Well... in fairness, there are animal experiments that are needless, and it's good and proper to protest those. And, there are some that are done for the sake of reducing liability, which are only needful because no one has bothered to come up with a fair way of making them unnecessary. I'm glad that there are people who protest such things, because if no one cares enough to push back, nothing will ever change.

(Note that I didn't say anything about *PETA* - just people who protest animal experimentation in general. And, yes, I note that you didn't say anything about "people who protest animal experimentation in general" :-). )

Indeed, I believe that people (in which category I am vaguely inclined to include both chimpanzees and PETA members) have the right to protest any damn thing they please, and, as you observe, there are a lot of animal experiments done for reasons other than real need -- as nellorat further observes, often under unnecessary cruel conditions. Such experiments deserve to be protested and stopped. But let's not throw away the proverbial baby with the bathwater: some experiments have saved many lives.

Unfortunately, some of my well-intentioned students believe outright lies PETA spreads, including that computer simulations make all animal experiment superfluous.

But I do agree with you! One freshman-comp student of mine, ages ago, wrote a really good research paper proposing the benefits of an international database of all experiments to eliminate the cost to animals of needless duplication. I'd guess this is much better now with the Internet, but I gather it's still an issue.

Do you know of any more moderate groups than PETA? I do acknowledge the good PETA has done just making people think about the issue, but I want to support more practical, moderate plans.