PHYSICIANS' STATEMENTS ON DISSECTION AND THE USE OF ALTERNATIVE METHODS IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

"The fact that dissection can and does turn off some talented youngsters from a career in the biological sciences is indisputable." F. Barbara Orlans, Ph.D., physiologist

"The suggestion that a surgeon is somehow better because he or she was trained in animals in medical or in undergraduate biology, or physiology, or anatomy, let alone by dissection of frogs in high school, is totally unfounded." Donald E. Doyle, M.D., surgeon

"From the perspective of a physician involved in clinical practice, education and research, I have come to the conclusion that killing and dissecting animals is not only unnecessary, but also counterproductive in the training of physicians and scientists." David O. Wiebers, M.D., neurologist

"Biological science curricula in which dissection of animals is required selects and has selected a population of students which regard animals as disposable tools. This is probably why many biologists, biology educators, and health care professionals do not even think of considering using methods of teaching and research in which animals are not harmed." Gloria J. Binkowski, V.M.D., veterinarian

"…it is inconsistent and improper to require a sincere student to perform dissections when, to that student, doing so violates her principles based on reverence for all life." Donald Emmeluth, D.Ed., former president of the National Association of Biology Teachers

"Casually slicing up animals in junior high and high school fosters callousness, and it certainly doesn’t stimulate curiosity. If anything, it turns some bright students off to scientific research." Charles Hsu, Ph.D.

"No valid education system should seek, by coercion, conformity, or tradition, to blunt students’ sensitivity and force them to engage in activities that are contrary to their beliefs." Michael W. Fox, D.Sc., Ph.D., B. Vet.Med., ethiologist

"I passed geography without leaving my home state, and geology without seeing planets collide. It’s insulting to argue that students can’t understand anatomy unless they stick scissors into a frog’s brain." Mary Pacheco, student

"To educate our people, and especially our children, to humane attitudes and actions toward living things is to preserve and strengthen our national heritage and the moral values we champion in the world. Together we will save the environment of together we will perish in its flames." John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 35th President of the United States (1961-1963)