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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Matthew Leach
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).
Key (2016) affirms that we do not know how the fish brain processes pain but denies — because fish lack a human-like cortex — that fish can feel pain. He affirms that birds, like fish, have a singly-laminated cortex and that the structure of the bird brain is quite different from that of the human brain, yet he does not deny that birds can feel pain. In this commentary we describe how Key cites studies that substantiate mammalian pain but discounts the same kind of data as evidence of fish pain. We suggest that Key's interpretations are illogical, do not reflect the published empirical evidence for pain in fish, and are out of touch with current thinking on brain evolution. We agree that more scientific data are needed to understand how the brains of fish — and other organisms — function. But the incompleteness of current knowledge certainly does not constitute evidence for inferring that fish in particular do not feel pain.
Author(s): Sneddon LU, Leach MC
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Animal Sentience
Year: 2016
Volume: 1
Issue: 3
Pages: 1-4
Online publication date: 13/12/2015
Acceptance date: 02/12/2015
Date deposited: 29/11/2017
ISSN (electronic): 2377-7478
Publisher: The Humane Society Institute for Society and Policy (HSISP)
URL: http://animalstudiesrepository.org/animsent/vol1/iss3/28/
