Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-15-2009
Abstract
It is one of the central aims of the philosophy of science to elucidate the meanings of scientific terms and also to think critically about their application. The focus of this essay is the scientific term predict and whether there is credible evidence that animal models, especially in toxicology and pathophysiology, can be used to predict human outcomes. Whether animals can be used to predict human response to drugs and other chemicals is apparently a contentious issue. However, when one empirically analyzes animal models using scientific tools they fall far short of being able to predict human responses. This is not surprising considering what we have learned from fields such evolutionary and developmental biology, gene regulation and expression, epigenetics, complexity theory, and comparative genomics.
Recommended Citation
Shanks, N., Greek, R. & Greek, J. Are animal models predictive for humans?. Philos Ethics Humanit Med 4, 2 (2009) doi:10.1186/1747-5341-4-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1747-5341-4-2
Included in
Animal Experimentation and Research Commons, Animal Studies Commons, Design of Experiments and Sample Surveys Commons
Comments
© 2009 Shanks et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.