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DanielLC comments on An argument that animals don't really suffer - Less Wrong Discussion
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I notice both of the objections to this mention that they don't like the implications (animal "cruelty" is okay) as if it's part of their counter-argument. That's hardly relevant. You might as well argue that animals don't feel pain because that would imply there's no omnipotent, omnibenevolent, god.
Also, they talk about other animals having pre-frontal cortex. This would mean that the argument is more specific than it states, but would still imply that many animals do not feel pain.
Animal cruelty could be a case where our evolved intuitions mislead us: we feel as if animals are suffering and empathize with them (even though they aren't) because they are visibly in pain. In fact, I assume that most people would feel some mild aversion to animal "cruelty" even if they knew with certainty that the animals in question lack sensory awareness, because our evolved intuitions cannot be overridden without some effort.
There's a lot of cultural variation there-- the animal fights in the Roman coliseum, bull-fighting,, and bear-baiting are all examples of culturally supported use of animal suffering as part of entertainment.
Plus the infamous cat-burning in Paris.
Cat's? They burned cats? Why on earth would they bother burning cats? It's witches, wood or nothing!
This is why cruelty to animals is useful as an indicator of sociopathy in humans.
I wonder if torturing Sims is also correlated with sociopathy?
They may be too few players who don't to test.
My housemate's favourite sim pastime was creating a house for the cast of Buffy and Angel... complete with a graveyard to patrol. Swimming pools without ladders are dangerous apparently.
Yes, they're more "this is bogus science and I am disgusted by his conclusions from the bad science" than they are robust philosophical argumentation. As I note above, this is philosophically tainted and not the strongest refutation to give to those who might be convinced by Craig's argumentation; I assume they're assuming their readers are familar with Craig and his habit of starting with the bottom line.
The trouble with the question "does a given animal feel pain?" is the particular usage being applied of the words "feel" and "pain".