At WATR-lab, we follow a collaboratively-established set of values that guide our research and our conduct in the lab.
Below, we outline our core lab values.
Values
Science can be objective without being objectifying.
What does this mean? It means that data-driven, rigorous, independent research can be conducted honoring the preferences, agency, and subjectivity of individual animal participants.
Do no harm.
Our research will not harm animals, physically or conceptually. Scholarship embraces language and imagery that shows their personhood and dignity, to portray them as animate, agentic subjects, not objects.
Research must benefit the individuals under study.
The work must go beyond benefiting animals in the aggregate and add value to the lives of the individual animal research subjects. For instance, a cognitive study that shows the capacities of fish and illustrates that they are “smart” should also be interesting for the particular fish involved in the research. We do not design research that we expect would come at the expense of unavoidable, unpleasant scenarios for the particular individual fish involved in the study.
It is necessary to be active in counteracting speciesism and human exceptionalism.
Speciesism and human exceptionalism describe the ideology that humans are inherently superior to non-human animals. These deep-seeded perspectives are used to justify abuse, violence, and exploitation of animals and can hinder our ability to weigh evidence and think clearly through the issues at stake.
In opposition to speciesism, we recognize the inherent value in individual animals and respect them as independent agents who may consent (or not) to be co-creators in the knowledge we strive to generate. We are vigilant to signs that consent is not given or has been withdrawn and endeavor to be guided by the dignity, wisdom, and teachings of our shared world and its inhabitants.