Regardless of pain felt by said bivalves, the risk of contracting and spreading hep a does not out weigh the benefit of eating shellfish. Scientists put oysters in diseased estuaries and then test the oysters periodically to determine the health / disease of the estuary. Oysters are bottom feeders that literally eat bacteria and other harmful organisms in the water. So not only do you run the risk of getting hep a(a viral disease that you can spread to healthy individuals), you also run the risk of eating more heavy metals and bacteria or another harmful organism.



http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/ar ... 8609001926

https://www.foodsafety.gov/poisoning/ca ... epatitisa/

This, and the fact that it is grose.

Jebus wrote: This, and the fact that it is grose.

Indeed it is!

Bivalves are more than likely sentient.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:Bivalves are more than likely sentient.

All of them, or the motile ones? There's a big difference.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:Bivalves are more than likely sentient.

I too find one sentence claims without any source highly persuasive.

Excuse my sass, but it would be useful for the discussion if you'd explain why you think this is the case rather than just stating it.

I'm asserting that most bivalves likely possess some degree of sentience.

Study wrote:These experiments suggest that sensory mechanism of the oyster may be sufficient to detect the close proximity of carnivorous gastropods. The mechanism of sensory stimulation has not been adequately studied and is not fully understood. Its biological significance is, however, apparent. The warning received by the tentacles is transmitted through the circumpallial nerve of the mantle to the ganglia. If stimulation is sufficiently intense either a part or the entire mantle is withdrawn, the entrance to the gills is closed, and the ensuing contraction of the adductor firmly closes the shell.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/publications/classics/galtsoff1964/chap13.pdf&gws_rd=cr&ei=3NvUV_69BYzI0gT_ibmIDw

Since it's currently unclear whether these creatures are sentient or not, yet they do show signs being sentient, I don't think it's wise to advocate for the consumption of these creatures on the basis of "they probably aren't sentient". If vegans choose to eat the bivalves which exhibit the least signs of sentience, no worries. But I don't think it is something which we should be promoting alongside the general vegan narrative.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:I'm asserting that most bivalves likely possess some degree of sentience.

Many plants curl up or close when touched too, cause and effect reactions aren't adequate in order to establish sentience. It doesn't imply any understanding of the stimuli or actual cognition.

In order to demonstrate sentience, we have to demonstrate some form of true learning not just sensitization: If you know any computer programming, sensitization is like setting a variable that has already been created and defined, whereas true learning is more like the program reprogramming itself on the fly, there's experimentation of this using adaptive neural networks, but it's very primitive.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:Since it's currently unclear whether these creatures are sentient or not, yet they do show signs being sentient, I don't think it's wise to advocate for the consumption of these creatures on the basis of "they probably aren't sentient".

The problem is that people say the same thing about plants. Non-motile, no brain, very crude cause and effect responses, sensitization, no sign of true learning or cognition.

In evolutionary terms, if a thing does not need intelligence, and there's no evidence of it using intelligence, then it's probably not intelligent/sentient.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:If vegans choose to eat the bivalves which exhibit the least signs of sentience, no worries. But I don't think it is something which we should be promoting alongside the general vegan narrative.

Why not?

It helps dispel the notion that veganism is some kind of mindless dogma. Plants: good, meat: bad.
I don't think it will encourage vegans to eat oysters (there's no reason to believe they're healthy, and we can mention this), but it might help people take veganism more seriously, and for those people who for some weird reason believe a little animal product is important it gives them a better option.

Infants can not be vaccinated for hep A until one year of age, who cares about the sentience of these animals when a consumer eats SHELFISH that are RAW under cooked or from polluted water the run the very high risk of contracting HEP A! Also don't forget the immuno compromised and the elderly. Keep bivalves in the ocean so they can help clean our polluted waters.

ThinkAboutThis wrote:Bivalves are more than likely sentient.

I note the lack of evidence to support this statement.

Every evidence we have to date has failed to point towards bivalves being sentient.

ThunderKiss65 wrote:Infants can not be vaccinated for hep A until one year of age, who cares about the sentience of these animals when a consumer eats SHELFISH that are RAW under cooked or from polluted water the run the very high risk of contracting HEP A! Also don't forget the immuno compromised and the elderly. Keep bivalves in the ocean so they can help clean our polluted waters.

Then don't feed them to unvaccinated folks. Problem solved.