I disagree. I haven't eaten meat in 5+ years, and in that time, I've had to think about my reasons every day. I stopped consuming animal products at 19. I couldn't justify murder and torture anymore. I think animal testing is outrageous. Study after study after study has shown that animal testing is no longer needed in labs, but many companies continue to do it anyway because that's the way they've always done it. Ian, you made an interesting contradiction when you said "the only way we will further our own species is to treat ourselves with superiority to the animals we share the planet with". The fact is, it's not up to us to further our own species, that's a ludicrous idea. That's best left up to nature, and everytime we go to far, nature puts us in check. We share a planet with these animals, and the key word here is share, some of them have been here longer than we have. What I'm saying is, we don't need meat, animal we don't need animal testing. We do these things out of selfishness and greed. This system that we've adopted though, isn't going to be sustainable for much longer. Between, mad cow disease and avian flu, I think nature's about to put us in check again.