Well, friends, completely disregard my previous blog post! Animal consciousness/pain/emotion is not, in fact, a workable topic. Excessive writing about philosophy would be involved, so it's a good thing I'm dropping this topic because for one thing, it's very difficult to write a research paper about philosophy, and second, philosophy can get really boring. My intent was to focus on scientific research and base my arguments off of that, but I did not realize what I was getting myself into. So, I'm back to hunting for topics.

Part of the reason I wanted to do a "weird" topic like animal consciousness was because I wanted to avoid writing a general paper about animal testing, especially since more than half the class is writing about something related to that topic. I am almost positive that animal testing will be a major component of the topic I choose—what better topic for making an argument involving animals and technology? There are solid arguments on both sides, plenty of existing research available, and I can make clear arguments based off of hard facts. However, I will try to narrow my studies to a specific field within animal testing.

I haven't done any real research in this yet (I've only just discarded my old topic), so I can't say what the research process will be like. If I find an abundance of articles in a narrow field of animal testing—say, cosmetics testing, or drug testing—then perhaps I could narrow my topic there. Otherwise, I should attempt to make a conclusion with more depth than "therefore, animal testing is okay!" or "it's bad!" I will make a more qualified argument, such as "Animal testing can be acceptable, provided that..." or perhaps a conclusion from a different perspective, such as "This organization is not doing enough to stop the cruelty going on in..."

I know I should have a definite topic by now, but I want to discuss my ideas on Tuesday before I make anything official (again). I'll be doing plenty of preliminary research this week, so stay tuned.

Well friends, I have a topic! "Animal consciousness" is my topic in broad terms, but I will mainly discuss it within the context of animal rights, ethics, and animal testing. I'll present scientific evidence and make an argument—not a concrete decision about whether animals do indeed experience emotion (I'm no scientist), but an argument for how animals should be treated, based on today's knowledge of animal cognition.

How did I come across this topic, you may ask? Wikipedia! It is such a wonderful website. The lead paragraph of the "animal consciousness" article alone supplied me with a lot of scientific, historical, and philosophical knowledge. In addition to the main "animal consciousness" page, there are also full articles on emotion in animals, pain in animals, and the "mirror test" (a supposed test for animal self-awareness), among many others.

Yes, I know that Wikipedia isn't a scholarly source, or even a wholly reliable one. But these Wikipedia articles give me loads of introductory information from which to build off, as well as references and links to more reliable sources. From what I can tell so far, I don't think I'll have much trouble providing basic scientific evidence. But presenting an argument? That remains to be seen. I'll keep y'all posted.

Hello all! I'm Will, and this is the first blog post of many which will deal with the relationship between animals and human technology. First thing's first—I need to decide what, specifically, I'll be researching. An obvious choice would be to research and argue for or against animal testing. If I find enough info about a specialized field of animal testing, I may focus on that.

However, there are plenty of other topics related to both animals and technology—not all of them as controversial as animal testing. The domestication of animals for agricultural use, keeping animals as pets, training them to assist humans in detective work or as a guide dog, the study of animal kinematics for scientific use—the list goes on and on.

I did read a few interesting articles on CNN a couple weeks ago about how there is a campaign to rid New York City of horse-drawn carriage rides, with some declaring it animal abuse. There seemed to be a decent amount of coverage on the subject, but is it enough for a research paper? That remains to be seen.

The most important thing for me is that I pick a topic that's interesting to research. I need to be in this class, and I need to write this long paper and these regular blog posts, so I might as well make it fun somehow. I expect to have a concrete topic down within a few days—stay posted.