Doctor Rat

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Did I laugh my head off at the point where he had his commentaries about human musicians pulling a David Attenborough on the whales while they waxed rhapsodic about how smart they were? Yes!

The pleasure Dome rises spherical and transparent, a magnificent bubble of contentment. Surely I’ll be able to enlist some allies, for here is where the most fortunate of rats dwell. They don’t want to see their happy life disrupted by a revolution!” (130) While Dr. Rat is not written with the grace and finesse of the similarly – themed Plague Dogs, and it starts faltering toward the middle when it becomes too grand in scope, it remains an important contribution to animal rights and anti-vivisection literature. Few people, even professed animal lovers, wish to consider vivisection, and legislation and cultural changes have succeeded in keeping the vast majority of it hidden entirely from public view.All of this is to say, Doctor Rat derives its power from not only the brutality of what unfolds but also the careful integration of both the historical and the imaginary. The resulting world substrate, with its moments of pseudo-knowledge and references of devastation caused by mankind, causes the reader increasingly wonder what is possible, what is happening, and what has already happened. The only real bright light in this comical but dark book was a tangential story about a music conductor who manages to briefly communicate with whales. The bit about the whalesong in return was absolutely beautiful and ultimately tragic. One of the most important books you’ll ever read.”—Steven D. Levitt, New York Timesbestselling author of Freakonomics Doctor Rat is able to perceive that the images of rebellion stretch beyond the walls of the lab encouraging other dogs to join in—“Great Naked Mole Rats! This is terrible! The dogs are rebelling outside the laboratory too!” (37). The rebellion, facilitated by a broadcasted orchestral concert for whales, snares the entire animal kingdom. Doctor Rat will do anything to stop them! Breath won the award for Best General Nonfiction Book of 2020 by the American Society of Journalists and Authors [13] and was a finalist for the Royal Society Science Book Prize of 2021. [14]

But when we get to a full revolution (remember, this book came out in 1977) of the animals versus the humans, with Doctor in his finest, most horrific mode, this book becomes a full world-war as tragic, scary, and bats**t insane as any of the best war documentaries. It's bloody, full of truly terrible biological warfare, and when whole battalions of elephants get... hey! Well... no spoilers... it's... brilliant. Disgusting. And amazing. But a vague question lingered in my mind. Our rats consumed much more morphine when they were isolated. This fact definitely undermined the supposed proof that certain drugs irresistibly cause addiction. But what does cause addiction? Why is there currently a flood of addiction to drugs and many other habits and pursuits? People do not have to be put into cages to become addicted – but is there a sense in which people who become addicted actually feel “caged”? This is a short and informative book for those involved in their own recovery and those who support them as they do so. It contains fascinating and useful tips to supplement standard medical resources available to patients (the absolute therapeutic importance of nature, achieving moments of grace, pets and why bathrobes are generally more useful than towels). For all of us managing our way through complicated lives that have yet to deliver the harvests we were expecting, Francis offers hope and a rare and precious form of quiet consolation.One of the worst aspects of closing of Rat Park was that it left us with unresolved questions. A new graduate student in our lab had tried to replicate one of our original experiments but did not get statistically significant results. Non-replication is not a fatal problem in laboratory research, but it requires follow up studies to determine why it happens. Many factors can determine the outcomes of experiments and not all ofthem can be controlled. Did the non-replication occur because the researcher had to use a new substrain of rats, or because the modified, presumably improved, apparatus that measured drug and water consumption in Rat Park didnot work as well as the original machinery, or simply because the Rat Park effect was not as robust as we originally thought? We never were able to work out the mystery, because Rat Park was closed down for good. However, we remain confident in our original experiments, partly because we had repeated them several times in different ways, partly because they were replicated with different apparatuses by researchers at other universities, and partly because more recent research with different methods has shown other fatal deficiencies in the original Skinner box research which once appeared to show that all rats and people who use addictive drugs become addicted. It stumbles, however, in much of its personification of the animals as the author often tries to have it both ways--making animals too much like humans in his attempt to show we are all animals (or all one energy/soul, as the animals seem to believe) or trying to distance them from humans through their vocabularies and observations while still ascribing too many human characteristics or actions to animals that one would not realistically expect of them. This is easy to overlook, though, as the novel reads more like cautionary parable than doomsday prophecy.

In the early 1970s DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) got wind of a Soviet project in parapsychological submarine communication. Gruesome details unfold: the Soviet scientists suspected there was “a psychic link between mothers [in this case rabbits] and their offspring.” If say, someone on the surface were to kill the rabbit baby then the submarine, with the mother on board, would know to surface and launch their nuclear weapons. Of course the entire idea is utter hogwash and the DARPA investigations of various parapsychological claims resulted in nothing (see note 1). There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat 25,000 times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences. In Breath, journalist James Nestor travels the world to discover the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.In May, 2022, I had the honor of being the keynote speaker at the University of Texas at Austin Human Dimensions of Organizations undergraduate commencement ceremony. Here are my remarks.

We ran several experiments comparing the drug consumption of rats in Rat Park with rats in solitary confinement in regular laboratory cages. In virtually every experiment, the rats in solitary confinement consumed more drug solution, by every measure we could devise. And not just a little more. A lot more. In both cases, the colonizers or the experimenters who provide the drug explain the drug consumption in the isolated environment by saying that the drug is irresistible to the people or the rats. But in both cases, the drug only becomes irresistible when the opportunity for normal social existence is destroyed. The book itself alternates between the point of view of the eponymous Dr. Rat, a lab rat driven insane by what the Learned Professor has put him through and who has come to identify with his torturers, and the points of view of animals who are participating in a worldwide revolt of the animals. All the animals gather at points around the world and are annihilated by humans in an orgy of bloodshed. All of them except for Dr. Rat (who is, of course, for all intents and purposes human). a b Miller, Stuart (May 21, 2020). " "Yes, changing how you breathe will help you live longer" ". The Boston Globe . Retrieved February 15, 2021. Outlivea well-founded strategic and tactical approach to extending lifespan while also improving our physical, cognitive, and emotional health.FROM THE GUARDIAN: "A very disturbing book...the Anti-Vivisection Society should consider distributing free copies." On the best way to rethink life and what to focus on, Dr Attia revealed: “You can't overstate the importance of exercise. I think a lot of people maybe will tend to say, ‘Well, what's more important, you know, cardio training or strength training?’ The truth of it is both of the big things that we have at our disposal to kind of live the longest, best life, exercise probably plays a more important role than anything else. It's not entirely enjoyable; there were boring inanities, there were cringe-worthy episodes and there were also moments of absolute beauty.