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Sociable Aliens

Christine Nicol explores the meaty problem of eating aliens. How would you decide? Jake the Spaceman crashes on a remote planet and has to eat the locals, but how does he choose?

In this 4 part series Christine Nicol, professor of Animal Welfare at the University of Bristol, explores the fascinating and challenging subject of animal sentience and welfare. To help delve into the nuances we set up an intriguing scenario...
Jake the Spaceman (aka comedian Jake Yapp) has crash-landed on a remote planet and doesn't have much food to keep him going until he is rescued. Fortunately, the planet is teeming with alien life forms that are edible, but which ones should he eat? He wants to cause the minimum amount of pain and distress to the creatures, so what does he need to know about the nature of the beings on the planet? Can they feel pain? If so, how can he minimise suffering? Will eating an alien cause distress to others? Is the alien so aware and sensitive to its environment that Jake needs to consider whether it is a non-human person?
Christine will interview animal welfare scientists, philosophers and wildlife biologists to get under the skin of animal sentience and the potential consequences of accepting that animals are conscious, aware creatures.
These big questions generate surprising and challenging insights into our attitudes to other life. When you know absolutely nothing about the alien in front of you, what do you need to know before eating it?

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28 minutes

Last on

Wed 23 Dec 2015 21:00
大象传媒 Radio 4

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Emotional Aliens

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Alien Persons

See all episodes from Would You Eat an Alien?

Dr Liesbeth Bolhuis

Dr Liesbeth Bolhuis
Dr Liesbeth Bolhuis is an Assistant Professor in Animal Sciences at Wageningen University in Gelderland in the Netherlands.聽She leads a research team investigating聽Behavioural Physiology research. The team's main聽focus is to study the .

Many welfare and health problems in farm animals arise from a mismatch between the animals adaptive capacity and the conditions they are exposed to. We investigate how genetic background, early life experiences and characteristics of the environment influence behavioural and physiological processes that reflect or affect animal welfare, health and productivity.

Professor Nickie Charles

Professor Nickie Charles
Nickie Charles is Professor of Women鈥檚 and Gender Studies in the Sociology Department at the University of Warwick where she teaches courses on Human-Animal relations. She has worked with the 聽to explore human-animal relations and has a particular interest in how it is that animals come to be regarded as family members.

She is also beginning to explore the effects of introducing PAT dogs into universities so that students are able to interact with them. Among her most recent books are 听补苍诲 听补苍诲聽, which she co-edited with Bob Carter.

She has set up an inter-disciplinary research network at the University of Warwick, .

Professor Timothy Clutton-Brock

Professor Timothy Clutton-Brock
Professor Timothy Clutton-Brock is a zoologist best known for his comparative studies of the behavioural ecology of mammals. Whilst his early work focused on social behaviour in primates, he later concentrated on three long-term studies of animals in the wild: red deer on the Scottish island of R霉m; Soay sheep on St Kilda, also in Scotland; and meerkats in the southern Kalahari of Africa.

His remarkable revealed how differences in the mortality and feeding behaviour of the sexes are linked to the highly polygamous mating system of these animals. Through this work, he greatly improved our understanding of how sexual and parental behaviours evolve and are related to the ecological conditions in which animals live.

In 1997, he was awarded the of the Zoological Society of London, and in 1998 he received the .

Professor Phyllis Lee

Professor Phyllis Lee
Profesor Phyllis Lee was educated at Stanford University in California and moved to the UK after a spell working with聽聽in the mid 1970s. She completed her PhD in animal behaviour at Cambridge in 1981 with the eminent ethologists,聽听补苍诲聽, and returned to Kenya in 1982 to study the聽聽- work which continues to this day.

Previously a Reader in Behavioural Biology and Conservation at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Downing College, she is now Professor and Head of Psychology in the聽听补苍诲 a core member of the聽.

Professor Mike Mendl

Professor Mike Mendl
Mike Mendl, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the University of Bristol, is a leading animal welfare researcher and has studied a wide range of species including companion, farm and laboratory animals. He is a pioneer in the study of 鈥榗ognitive bias鈥�, investigating the links between cognition, consciousness and emotion in animals. His applied work, for example on factors affecting aggression and tail-biting in pigs, has also yielded knowledge of practical benefit to improving welfare.

His exceptional achievements in the advancement of animal welfare over many years聽were when he was awarded the聽 for outstanding contributions to animal welfare science in 2014, and the 2015 .

Professor Peter Singer

Professor Peter Singer
Peter Singer is often described as the world鈥檚 most influential living philosopher. In 2005, Time magazine named him聽, and in 2013 he was third in the聽.

He is known especially for his work on the ethics of our treatment of animals, for his controversial critique of the sanctity of life ethics in bioethics, and for his writing on the obligations of the affluent to aid those living in extreme poverty.聽He first became well-known internationally after the publication of聽. In 2011, Time included Animal Liberation on its 鈥淎ll-TIME鈥� list of the 100 best non-fiction books published in English since the magazine began, in 1923.

Picture:聽Denise Applewhite - Princeton University

Professor Roger Scruton

Professor Roger Scruton
is a philosopher, public commentator and author of over 40 books. He has specialised in aesthetics with particular attention to music and architecture.

He engages in contemporary political and cultural debates from the standpoint of a conservative thinker and is well known as a powerful polemicist. He is a fellow of the and a fellow of the .

Professor Dan Weary

Professor Dan Weary
Professor Dan Weary works with students and colleagues in the at the University of British Columbia using behavioural and other non-invasive measures to objectively assess various aspects of animal well-being. One focus of recent work is the dairy cow, and welfare issues important in this species.
His work currently focusses on the development of objective methods of assessing animal well-being. This includes more basic research on how vocal and other behaviors can provide us with information about an animal鈥檚 physical and emotional state, as well as how these measures can be applied to find better ways of handling animals

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  • Wed 23 Dec 2015 21:00
    大象传媒 Radio 4

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