Twenty years ago, when Rick Bogle was teaching middle-school math and science in rural Oregon state, a parent objected to his longstanding rule against killing “the small creatures who happened into my classroom,” including insects. The parent insisted on her daughter’s right to kill at will.
That set off a year-long community-wide controversy, and got Bogle thinking more about how human beings treat animals. It was a journey that led him to cofound the Primate Freedom Project, a national group devoted to ending primate research.
In 2003, Bogle moved to Madison, where he has been a prominent animal rights activist. For several years, he and his wife, Lynn Pauly, served as co-executive directors of the Madison-based Alliance for Animals. Now Bogle has written a 600-page tome on animal research at the UW-Madison, titled We All Operate in the Same Way.
The self-published book came out in April; Bogle says it took him three years to write. The title is taken from a comment by a UW research official; it means to convey that the grounds for concern Bogle finds at the UW occur elsewhere.
“This book is about the various ways humans interact with animals in the name of science, that cause other animals harm,” Bogle writes in the introduction. His goal is to get readers to invest “some personal effort to correct these grave wrongs.”
Having made his biases known, Bogle goes on to present a mostly scholarly investigation of UW research and its attendant controversies. He argues that the scientific benefits of animal research, including the work of UW primate researcher Harry Harlow, have been wildly overstated.
Yes, this is a work of unabashed advocacy. But because Bogle does such a deep dive into his topic (including 80 pages of footnotes), his book should have value to readers who have not yet made up their minds about these issues. As one “psychologist who grew up on Harlow” posted on Amazon.com, “Not an easy read, as the topic itself is oppressive and frustrating, but he puts it all in one easy-to-reach place. And truth is always worth reaching for.”
